Corporate Personhood
(Rights of Corporations trumping those of human being-type people)
Our Bill of Rights was the result of tremendous efforts to institutionalize and protect the rights of human beings. It strengthened the premise of our Constitution: that the people are the root of all power and authority for government. This vision has made our Constitution and government a model emulated in many nations.
But corporate lawyers (acting as both attorneys and judges) subverted our Bill of Rights in the late 1800′s by establishing the doctrine of “corporate personhood” — the claim that corporations were intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for human beings.
We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal “persons” effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money. (excerpt Reclaim Democracy)
But corporate lawyers (acting as both attorneys and judges) subverted our Bill of Rights in the late 1800′s by establishing the doctrine of “corporate personhood” — the claim that corporations were intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for human beings.
We believe that corporations are not persons and possess only the privileges we willfully grant them. Granting corporations the status of legal “persons” effectively rewrites the Constitution to serve corporate interests as though they were human interests. Ultimately, the doctrine of granting constitutional rights to corporations gives a thing illegitimate privilege and power that undermines our freedom and authority as citizens. While corporations are setting the agenda on issues in our Congress and courts, We the People are not; for we can never speak as loudly with our own voices as corporations can with the unlimited amplification of money. (excerpt Reclaim Democracy)
Overview
- Reclaim Democracy articles on Corporate Personhood
- Melissa Block interviews John Witt (text + 4 min, 22 sec audio), professor of law and history at Yale Law School, about the history of corporate rights as people. He says the case of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific helped define the personhood of corporations in terms of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Huffington Post articles on Corporation Personhood
Time-lines to demonstrate the erosion of human rights as corporate rights are expanded.
- Person v corporate rights time-line - a good overview
- Move To Amend time-lines for printing at a print-shop
- 15 page pdf of time-line and narrative
- Starting in 1770, a time-line with pop-up notes
- Scrollable time-line
Corporations and the Courts
- Elizabeth Warren Warns that the Supreme Court is Owned by Chamber of Commerce