Re: Re: POLITICS How to fight corporate power

[Guest guest]

On 1/5/08, <oz4caster@...> wrote:

> this all sounds good, but if we eliminated corporations,

> without some kind of restrictions on individual power, wouldn't we

> just end up with new robber baron monopolies, just like in the 1800's?

Corporations don't necessarily have to be eliminated. Individual

states can apply whatever standards they wish to chartering them and

revoking those charters. The important thing is that the court system

regard them as property rather than persons, so that only the people

who own them have rights, and so that those people have full legal

responsibility for the effects of their property.

The 1880s was the preicse time of the ascendancy of the modern

corporation. Between 1819 and 1886 were the major court decisions

propping up the corporation and eventually granting it personhood

under the 14th amendment (interetingly, this was also the amendment

used to dismantle legal segregation in the 20th century):

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.htm\

l

The 1800s was not all robber baron monopolies; not all monopolies were

bad; and not all robber barons resulted from the free market.

In the 1800s, most people in New England, for example, were property

owners. The only people who were truly poor were people who were

mentally or physically disabled, and every single poor person was

cared for. 90% of taxes went to the town government, and the other

10% to state and federal government, and the former were used to take

care of the few poor people there were; systems varied from town to

town so their efficacy, practicality and humaneness could be compared

and contrasted. Poverty was not swept under the rug and cared for by

a faceless bureaucracy, so people faced up to the issue and took

collective responsibility for it.

Some monpolies were good -- Rockefeller for instance. The oil market

was chaotic and extremely violent, just like the market for putting

out fires (different fire companies would physically fight over the

right to put out the same fire). The latter was solved by municipal

fire department monopolies; the former was solved by Rockefeller's

private monopoly. He grew up poor but worked his butt off as a child

and saved his money. Eventually his oil business became a monopoly

because he developed a more efficient process and sold higher quality

oil for lower prices. His ascendance to economic power drove out the

chaos from the oil market and the violence went with it. Before

Standard Oil was broken up using anti-trust laws, its share of the

market declined dramatically. I don't remember the exact figures, but

he did not have anything resembling a monopoly by the time he was

broken up -- thus demonstrating that it is very difficult if not

impossible for a true monopoly to survive without government

establishment of it.

Some of them were created by government. For example the railroads

were built with public funds, but the profits were privatized. The

government viewed it in the public interest to intervene in the market

and loan them the tax money. The courts viewed it in the public

interest to trample on the private property rights of the farmers

whose land was polluted, and therefore refused to enforce those

rights. The solution to this type of robber baron scenario is to end

corporate/business welfare and for the courts to enforce people's

rights.

(Of course both here and in the case of corporate personhood, we have

little recourse to make sure the courts take the right road, which is

why historically they've taken the wrong one; so this would require, I

suppose, either vigilant appointment of judges of the right ideology,

whcih seems very unreliable, or constitutional amendment.)

Chris

[Guest guest]

People argue that the federal government has to be strong to protect

us from corporations because competition between states causes a " race

to the bottom " for wage and working standards to keep the capital in

the state.

I'm not so sure about this, since many states like mine have, for

example, a much higher minimum wage than the federal one, and we have

plenty of capital here.

In any case, the real reason corporations are more powerful than

states is because federal courts gave them that power with corporate

personhood. See this timeline:

http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/personhood_timeline.pdf

In 1877, Munn v. Illinois, the Supreme Court argued that the 14th

ammendment =- granting due process and equal protection under the law,

meant to secure the rights of freed blacks in the wake of the civil

war -- could NOT be used to protect corporations from state laws.

In 1886, however, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the

SC said a corporation was a " natural person. " This ruling was cited

later on to strike down hundreds of local, state, and federal laws

restricting corporations.

In 1889, Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad, vs. Beckwith, the SC ruled

that the 14th amendment offers due process and equal protection under

the law to coporations as persons.

In 1893, Noble v. Union River Logging, the SC ruled for the first time

that under the 5th amendment corporations could not be deprived of

" life liberty or property without due process of law. " Three years

later they ruled that state-sponsored segregation did NOT violate the

14th amendment rights of blacks.

From 1905, Lochner v. New York through 1930s, the courts invalidated

200 economic regulations, usually invoking the 14th amendment.

Subsequent decisions gave corporations search and seizure rights,

trial by jury rights.

We need fresh debate on exactly what the legal status of a corporation

should be rather than the limited debate we currently have if we want

to get to the bottom of this issue.

Chris

[Guest guest]

I believe it was in this context that there was some movement (I lost the info

when I changed computers) that advocated the 'right' of a corporation to run as

a candidate for the Presidency!

Now that is a scary concept.

--bboing

Masterjohn <chrismasterjohn@...> wrote:

In 1886, however, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the

SC said a corporation was a " natural person. " This ruling was cited

later on to strike down hundreds of local, state, and federal laws

restricting corporations.

Chris