Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became
“People” And How You Can Fight Back by Thom Hartmann explores the history and current status of the legal rights of corporations in the U.S. Most of us have heard of the recent “Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission” U.S. Supreme Court case. This decision has opened the flood gates for “anonymous” corporate money to flow into the election campaigns of our public officials.
In this book Hartmann details how corporate leaders have successfully sought to expand their power and influence from the time of the revolution. One of the interesting points is that the American Revolution was to some degree a conflict with a corporation. The East India Company (founded in 1600) lobbied the British parliament for taxes and regulation to enforce the company’s monopoly on tea imports to the colonies. Hence the original “tea party.”
What’s the difference between a “natural person” and an “artificial person”? How did the “Founders” of the American republic regard corporations? How were corporations regulated through American history? What are the differences in how corporations have been dealt with at the state versus the federal level? Was there a clerical error in the 1886 Santa Clara Supreme Court case or was it deliberate deception? Hartmann explores these questions.
Miles Manchester, April 2012