Abolish Corporate Personhood
by Jan Edwards and Molly Morgan,
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(Fall 2004)
"Five years ago, members of the US section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) began studying and researching how corporations became so powerful. Inspired by the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) we discovered the hidden history of “corporate personhood”—the legal phenomenon that provides constitutional protections to corporations. Not only is corporate personhood a key component of corporate power, it is one of the greatest threats to democracy that we have ever known. Most people, however, have never even heard of it. In September, 2001, WILPF launched a campaign to abolish corporate personhood. The goal of this campaign is to delegitimize the institution of the corporation as a political entity. The following article is by WILPF members Jan Edwards and Molly Morgan...."
"A world without corporations
What would change if corporations did not have personhood? The first and main effect would be that a barrier would be removed that is preventing democratic change, just as the abolition of slavery tore down an insurmountable legal block, making it possible to pass laws to provide full rights to the newly freed slaves. After corporate personhood is abolished, new legislation will be possible. Here are a few examples.
If “corporate persons” no longer had First Amendment right of free speech, we could prohibit all corporate political activity, such as lobbying and contributions to political candidates and parties. If “corporate persons” were not protected against search without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment, then corporate managers could not turn OSHA and the EPA inspectors away if they make surprise, unscheduled searches. If “corporate persons” were not protected against discrimination under the 14th Amendment, corporations like Wal-Mart could not force themselves into communities that do not want them.
So what can we do to abolish corporate personhood? Within our current legal system there are two possibilities: the Supreme Court could change its mind on corporations having rights in the Constitution, or, we can pass an amendment to the Constitution. Either scenario seems daunting, yet it is even more difficult than that. Every state now has laws and language in their state constitutions conceding these rights to corporations. So corporate personhood must be abolished on a state as well as a national level.
The good news is that almost anything we do towards abolishing corporate personhood helps the issue progress on one of these levels. If a city passes a non-binding resolution, declaring their area a “Corporate Personhood Free Zone,” that is a step toward passing a constitutional amendment at their state and eventually at the national level. If a town passes an ordinance legally denying corporations rights as persons, they may provoke a crisis of jurisdiction that could lead to a court case. We think both paths should be followed. It was, however, undemocratic for the Supreme Court to grant personhood to corporations, and it would be just as undemocratic for this to be decided that way again. An amendment is the democratic way to correct this judicial usurpation of the people’s sovereignty.
We see that corporate personhood was wrongly given. It was given, not by We the People, but by nine Supreme Court judges. We further see that corporate personhood is a bad thing, because it was the pivotal achievement that allowed an artificial entity to obtain the rights of people, thus relegating us to subhuman status. Finally, because of the way corporate personhood has enabled corporations to govern us, we see that it is so bad, we must eradicate it.
Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person. Like abolishing slavery, the work of eradicating corporate personhood takes us to the deepest questions of what it means to be human. If we are to live in a democracy, what does it mean to be sovereign? The hardest part of eliminating corporate personhood is believing that We the People have the sovereign right to do this. It comes down to us being clear about who’s in charge."
from:
www.greens.org/s-r/35/35-19.html
1886: Birth of the Corporate Person
Astounds the Sovereign People