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<html><img src="http://deoxy.org/img/gangs-of-america.jpg" align="right" hspace="15" vspace="15"></html> |
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[[[ ++I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied \ |
corporations which dare already to challenge our government \ |
to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our \ |
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'''I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.'''--~~Abraham Lincoln, 1864~~ |
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What is a corporation? Where did corporations come from? How |
did this particular institution develop? As citizens of a country that |
prides itself on its economic system, we Americans know a lot less |
about the institutions that make up that economy than about the institutions |
that make up our government. And increasingly, that ignorance is |
proving costly, as we realize the extent to which those “economic” institutions |
actually are our government. |
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in the hands of the various state legislatures and placed an emphasis |
on restrictions and accountability measures, rather than on privileges. |
State constitutions and statutes reinforced the restrictive stance toward |
corporations. |
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Under this system, charters tended to be granted sparingly, in keeping |
with the widespread belief that the potential for corporations to accumulate |
power rendered them inherently dangerous to democracy. |
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the Civil War, the railroads seemed to have little trouble manipulating |
Congress to do their bidding. Bribery by railroad lobbyists was rampant |
among Senators and Congressmen. For example, between 1875 and |
1885 the Central Pacific spent $500,000 yearly on graft; in a single |
year, the <nowiki>LaCrosse</nowiki> and Milwaukee Railroad spent $872,000 for influence, |
including $50,000 for a governor, $10,000 for a state controller, |
$125,000 for thirteen legislators, etc. Among the fruits of these expenditures |
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It was at the state level that the railroad barons needed help from a |
Supreme Court willing to throw thunderbolts from Washington invalidating |
state legislation on constitutionality grounds. |
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Justice Harlan playing an enigmatic |
role. In May, 1886, he writes an opinion that uses a technical argument |
to decide the Santa Clara case, declining to use the "personhood" rationale. |
In November of the same year, we see him citing Santa Clara as |
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Revision of New Jersey’s corporate |
statutes in 1888 and 1889 immediately made that state the venue of |
choice for corporations wishing to escape more restrictive regulation in |
other states. By 1901, 71 percent of all United States corporations with |
assets of $25 million or greater were using New Jersey as their home |
base. According to corporate lawyer Charles Bostwick, “so many |
Trusts and big corporations were paying tribute to the State of New Jersey |
that the authorities had become greatly perplexed as to what should |
be done with surplus revenue....” |
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Other states had two choices: either attempt to compete with New |
Jersey in a “race to the bottom,” or watch locally chartered corporations |
move their legal home to New Jersey. In 1899, Delaware followed New |
Jersey, and when Governor Woodrow Wilson tightened the New Jersey |
law in 1913, Delaware pulled ahead as the corporate venue of choice, a |
position it retains to this day. A half-dozen other states followed New |
Jersey and Delaware to relax their corporate statutes. Observing the |
wreckage to state authority over corporations, journalist Lincoln |
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corporations to hold stock in other corporations, New Jersey’s law |
opened the door for a huge wave of acquisitions, particularly during the |
period 1897 to 1903. During that six-year span of time, a dramatic transformation of the American business landscape took place. Some 2,650 |
separate firms disappeared into larger corporate entities, as industry after |
industry became dominated by a handful of immense, politically |
powerful corporations incorporated in states with corporate-friendly |
statutes. By 1903, some 250 large corporations had emerged as dominant. |
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Such entities as International Paper (1898), National Sugar Refining |
Company (1900), U.S. Steel (1901), and International Harvester |
(1902) were all formed in this period by merging smaller companies |
into large corporations. In 1890, the aggregate amount of capital in publicly |
traded companies was a mere $33 million; in 1903, it surpassed $7 |
billion. Industry after industry had seen a remarkable concentration of |
market share. U.S. Steel controlled 62 percent of the steelmarket, International |
Harvester controlled 85 percent of the agricultural implement |
market, American Can Company controlled 90 percent of the can market, |
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*the right of all workers to employment at an adequate wage, |
*the right of farmers to a decent return on their products, |
*the right of small businessmen to protection from monopolies and unfair competition, |
*the right of all families to a home, |
*the right of everyone to education and medical care, and |
*the right of the aged, the disabled, and the unemployed to economic security. |
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Roosevelt’s wider vision of rights was a natural culmination of a |
movement that had begun in the 1600s and 1700s to elevate the status of |
individuals, particularly in relation to powerful institutions. |
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Roosevelt banished from the public discourse the social Darwinist vision. |
His genius was the win/win solution, the idea that a well-paid, socially |
secure workforce was entirely compatible with a huge expansion |
in corporate activity and profits. Under the approach created by Roosevelt |
and adhered to by both Democratic and Republican administrations |
for the next three decades, corporate growth remained brisk and expansion |
continued at the same time that the distribution of wealth in the |
United States became far more evenly distributed than before the Great |
Depression. Thus, while the share of wealth owned by the top one percent |
of the population was nearly 45 percent in 1929, it had fallen to 20 |
percent by 1971. |
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+++As Franklin Roosevelt once remarked, “necessitous men are not free men.” Similarly, Alexander Hamilton wrote, “the power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”+++ |
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Just as it was necessary to innovate and implement specific new |
features in order to democratize and constrain state power, the same |
applies to corporate power. A short list of changes might include the |
following: |
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# revoke the doctrine of corporate constitutional rights; |
# curb corporate “quasi-rights” as appropriate, e.g. requiring corporations to renew their charters every five years; |
# ban corporations from political activity; |
# shore up the boundaries of “non-corporate” spaces in society, e.g. prohibiting advertising aimed at children; |
# expand the scope of worker and customer rights vis-à-vis corporations; |
# strengthen countervailing institutions, especially unions; |
# promote non-corporate institutions like public schools and economic forms like municipal utilities, family farms, consumer cooperatives, employee-run enterprises. |
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"Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and |
implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period |
of years, in the scale of financing available only through |
joint effort, and in the political power available through united |
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]]] Also see [http://deoxy.org/korten_index.htm When Corporations Rule The World] ]]] |