Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Rating:
Summary: More accurate than I wish.
Review: Well, I'm forced to admit it. When I found that the book was written by a psychotherapist, I feared it would be loaded with psychobabble and self-righteousness. Fortunately, I found neither.

After I'd been dismissed from a job essentially for corporate disloyalty--after spending months pleading for ways to increase my performance--my interest in this volume increased substantially.

The text starts with the REAL reason for the Boston Tea Party. It wasn't as much a political maneuver, to quell British oppression, as it was a commercial maneuver. It seems the East India Company had a monopoly. The colonists had had it with that monopoly and revolted. (Ironically, I think it was the same corporation the literally owned India until 1947 when the Indians too revolted!)

The main premise of the book is that corporations gained too much power when, in 1886, Chief Justice Morrison Remick, a former railroad (corporate) attorney as were most of the Supreme Court justices of his day, chose on his own to attribute the rights inherent to humans, as defined by the constitution's fourteenth amendment, to corporations. Indeed, the author feels that such an interpretation may very well have been done--misinterpreted--by the clerk of courts who may have been under the influence of another justice, yet another railroad attorney. However, it seems, correct interpretation or not, since subsequent courts have interpreted it that way, the decision stands. Interestingly, even before the 19th century was over, there were judges challenging how many times corporations had used it to protect their rights, as opposed, say to the individual humans whose protection was to be ensured by the amendment.

I like the structure of the book. It had its chronological elements, which made it easy to follow. From the Boston Teaparty, the text moved historically to various economic developments and other court decisions. Then it proceeded to the Waite "decision," then to modern day economics. And I agree with most of what Hartmann said. For instance, few of us without our heads conveniently buried can deny the rebirth of a feudalism, in which we serfs are subject to treatment we hoped had ended with abolition of slavery. The "rights" that a corporation has in surveillance and dismissal of employees are uncanny.

One of the bottom lines is that big business clearly dominates our whole culture. And that has its consequences. For instance, since the media are big business, what we hear is pretty exclusive the big business position on anything, including itself. So cultural mythology includes the premise that it takes a nearly genius acumen to run a business, even though the one for which I recently worked couldn't even compete in the "market." The corporation had enough money to operate incompetently for a long period, while dismissing the serfs who weren?t buying company doctrine. That exemplifies the "trust" portion of the text. There actually were anti-trust regulations, the best known being the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. But they've been watered down over the years to the point that they're essentially powerless and the trusts are gaining ground by the day. In the meantime, smaller businesses can't hope to survive, no matter how well the are run. Indeed, Hartmann does a superb job of demonstrating that by examining what happens in his neighborhood. What happens, he asks, if he goes to some local businesses, with the money he's spending? Sure, it ends up in a local bank, and is then, in effect, reinvested in the community. If, however, he were to go to a some of the megacorporations--say Walmart, for the sake of the discussion--the money goes to a major bank out of the area. And local store owners can't compete with the larger vendors and go under. So little if any money stays in the community.

Anyway, Hartmann eventually leads into what we can do to solve the problems with corporations getting too large and stealing our rights, again, a logical concluding part of the book.

Again, I agree with almost everything Hartmann says. And my own experience--and that of countless others, whether they admit it or not--offer clear examples of the truth of the text. And that's not even counting those who've tried to run a business but were driven out of town by the big corporations who offer at best minimum wages to employees. (I think of a friend of mine who works for a national chain. Their profits are already ten times (!) what they were a year ago, but the chain has cut the hours of the few employees who were full time, thereby reducing the costs they incur for the meager "benefits package" they need not even offer the part timers.) My only challenge is that I HOPE the author has over-simplified the issue to a degree. I think the personhood of the corporations may be at the root of the problem, but I think it?s actually a more complicated issue than he makes it. If not, why have more people not done more to curb the corporations? I think because it is pretty difficult an issue. Frankly, Mr. Hartmann, I hate to say that because it appears as if I'm all but defeated already.

Despite that, I will follow Hartmann's advice and work with state legislators and the like to curb corporate dominance. Hartmann offers model ordinances and constitutional amendments specific to each state, and that's a major step to change--a major task he provided for each of us without having to do that work ourselves. But overall I think it may only be a beginning.

Don't allow that to discourage you. There's a lot to learn from the book, and some you might, like me, learn the hard way. Get started by reading it, and following the steps Hartmann suggests.

Rating:
Summary: A Clear Manifesto
Review: What if a corporation was polluting, but when a government agency wanted to check on the violation, the corporation claimed itself to be a person and that all persons have rights of privacy and freedom from governmental snooping? What if a community wanted to support local businesses and charged a chain store a larger licensing fee, and the chain store claimed it was a person who must not be discriminated against? What if when limits were set on campaign contributions by a corporation, the corporation said that it was a person and as a person it had freedom of expression (and thereby donation)? These are not "what ifs." Corporations are regarded as people, but _Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights_ (Rodale) by Thom Hartmann shows that this is literally a legal fiction, and one based on a serious misinterpretation of the law. In addition, he demonstrates that the interpretation of corporate personhood has had ill effects for citizens, the nation, and the world.

Corporations originally had very restricted rights; Jefferson, for instance, worried about monopolies taking over the government. When corporations (starting with the railroads) became powerful in the Industrial Revolution, they were eager to be granted human rights. They especially desired to take advantage of the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been passed to grant full constitutional protection to emancipated slaves. In a curious Supreme Court case in 1886, there was a commentary written to say that a railroad was a corporate person. This "headnote" was not law and not precedent, but in true irony, the amendment to protect former slaves has been hijacked to promote corporate personhood. It used to be taken for granted that communities could regulate corporations, but now that they are persons, they are able to dodge many such regulations.

Hartmann is not a lawyer, but his research and consultation with lawyers have made his book clear and convincing. His book lists many assaults on good government, the environment, and human rights overseas that corporations have been able to sustain because they have been able to insist upon their own rights as humans. A sustained legal attack on the fraud of corporate personhood is what Hartmann would like to see, for the purpose of decreasing corporate influence in politics and restoring the power of community and state government. He proposes a grass roots movement to achieve this, and makes the results sound well-reasoned and attractive. He knows the powers which corporations have, and what he is up against, but his book is a manifesto for change. If you have been concerned that corporations have too much power, you will find it invaluable.

Rating:
Summary: A Call for Grassroots Action
Review: When many of us tackled the subject of Corporations as law students we were left with a feeling of helpless bewilderment as well as a rancid taste over corporate status as a fictitious person. This legal fiction was compounded into soaring advantages for corporate status which rankled those of us concerned about fairness in the overall legal picture.

Thom Hartmann's groundbreaking work "Unequal Protection" explains how corporations came to achieve their hugely advantageous currently status in a society where President George W. Bush is referred to as "America's CEO." Hartmann begins his study with the American Revolution and its roots as a tax revolt against the inequality rendered against the native population by England. Much of this injustice was manifested by the international British monopoly, the East India Company, which destroyed indigenous competition within America in the important tea making industry. Usurious tax rates were levied on American companies, while the East India Company prevailed. Two forces emerged in the American economic picture after freedom was achieved, that of the pro-competition, corporate-limiting element led by Thomas Jefferson and the Federalist, corporate protectionists spearheaded by John Adams.

While the corporate side was thwarted by the popular grassroots movement of Andrew Jackson, who ended the monopolistic United States Bank, the monopolists struck back in the era of the Robber Barons of the nineteenth century. A little known decision with strong future implications was handed down in the landmark 1886 U.S. Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Union Pacific Railroad. While never a part of the court's holding, the concept of the corporation as a person was insidiously worked into the headnotes of the opinion. From that point the concept was treated as revered doctrine by corporate lawyers seeking advantage.

The fundamental irony arising from the Santa Clara County case was that the Fourteenth Amendment of equal protection, presented to provide former slaves with freedom under the Constitution, was perversely twisted to provide corporate America with advantages over the common citizenry. Time and again courts would rule against the interests of taxpayers while providing corporations with huge advantages. We are currently seeing the results of such inequities as the gap being the richest and poorest elements of society widens, with the middle class squeezed in between.

Hartmann calls for effective grass roots action, encouraging citizens to begin at the local level to evoke a needed change in corporate status. Ordinance changes will hopefully snowball a ripple effect whereby a constitutional amendment will be adopted ending the destructive controversy once and for all and eliminating the advantages achieved by corporations masquerading as persons. The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was written and intended for the protection of citizens, not expansive corporations wielding gigantic economic claws.

Rating:
Summary: A Return to Meaning
Review: When reading "Unequal Protection" one gains such an immense, and inspiring, insite into the founding of our country, and thus also into where we are today as a nation, as a people, and more importantly as a planet. A recomended read for anyone with passion in their heart for change, or for a world where people may once again truley LIVE, and not be kept from the sun by a dark lifeless cave of greed.

Rating:
Summary: History of forms of corporations (with remedies)
Review: With the very questionable Enron financial meltdown looming in many persons' pocketbooks, this is a timely book.

In the opening of the book, Mr Hartmann quotes Eric Schlosser "the last century's battles against oppressive governments will be replaced this century's battles against oppressive corporations". Being from the town hall state of New Hampshire, Mr Hartmann refreshingly addresses the problem in the most local ways. He gives practical examples of townships and states addressing their loss of citizen rights to those recent laws so beneficial to the international corporations (NAFTA, GATT, etc).

His many offered solutions are compromises, generally undoing the apparent mammouth error of law interpretation when in 1886 a court reporter's unofficial case title stated that corporations are persons (upgrading them from their original status of artificial entities).

One insight by Hartmann about our boxed thinking about corporations: to this day, law enforcement agencies only report crime statistics about humans -- never about corporations. Additionally, he ask if a president supports a death penalty for humans, shouldn't he support the same for corporations. Even more, his analogy of a corporation being granted a revokable drivers license by the state is a good one.

This book is a wonderful and mostly American history lesson (and part mystery) written in easy-to-read style of what I thought would be a daunting subject. Who would ever guess that the corporate form goes back to the time of Caesar?