Why Corporations aren’t People
This post is a sad post to write. The Supreme Court, the ultimate arbitrating body of the land on all matters of civility is unable to tell the difference between a person and multi-national corporations. The marketing gurus must be proud of themselves. The first amendment right for free political speech that the five of the nine guilty justices so vehemently defended is now not only enjoyed by us but also our stock holdings, or at least their lobby budgets, or something…. How exactly corporations are considered citizens with full sets of political rights even protecting the funds set aside for greasing legislatures with campaign slush funds I don’t understand.
Is Justice Anthony M. Kennedy desperately looking for a little boy named Target? Does Chief Justice Roberts think he met Disney on his trip to the Magic Kingdom last fall? This is exactly what the big-wigs want too. They hope you think Nike is your friend. That he makes you cool and athletic. It’s that branding and relentless advertising that keeps you coming back to McDonald’s. Modern Man sees the ad on the subway. His stomach twinges and next thing he knows there he is, at the counter. He hands the girl on the other side a dollar. She hands him a shitty burger, and smile, he’s loving it. Sometimes he stays awake at night wondering what he was eating before they started advertising 100% pure beef. Was there dog in there?
While all of congress stood when Obama scolded the Supreme Court, there must have been more than a few happy Republicans and Democrats. If we take that gesture as a form of political speech then we can safely say that they were standing their lying asses off. Standing during a political rally to show your support is a reasonable enough right to give people. Other forms of political speech protected by your first amendment rights are flag burning, holding up god-hates-fags signs, distributing Nazi propaganda, and getting naked in public. We take this right very seriously in this country.
So seriously that activists create organizations around people engaging in, sometimes heinous, political speech. Activists create these organizations to make their voices louder and for legal protection. A corporation, though, is formed first for profit. Its political contributions will surely spent so as to bring about a climate suiting its primary nature.
The ideal corporate climate would be a privatized Utopia where every service is a market and every resource a commodity. The water, the air all of it should all be up for sale. A RFID chipped supply chain of goods would support the Human Animal from cradle to grave in every endeavor. GE will just stick a reader in the refrigerator so they can monitor consumption from production to destruction. Provided of course the animal can pay, a consumerist fun house of gimmicks and gadgets will be showered down upon them provided by cheap labor (this private utopia of course requires the right to exploit the most amount of work from workers, otherwise it wouldn’t be a “free market”). They, the corpratocracy’s chosen daughters and sons, become advertisements themselves. Look at how happy they are with all their shit. Clearly those labels they wear make them superior creatures. Now there are no limits on how much money corporations can spend on making this dream a reality.
Corporations though are not people. They are social constructs designed, as stated before, to make profits. It could be said corporations have interests but those interest are a construed amalgamation of the aspirations of the CEO, board of directors, and shareholders. By colluding through the corporate structure each actor augments their power. They have all thrown their lots in with on another. The company acts as the formal social structure to codify economic power. It turns financial power into real economic power by amassing machines, trucks, bulldozers, loading docks, goods and employees. Huge amounts of funds and real capital allow corporations like Wal-Mart incredible amounts of leverage not just over law makers and municipalities, but also over suppliers and employees. Apparently the majority of the Supreme Court sees no problems with enhancing corporate power. Never mind that ownership of the capital is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Never mind growing income inequality. Never mind labors ever weaker bargaining position. We’re in a recession. That means we have to do what’s good for business even if that undermines our long-term economic stability or our personal freedoms. Whats good for GM is good for America! Right? So whens the next round of bail outs?
Seriously though, at least there is a backlash against this ruling. Perhaps people are beginning to wake up and smell the fascism.
The Parking Lot Fields 
Excellent post; too often are people overwhelmed by the news reports of SAG awards and local political squabbles during this time of year and miss the important things that happen without the same level of press coverage.
I, like you, did not miss the blurb about our highest court’s recent decision to remove the limits that had been previously imposed on corporate spending towards political campaigns. I revel in the fact that those justices that did vote against this important decision all had dissenting remarks. May you read them now.
The blame should be focused on the press and their lack of condemnation upon the five justices that had the gall to protect the non-citizen over the rights of the democratic system; the founding fathers are rolling.
Keep spreading the good word Patrick – someone needs to. We cetainly cannot rely on Fox, CNBC, CNN, BBC, or any of these so-called “major” news networks that are focused on ad revenues and the highest ratings they can squeeze from the newest disaster to befall human kind. I tell them: focus your cameras and mics on the real change that is occuring through reckless decisions of men and everything else will sort out. I suppose this is too much to ask from studio execs more focused on doing work on the bottom line and not looking at what’s right.
Great piece. Thank you.