Corporate Personhood
– the Ethical Dilemmas
Is it ethical to treat
corporations as human?
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What Is a Corporation?
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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
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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)
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Corporations Now Have These
Rights
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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 antidiscrimination laws
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Something New in Human History
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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
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Corporations in Early American
History
 Boston
Tea Party: the first anticorporate protest?
 Founding Fathers wanted to limit
corporate power
 Early corporations were tightly
controlled
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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
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Case Law Builds on Santa Clara
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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 4th
Amendment “search and seizure” protection
1919 – Dodge v. Ford Motor Co.: “stockholder
primacy” is established
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Modern Enhancements to
Corporate Rights
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1967 – See v. City of Seattle: Supreme Court
grants corporations 4th 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Solutions?
 Municipal
ordinances that restrict
corporations
 State laws that restrict corporations
 Constitutional amendment
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Resources
www.reclaimdemocracy.org
 www.poclad.org (Program on
Corporations, Law and Democracy)
 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
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