The Merger of State and Corporate Power

Business corporations in conjunction with the federal government are intruding more and more into our lives. Mussolini is reported to have said: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” I don't know anyone anywhere who advocates fascism. But whether we like it or not, and whatever we call it, we seem to be marching toward a “merger of state and corporate power.”

The big problems – healthcare, the financial structure and our national security – present scenarios where a small number of very large corporations enabled by government created the problem. Those corporations now propose that they should be in charge of fixing things. Too often, their solutions fit profit projections and reelection campaigns better than they fit public needs.

We have created a monster in the American business corporation and it has teamed up with and taken over our government for its own ends. In healthcare, the insurance and pharmaceutical companies spend unbelievably large amounts of money to make sure they can control supply, set prices and feed off of entitlement programs. In the financial sector, Goldman Sachs and the other big investment companies and banks take our money, accept government guarantees and then scorn the legislature's feeble attempt to rein them in. In national security matters, Boeing and Blackwater renew their contracts even though they come in late and over budget. The American people have lost control of their government and they want it back.

Corporations can control our lives because they are, with their special privileges, economically and productively more efficient than any other form of business organization. That very efficiency is what makes them so dangerous that they must be kept in check. Our government is instead living off of and expanding that corporate power. We are granting inalienable human rights and personhood to what is in effect an artificial person where ownership bears no relationship to control and morality is not applicable

The most recent and serious grant is in the recent decision by the Supreme Court to legislate first amendment free-speech rights for corporations. The decision violates every principle of originalism, stare decisis and the conservative philosophy that condemns legislation from the bench. It confuses inalienable human and citizenship rights with artificial juridical rights.

If people are going to get their government back, they're going to have to put an end to the evil alliance of elected officials and corporate wealth. We have to turn to and work through the people, the real creators of that power.

The source of human rights is clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence: “all Men [and women] … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...” Just as clearly, corporations are created and given their rights by the government. A state legislature or any sovereign entity passes a law that endows an artificial entity with special privileges. Foremost among these are perpetual existence, limited liability and anonymity. These privileges, these private laws, are given in exchange for whatever the state legislature thinks should be the quid pro quo. They don't have to be given at all.

Corporations are no more and no less than what the legislature says they are. This is the heart of it. State legislatures are the creator; they can grant or withhold rights or obligations as they see fit.

President Eisenhower in his farewell address pointed out the danger of the military-industrial complex. People are less familiar with a much earlier warning. Thomas Jefferson wrote: “I hope we shall … crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” And that was in 1816.

Corporate personhood is a fiction that the courts have made into a fact. It doesn't have to be.

For corporations to be effective they must have the right to make contracts, honor those contracts, pay debts, otherwise do business and even make a profit. But they should not have the right to vote, hold office, petition the government or enjoy free speech – unless the legislature specifically grants such privileges. It could do so. Some would give corporations all of those capabilities. But we would have a corporatist form of government.

The merger of state and corporate power is going on right in front of us. Now, in the economic and political turmoil that is not going to end soon, we have the opportunity to separate government and the corporations.