1. 1 Corporate Personhood – the Ethical Dilemmas Is it ethical to treat corporations as human?

2. 2 What Is a Corporation?  an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.  A legal vehicle for accumulating wealth while minimizing risks and responsibilities

3. 3 What is Corporate Personhood?  The granting under law of the rights of a human being to a corporation  “Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate Personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person”. -- Jan Edwards and Molly Morgan, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

4. 4 Corporations Now Have These Rights  Free speech, including freedom to influence legislation and donate to candidates  Buy and sell property and other companies  Sue individuals or other corporations in court  Protection from searches, as if their belongings were private  Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination  The benefit of due process and anti- discrimination laws

5. 5 Something New in Human History  Traditional English, Dutch, French, and Spanish law didn’t say that corporations were people  Founders never intended corporations to be treated as human  For America’s first hundred years, courts (including Supreme Court) repeatedly said corporations did not have same rights as humans  Only since 1886 have the Bill of Rights and equal protection amendment been applied to corporations  Never voted by the public, never enacted by law, never stated by a decision after an argument before the Supreme Court

6. 6 Corporations in Early American History  Boston Tea Party: the first anti- corporate protest?  Founding Fathers wanted to limit corporate power  Early corporations were tightly controlled

7. 7 The Genesis of Corporate Personhood  Railroads rise to power  Post-Civil War attempts to expand corporate power  1886 - Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad

8. 8 Case Law Builds on Santa Clara  1889 - Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad v. Beckwith: Supreme Court rules a corporation is a “person” for both due process and equal protection  1905 – Lochner v. New York: Invalidation of government regulation of the corporation. Over 200 cases follow that invalidate regulations  1906 – Hale v. Henkel: Corporations get 4 th Amendment “search and seizure” protection  1919 – Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.: “stockholder primacy” is established

9. 9 Modern Enhancements to Corporate Rights  1967 – See v. City of Seattle: Supreme Court grants corporations 4 th amendment protection from random inspection by fire department  1970 – Ross v. Bernhard: Corporations get right to jury trial  1976 - Buckley v. Valeo: Supreme Court rules that political money is equivalent to speech  1976 – Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Consumer Council: Supreme Court rules that advertising is free speech  1994 – ratification of GATT: global trade agreement

10. 10 So What’s the Problem? No Concern for Human Welfare  Designed by law to care only for their stockholders  Lack of social ties and anonymity  Example: Unsafe automobiles

11. 11 So What’s the Problem? Superhuman, Not Human  Can live indefinitely  Can cut off parts of themselves, split, sprout new parts, be in multiple locations at the same time  Have enormous financial resources  Can litigate repeatedly until they win

12. 12 So What’s the Problem? Concentration of Economic Power  The Fortune 1,000 companies control 70% of the American economy  Two hundred corporations conduct almost 1/3 of the entire planet’s economic activity (but employ less than 0.25% of the world’s workforce)  Over half of the largest economies in the world are corporations, not countries

13. 13 So What’s the Problem? Harming Democracy  GATT created a global trade dictatorship  Corporations stifle free speech  Corporations influence governments inappropriately  Corporate ownership of media stifles the public’s knowledge about issues choices  Corporations enable despotic regimes  Corporations influence regulations

14. 14 So What’s the Problem? Harming the Environment  Extinctions and destruction of rainforest  Factory farming and agribusiness takeover of family farms  GMO’s  Pollution and health impacts

15. 15 Solutions?  Municipal ordinances that restrict corporations  State laws that restrict corporations  Constitutional amendment

16. 16 Resources  www.reclaimdemocracy.org www.reclaimdemocracy.org  www.poclad.org (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) www.poclad.org  Unequal Protection, by Thom Hartmann  The Corporation (DVD)  A Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party, Hewes, George R. T. http://www.archive.org/stream/retrospect ofbost00hawk