British kings granted charters to the British East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company and many American colonies, enabling the kings and their cronies to control property and commerce. The American colonists did not revolt simply over a tax on tea.
Craft and industrial workers feared absentee corporate owners would turn them into “a commodity being as much an article of commerce as woollens, cotton, or yarn,” according to historian Louis Hartz.

Incorporated businesses were banned from taking any action that citizens and legislators did not specifically allow.
In 19th-century America, many citizens believed that it was society’s inalienable right to abolish an evil.
During the last third of the 19th century, “Corporations confronted the law at every turn,” according to Harvard law professor Lawrence M. Friedman.
Workers, the courts also ruled, were responsible for causing their own injuries on the job. Judges created the “right to contract” doctrine, which stipulates that the government cannot interfere with an individual’s “freedom” to negotiate with a corporation for wages and working conditions.
Judges established the “managerial prerogative” and “business judgement” doctrines.
The US Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a “natural person” under the US Constitution, sheltered by the 14th Amendment, which requires due process in the criminal prosecution of “persons.” Following this ruling, huge, wealthy corporations were allowed to compete on “equal terms” with individuals

The US Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a “natural person” under the US Constitution, sheltered by the 14th Amendment, which requires due process in the criminal prosecution of “persons.” Following this ruling, huge, wealthy corporations were allowed to compete on “equal terms” with individuals.

Supreme Court Justice William 0. Douglas wrote 60 years later.
Within just a few decades, appointed judges had redefined the “common good” to mean the corporate use of humans and the Earth for maximum production and profit—no matter what was manufactured, who was hurt or what was destroyed. Corporations had obtained control over resources, production, commerce, jobs, politicians, judges and the law. Workers, citizens, cities, towns, states and nature were left with fewer and fewer rights that corporations were forced to respect
Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite in 1886, simply pronounced before the beginning of argument in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail road Company that

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does".

Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history.
The doctrine of corporate personhood creates an interesting legal contradiction. The corporation is owned by its shareholders and is therefore their property. If it is also a legal person, then it is a person owned by others and thus exists in a condition of slavery -- a status explicitly forbidden by the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. So far as I have been able to determine, this contradiction has not been directly addressed by the courts.
Corporations are legal creations that only exist on paper. They do not die a natural death; they outlive their own creators.

The Howard Government used the Corporation Powers adopted into Australia's Constitution to create WorkChoices and circumvent the Industrial relations System.

If the corporation tree has grown from a poisoned fruit, our present labour laws are dubious and therefore require an examination by the High Court of the Corporation Powers in our constitution.

We must abandon the idea that corporations can reform themselves. To ask corporate executives to behave in a morally defensible manner is absurd. Corporations, and the people within them, are following a system of logic that leads inexorably toward dominant behaviours.

Corporation: n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914.

Though they exist in a society that claims to operate by moral principles, they are structurally amoral. It is inevitable that they will dehumanize people who work for them and the overall society as well. They are disloyal to workers, including their own managers. Corporations can be disloyal to the communities they have been part of for many years. Corporations do not care about nations; they live beyond boundaries. They have an inexorable, unabated, voracious need to grow and to expand. In dominating other cultures, in digging up the earth, corporations blindly follow the codes that have been built into them as if they were genes.

What can we do? What is happening in the US of A, is there is a movement in a number of states, to go back to the Supreme Court and challenge the 1886 decision. Here in Australia in the High Court in December 2006 Houghton Vs Arms found that misleading conduct by any representative even when there is absence of malice, means that person must make good any damages that they have caused.
This means that corporate officers and directors can no longer hide behind the company seal any more.
It is disgusting to me that The Thirteenth amendment of the US Constitution that was made to free slaves and the Fourteenth have been turned on their head to allow exploitation of laws that were meant to bestow equal rights to the citizenry.

A little colourfully written but for all practical terms largely correct..

A very factual summary Colin Penter and while society continues to invest in unethical corporations, the status quo prevails.

And only this week, the Centre for Media and Democracy reported that a federal judge sitting in Louisiana struck down the Obama Administration's mere six-month moratorium on new deep water drilling, despite the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused by BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling operation. Who is the unelected man standing in the way of permitting a six-month review of this inherently dangerous activity, asked the CMD?

Judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman that's who. Judge Feldman has extensive investments in oil and gas, and not just in any oil and gas, but in Transocean Limited, the company that owned BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. His annual financial disclosure report also showed he held tens of thousands of dollars in stock in other oil and gas exploration companies, including Ocean Energy, which helps design submersible drilling rigs.

But corrupt people in high places do not reside in the US alone and who are we Australians to criticise those in faraway places when corporate criminals in this nation are kings and their political sycophants and influential think tanks are their whores?

This is capitalism working as intended. The power and the money keeps concentrating at the top and the bottom keeps growing and getting more and more impoverished. There is no democracy. The rich and powerful live in a totally different world to the rest of us and they buy and coerce and blackmail until they get their way. The rest of us dont stand a chance.

Until people stand up and say no more it will continue. The filth will get worse, the environment will get sicker and the authoritarianism and oppression and fear will all increase.

Business must work for us. Provide what we ask it to. Do as the people say or have your permission to exist removed. After all it is only because we the people let businesses exist that they do. There is no necessity for megamultinational business despite what the capitalists say. (you wouldnt expect them to say anything else would you?) There are plenty of other ways to organise society other than the one that favors the elite and selfish scum that now inhabit the realms of megawealth and power.

Corporations were once heavily regulated, limited in purpose to their original charter, limited in time and required to disband according to their charter and they were not allowed to merge and grow to a point they could exert pressure against democracy.
Slowly with greed and malice in their hearts, the richest and most pampered among us have schemed and fought and bribed their way to almost ultimate power and unimaginable wealth by destroying all the hard fought humanitarian and egalitarian gains made by the hard work and fighting of our forebears.

continued

continued

They smashed unions, antitrust laws, got almost all regulation removed, polluted and exploited our environment, started wars, killed and maimed us with numerous toxic and dangerous products and totally destroyed the once cohesive and happy societies that we once had. Once they finish destroying welfare and privitising everything they will have destroyed it all and they will own us body and soul. You will have no choices and no future. Slave or soldier, peasant or pauper that will be your lot.

Capitalism is to blame for our distress and along with their partners The State and Religion they will happily return the world to slavery, feudalism, war, hatred and death as long as they get to keep all the cash and all the power. They havent got far to go.

Wake up people. Despite the capitalist's "theories" there is no reason why we should put up with this. There is nothing "natural" about this system of exploitation and greed. Competition might be a good way for the animal kingdom to survive but for us it is just barbaric and uncivilised. All of our most important advances have been a direct consequence of cooperation and it has been shown time and again cooperation beats competition every time. That most people have been brainwashed with capitalist propaganda to believe the opposite does not fill me with hope but there is change in the air and slowly people are realising the truth. Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and the greed and waste and evil exploitation will slowly drive the backlash that will eventually destroy it. I will never submit and never stop fighting this disgusting system that pits people against each other and drives ALL of the problems that we face as a species.
http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

Excellent posts everyone, special thanks to John Jawrence Ward, a history lesson well worth repeating.

Mikk

>> Competition might be a good way for the animal kingdom to survive but for us it is just barbaric and uncivilised. <<

There is no competition between corporations. Competition can be healthy and lead to innovation, however the monopolization of industries such as mining, forestry, food production and so on, has lead to a lowest common denominator standard of quality and practices which, as you have said, pollutes and exhausts our eco-systems. Areas where we have made technological advances such as solar, wind and thermal power are constantly assaulted as 'inefficient' instead of being further researched and supported. Forests are still being cleared for raw material that can be sourced from alternatives such as papyrus, bamboo. The bulk of innovation has come from small business and government subsidised research and other cooperative joint ventures.

A significant exception is GM technology which has been co-opted by some of the biggest corporate cowboys, throwing their weight around our planet, corporations such as Monsanto. GM stood to be of incredible benefit, however with patents on gene technology owned by the corporate sector, we are unlikely to reach the full potential of this knowledge.

OBAMA'S BAN ON DRILLING...is the utmost in base amoral hypocrisy!

Protagorus.. do you know that Obama's mob LENT $2,000,000,000 to PETROBRAS the Brazilian oil company for OFF SHORE EXPLORATION ?

It seems Obama is just saying "Not in MYYYY backyard, but in Brazils..it's fine"

The Brazilian finds are at 14,000 feet.. BP were drilling off florida at 5000 feet.

Petrobras makes 15,000,000,000 profit a year.. why would Obama lend them a paultry 2 more ?

Maybe the fact that Obama's team and policy was chosen and decided by the "Centre for American Progress" which was founded by George Soros, who happens.. just happens.. to have his biggest single investment in...wait for it.. PETROBRAS!

Come on... get out of the kitchen and into the shed mate.. catch up with what is really going on out there.

“Protagorus.. do you know that Obama's mob LENT $2,000,000,000 to PETROBRAS the Brazilian oil company for OFF SHORE EXPLORATION ?”

Well yes I did read that Agoreisrich. I also read that Petrobras’ largest shareholder is the Brazilian government. Furthermore a ‘loan’ is repaid but did you know that ex-gaol bird and former Labor Premier, Brian Burke and his corporate criminal buddies cost the taxpayers of WA nearly $1,000,000,000? No, I thought not! Taxpayers did not get reimbursed and Burke remains a multi-multi millionaire.

And did you know that the Court Liberal government of WA ‘loaned’ a hazardous waste operator a large sum of money because he was breaching every environmental regulation in the book? No, he was not shut down or prosecuted and the hazardous waste plant literally blew up, allegedly the largest chemical fire in Australia’s history.

The haz waste operator kept the ‘loan’ and the underground hazardous plume has now invaded the Helena River, a major tributary to the Swan River where the river’s dolphin community is dying from pollution and in 2004; a mass fish death in the Swan River exceeded 300,000 mortalities.

Then there’s former WA Liberal Premier and ex gaol bird Ray O’Connor accepting bribes from corporate criminals – namely Alan Bond - another ex gaol bird who fleeced little old men and women of their life savings yet remains a mult-multi millionaire.

Robert Askin, Joe Bjelke Petersen – oh my…the list is endless but those who dream of faraway places………………………!

Next we have WA Liberal Premier and eco-vandal, Barnett, whose budget papers I'm told reveal that 99% of capital expenditure by the government’s energy utility will fund polluting fossil-fuel generation and less than 1% will be spent on renewable energy.

Mining companies receive even more handouts as part of the Barnett Government’s million dollar mining exploration incentives package but taxpayers will have to pick up the bill for the environmental carnage caused by mining as the government continues it’s policy to exempt miners from paying bonds to cover the cost of rehabilitation.

I think you speak with forked tongue Algoreisrich!

*Areas where we have made technological advances such as solar, wind and thermal power are constantly assaulted as 'inefficient' instead of being further researched and supported.*

Oh rubbish Severin. Do you know how much money that US venture capital
is throwing at this? It is absolutaly enormous. Even the best
Australian ideas head for California for funding, to take them
a step further. The fact remains however, that there are some systems
being tested, but we can't yet show that wind or solar will give
us what consumers want, with any reliability or reasonable cost.
If your electricity bill was to triple, you would be the first
to squeal.

*All of our most important advances have been a direct consequence of cooperation and it has been shown time and again cooperation beats competition every time*

Mikk, that is exactly why people cooperate to form corporations,
with hundreds of thousands of little people as members, all having
a share. R&D today is quite different to the days when Alexander
Graham Bell was doing his tinkering, technology is far more complex
and required billions. To build an Intel plant costs billions, you
are not going to achieve that kind of cooperation or finance
through small business.

Just look at the benefits to you, of Google competing with Murdoch,
competing with MS. You the consumer are winning all the way and
if you haven't noticed, then you are blind. Have you ever paid
Google a single cent? How many times have you used their search
engines?

You have suggested to better system then the one that we have,
we know what happens when a Castro or a Chevez take over, it is
disaster for the population.

Yabby
Castro,Chavez,Bush,Howard. Whats the difference?
I dont advocate replacing one lot of miscreant "leaders" with another lot. Get rid of them all and run things democratically. Real democracy not the demockery we have now.
http://www.infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

Yabby

You make assumptions about many who post here simply because we have alternative views to yours. I do not write rubbish, for that you need AGIR.

Yes, I do know that some corporations are investing in alternative energies. Converseley, I know that many corporations are fighting against innovation in order to maintain the status quo - remember the electric car scrapped by GMH back in the 80's? Imagine, if you can, all corporations transitioning towards sustainable technologies, imagine if they had started doing this 30 or 40 years ago. We would not be in the mess we are today. However, that is expecting vision to trump vested interests.

Your own vested interests determine your point of view on these pages to the point where you are sounding like a broken record.

As for costing sustainable energy why aren't we paying MORE for fossil energy and less for clean in order to hasten the transition? Because the oil industries are stuck in their own mire of short term greed.

Corporations behaving like, well, cowboys.

"Under International law, offshore oil rigs like the Deepwater Horizon are treated as ships, and companies are allowed to "register" them in unlikely places such as the Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia — reducing the U.S. government's role in inspecting and enforcing safety and other standards."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-inspection-20100615,0,7349376.story

What will the crustacean concoct to excuse this little exercise in avoiding responsibility?

*remember the electric car scrapped by GMH back in the 80's?*

Of course it was scrapped, it made no sense at the time. In 1999
oil was still at 10$ a barrel, China was using very little, the
lithium battery had not yet been invented. It was before its
time. There has been no reason that taxpayer funded research
could not tinker with these things and they did. CSIRO played
around with electric cars for a while.

But it is gamechanging technologies, like the invention of the
lithium battery, plus the rising price of oil, that has turned
things around. Look at how many car companies are playing with
electric cars now, virtually all of them. Because now makes
sense, then it did not.

Look what a bloke like Elon Musk has done with Tesla Motors and
his ventures with solar. Even Toyota has now bought a stake
in Tesla and Musk started with absolutaly no knowledge about
making cars. His claim to fame is as cofounder of paypal.

This is the great thing with our present system. It gives
entrepreneurial and innovative guys like Musk the possibility
to come from nowhere, show that they have aptitude in thinking,
raise huge amounts of capital and change the world, not just
dream about changing the world.

*As for costing sustainable energy why aren't we paying MORE for fossil energy and less for clean in order to hasten the transition?*

Because Govts are not silly. They know that people vote out of self
interest, somebody has to pay and people makes claims as you do,
until it costs them more. They want everyone else to pay, just not
them. Tell me which Govt will win office on the basis of increasing
the cost of electricity or petrol by 30%?

Err Severin, yes indeed, ships register all over the world, is
it illegal? Do they make the laws? Were they breaking the
law?

Perhaps you should wait until the official findings to see
what went wrong on that rig. Was it BP? Was it Transocean?
Which of their employees was it and why?

Why were the drilling plans approved by MMS?

It will all come out in the end, it just takes time and I am
not going to jump to conclusions as you do.

As I've pointed out before, they have been drilling offshore
for 40 years, this is the first major incident that I can
remember, so being human, complacency would have set in.

What I do know is this. Under the Jones Act, ships in US
waters are quite restricted. I am actually a supporter of
Obama, but I do question why he has not suspended the Jones
Act for the cleanup. The claim is that there are in fact
Dutch and other vessels that are very good at cleaning up
oil in the sea, but they cannot legally operate in US waters
because of the Jones Act. So they are not being used to
minimize the damage.

Now that may well increase work for locals, but I would have
thought that minimizing the damage would be frist priority,
above all else.

“Because Govts are not silly. They know that people vote out of self
interest, somebody has to pay and people makes claims as you do,
until it costs them more. They want everyone else to pay, just not
them.”

Well not quite Cowboy because you see pollution and other damage to the natural environment has been caused by the world's biggest polluters and with impunity. Of course if the polluters were made to pay it may indeed wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable.

The biggest single impact on the annual $2.2 trillion damage (estimated by the UN,) accounting for more than half of the total, were emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change. Other major "costs" were air pollution such as particulates, health costs and the damage caused by the over-use and pollution of freshwater, groundwater and oceans.

Of course we hear the usual threats from the perpetrators and their dancing boys, however in 2008, Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion!

And who has paid for the environmental carnage these grim reapers have perpetrated on an outraged planet for a hundred years? Not Exxon, not BHP, not Rio, not Barrick Gold, not Shell not ......! So if they and their partners-in-crime wish to continue operating (including those who fly the flags of convenience) they will need to pay for the damage they cause – not the taxpayer, simple! Their profits will be less obscene but they will remain profitable. If they wish not to continue – great stuff. The graveyards are full of ‘indispensable’ corporate criminals!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/09/2620966.htm
http://www.terradaily.com/2007/071009154249.xytavr0w.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/villagers-sue-bhp-billiton-for-5bn/2007/01/19/1169095978975.html
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=5321
http://protestbarrick.net/downloads/barrick_report.pdf

Good old predictable Yabby. You make many assumptions in order to appear as if you actually have something pertinent to say.

1. I never suggested that cleaning up the Gulf mess was not a first priority.

2. As for who is to blame for the Gulf catastrophe - I am sure BP is not alone. Nor did I claim that one company was responsible.

3. That the early model electric was not perfect does not mean it should've been scrapped. The combustion engine is not exactly perfect either.

4. I have already acknowledged that some corporates are investing in sustainable technology just not nearly enough and to reiterate, they could've done so decades ago.

5. I never claimed you weren't a supporter of Obama, so what?

6. >>> ships register all over the world, is
it illegal? Do they make the laws? Were they
breaking the law? <<<
Many things corporates do are 'legal' doesn't make it right. That is what we call 'scheming'.

Given the following discovery, I wonder just what you have in your grasp when you prattle off your usual excuses for corporate scheming and your completely unwarranted comments about women.

"If you want to negotiate a tough deal, make sure you are sitting on a hard chair, say US researchers.

In a mock haggling scenario, those sat on soft chairs were more flexible in agreeing a price.

The team also found candidates whose CVs were held on a heavy clipboard were seen as better qualified than those whose CVs were on a light one.

It shows that the "tactile environment" is vital in decision making and behaviour, they report in Science.

Overall, through a series of experiments, they found that weight, texture, and hardness of inanimate objects unconsciously influence judgments about unrelated events and situations.

It suggests that physical touch, which is the first of sense to develop, may be a scaffold upon which people build social judgments and decisions, the Harvard and Yale University researchers said."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10408041.stm

*pollution and other damage to the natural environment has been caused by the world's biggest polluters*

There you go Dickie dear. Stop demanding electricity and petrol
at the petrol station, for you are in fact the polluter. Without
your demands, there would be no pollution. If you and others
agree, we'll switch off the power tomorrow.

*Their profits will be less obscene but they will remain profitable. If they wish not to continue – great stuff.*

An inside tip for you. One of the world'd biggest stock shorters
is shorting a number of oil majors. For when he examined the books
closely, he found that despite all that drilling, reserves are not
being replaced by new reserves. So real capital value of these
companies is crashing. ie those profits are not as real as you think.

One way or another, you and other consumers will land up paying for
skyrocketing energy costs, if that is what you want to happen.
But it will eventually happen anyhow, even if you don't want it to.

*That the early model electric was not perfect does not mean it should've been scrapped.*

That is really up to them, for it is their money invested, not yours.
From a business sense, IMHO it made perfect sense to scrap it and
start again, when better battery and other technology was invented.
That has happened.

*I have already acknowledged that some corporates are investing in sustainable technology just not nearly enough and to reiterate, they could've done so decades ago.*

Given that its their money and their risk, that was their decision
to make. You and others were free to invest your hard earned savings
at the time, if you thought it was such a great idea. Anyone could
have, that is the beauty of the system. Including Govts and taxpayers.

*Many things corporates do are 'legal' doesn't make it right*

Ah, now you think that others should live by your moral code, which
is little more then your opinion. I've heard that one before lol.