Corporate Personhood – A Christian Perspective
June 02, 2013
What kind of Being...is the
Corporation?
The Corporation is the most powerful
institution in the world today. Its power dwarfs most nation-states, and with
the advent of the World Trade Organization and its protocols, Corporations now
effectively wield the power to overrule the laws and regulations of every
country that joins the WTO.
The values and viewpoints promoted
by corporate advertising are presented and influence the inner lives of human
beings in ways once considered the province of religion and philosophy. If we
believe that Christianity has a role to play in shaping the future of humanity,
it is crucial that we gain a deeper understanding of the Corporation, its rise
to power, and its future plans for the human family.
This question of how to deal with
the effects of corporate power over the affairs of human beings and our planet
is one of deep concern to people worldwide. Here in the United States we are in
a unique position to affect the outcome of this issue.
Corporations
and the Rule of Law
Corporations in the United States
increasingly have been granted the rights of human beings. The process began in
the early 19th century, but accelerated after the Civil War, when the 14th,
15th and 16th Amendments, passed to insure the rights of newly liberated
slaves, were applied to corporations. These corporations were held to be “legal
persons” as opposed to “natural persons,” but to have the same rights. And
these rulings were affirmed by judges in courts up to and including the Supreme
Court.
The pernicious effects of these
rulings has become obvious, as corporations spread their power and influence
over our cultural and political institutions, using these rights of free speech
and equal protection to increase their power while eroding the rights of the
human beings whom they supposedly serve.
Now, in the wake of the recent
Supreme Court decision lifting constraints on the Free Speech Rights of
Corporate Persons, these issues have entered the forefront of attention for
concerned human persons in our country. Many of us are upset by the ruling, and
feel that it is cause for grave concern. We are correct in that concern, but
what is it about this ruling that is so disturbing from a Christian
perspective? Or, to put it in a different way,
how can we, as Christians,
understand the deeper aspects of what it means to treat an economic entity as a
human being?
Let’s start with the question of
what makes us human.
What
Makes Us Human?
For many philosophers, both
spiritual and temporal, the human is the unique being who can say “I” to him or
herself. That is, we recognize our own individuality, as a being standing alone
in the world, even as we share our world with other humans, the kingdoms of
nature and the spiritual forces of the cosmos. This quality of
self-consciousness, whether seen as an attribute of being alive or as a
manifestation of the immortal divine spirit within, is the starting point of
what makes us human.
If we look at human development
throughout history, we see the experience of the ego (another word for
the “I”), has not been static through the ages. In ancient civilizations people
felt deeply embedded in tribe, family or nation, with what we today would see
as an “undeveloped” sense of themselves as individuals. Arranged marriages, to give
just one example, were completely accepted at one time, whereas today we are
shocked by such practices in the U.S.
This development of the ego has both
positive and negative aspects for us as individuals. We become freer, yet we
also become more isolated from one another. We have the possibility of self
development, but also of becoming more selfish and less involved with the fate
of our fellow human beings.
In the midst of this process of
human development, we are presented with the Event of Christ’s Appearance on
the Earth. This Divine, Spiritual Being, who fully and freely incarnates into
Human Existence, goes through Death and Resurrection, and becomes One with
Humanity and the Earth itself.
And so, now, a new possibility for
the human Ego emerges; the possibility of recognizing “Not I, but Christ in
Me.” This is a possibility, not of the annihilation of Self, but of recognizing
the existence of a higher, even a more human self that lives within each of us,
and which can be experienced as the new, more spiritually developed human being
made possible through the connection to the being of The Christ. The
recognition that the Christ lives in each human being (regardless of
their outward religious preference, ethnicity, gender, etc), is a bedrock Christian
principle, and becomes the foundation for viewing human interaction and affairs
in our social and economic world. It becomes possible for us, as free,
independent human beings, to strive to become one with this higher being within
us, and, in so doing, to evolve into the “Christ in Me”.
From this perspective, then, we can
say that every human person is connected to, or even incarnates, the spiritual
Being we know as Christ. And we can also say that the development of freedom,
both on an inner and an outer level, is absolutely crucial to the emergence of
this “Christ in Me.” Indeed, from a spiritual perspective, the emergence of
this new Being is the goal of human evolution.
What
Being is the Corporation?
Let us turn, then, to the “person”
called the Corporation. What Spiritual Being can we say this person incarnates,
or is connected to?
Over the past decade there have been
a number of cases (such as the Ford Pinto and Firestone Tire) in which
corporations have been shown, through internal documents, to be aware of
product defects that resulted in injury or death to human beings. In all these
cases, a decision was made that it was less costly to pay claims brought
against the company than to correct the defects in the products, and so the
companies continued to cover up the fact that their products were killing
people. Human life, in other words, became an “item” in these corporate
budgets, to be weighed against other cost considerations with an impact on the
bottom line. What kind of Being views human life in these terms?
Pharmaceutical companies routinely
rush drugs to market with inadequate testing, and suppress evidence of their
harmful side effects. Between 2000-2003, these companies paid out a total of
$2.2 billion in fines and settlements, and four companies pled guilty to
criminal charges (see The Truth about the Drug Companies, by Marica Angell, the
former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine). What kind of
Being sacrifices human health in pursuit of profit?
In the same way, human labor is also
reduced to an item in a budget. Jobs are outsourced and offshored, and we
recognize a “race to the bottom,” in wages and benefits, that now takes place
on a global scale. Community is pitted against community, and even country
against country, as the lowest in wages and environmental standards is
relentlessly pursued by huge Global corporations. Again we must ask ourselves: What
kind of Being divides human beings one from another in this way?
This type of behavior is not what we
might expect from a friendly being. If this were a human being acting in this
manner, we would characterize them as “heartless”. And, in fact, this is
exactly what the corporate being is.
Corporations live on information and
money. They develop and drive the development of faster and more sophisticated
computer technology and information processing systems. This “feeds their
heads”, enabling them to process more and more information about everything
they need to know to work their will. And money is the vehicle though which
that will is exercised. Where is the corporate heart? Corporate philanthropy is
inextricably tied to public relations and the burnishing of the corporate
image. Occasionally, a human being within the corporate system is able to
harness resources to do good works, but this is rare and certainly not within
the mission of the corporation, which, by law and custom, is strictly tied to
the generation of profit and the accumulation of power and influence.
When we describe human beings who
have strongly developed intellects and wills, but act in a “heartless” manner,
the technical term often used to describe them is “sociopath”. This is,
in a very real sense, a descriptor which absolutely fits the “normal”
corporation and the way it interacts with the world. When the most powerful
institutions in our world are sociopaths, it is not surprising that we are in
such a precarious position as a planet and as a human family.
The
Corporation and Human Freedom
In the context of the evolution of
humanity, however, it is the relationship of the Corporate Being to the
furtherance of human freedom that is most important.
Here in the United States, we seem
to have a great deal of outer freedom. We are aware of the real limitations
imposed by economic class, by ethnicity, gender and even sexual orientation.
Still, compared to other societies, and in our own estimation, we see ourselves
as a “free people.” Indeed, our government often speaks of exporting this
freedom to other lands—whether they want it or not!
For us, the deeper question is one
of “inner freedom”.
What does this mean?
The two acknowledged masters of the
“dystopian future” were George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. Their seminal works, 1984
and Brave New World, depicted futures without freedom. The first described
a world controlled through media and mass propaganda leading to “thought
control,” the other depicted similar (though softer) results through the use of
drugs. Both men wrote only a half century ago, and both scenarios seem to be
converging into a frightening present.
If we examine what is happening to
childhood today, the situation is thrown into clear relief. It is not only that
children are consuming more and more media at younger and younger ages,
although that is bad enough. More fundamentally, this media is being used to
consciously manipulate their thoughts, feelings and activities.
Children are being turned into little consumers and becoming “branded”
for life. Books such as Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood,
Kidnapped: How Irresponsible Marketers are Stealing the Minds of Your
Children and Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer
Culture are just three of many books, articles and studies that document
this phenomenon. As Susan Linn, psychologist and author of Consuming Kids,
puts it: “Comparing the advertising of two or three decades ago to the
commercialism that permeates our children’s world is like comparing a BB gun to
a smart bomb. The explosion of marketing aimed at kids today is precisely
targeted, refined by scientific method, and honed by child psychologists—in
short, it is more pervasive and intrusive than ever before.”
The result is a constant,
sophisticated and well financed assault on the inner life of our youngest and
most vulnerable human beings. Children—even babies—have become a “target
market” for those who control the means of mass communications. If these
giant corporations have their way, every “choice” our children have will be
between Coke and Pepsi, between Nike and Adidas, or between valium and lithium.
And, from Orwell’s perspective, his world will simply be the same, but upside
down: Instead of the media constantly watching the people, the people will be
constantly watching the media. The results, in terms of human freedom, will be
more or less the same.
In this context, it is vital to
differentiate between the human beings working within the corporate system and
the “Being” that inhabits the Corporation. The humans are attuned to making a
profit as the end product of their behavior. Even if they are selling empty
calories to children, or affecting the body image of young people in ways that
lead to bulimia and anorexia, or using sex and violence to sell toys, they are
just doing their jobs and making a living. As people, they may have qualms
about their work, but for the most part they see themselves as cogs in the
economic system that sustains us all, and powerless to alter the process.
The motive of the Corporate Being is
quite different. It is interested in debasing and controlling human beings, at
blinding us to our potential to actualize the Christ within us. Corporate
advertising is aimed at the lowest aspect of the human ego, the part that
increases selfishness and separates us from the fate of others. The
Corporation is, in a very real sense, the most important way that the
“Anti-Christ” works in our world today.
Helping
the Human Miracle Occur
Under these conditions, how can our
children ever meet and recognize the Christ within them? Miraculously, many do.
Still, in the modern age, it is up to us to help these miracles occur, not to
passively acquiesce in the takeover of our progeny. We know that God helps
those who help themselves. In the face of this huge, powerful and, finally,
anti-human Being, how can we help ourselves, our children and our world?
It is in the nature of Evil to
overreach itself. It is never satisfied, but must continue to accumulate. While
it may work behind the scenes with some subtlety for a time, its tendency to
expose itself in its unrelenting quest is one of the areas of hope and
opportunity for those working in the spirit of human progress. Today, we are
presented with such a moment and such an opportunity.
The recent Supreme Court decision
extending “corporate free speech” into the realm of direct political
contributions has brought the issue of “corporate personhood” into public
consciousness in an unparalleled way. There has been, for many years, a small movement
devoted to exposing the dangers of this doctrine and proposing a variety of
solutions to mitigating, if not ending, the influence of corporations on our
government and cultural institutions. For most people, even those who are
politically engaged, this effort seemed somewhat abstract, and lacked the
immediacy associated with other political struggles (wars, climate change,
etc). And yet, so many of these immediate issues are the result of unfettered
corporate power, and changing this will open the possibilities for positive
solutions to a wide variety of cultural, political, environmental and economic
challenges facing humanity today.
The effort can begin with conscious
recognition that these corporations, whatever their spiritual and material composition,
are not people and should not be considered people for any purpose.
Limiting
Corporate Power
When corporations began, they were
limited in many ways. They were limited in the scope of their operations (they
were chartered for a specific, public purpose such as building a canal, road,
etc), they were limited in their duration (when their purpose was accomplished,
they were to be dissolved), and they were limited as to the financial liability
of individual investors. Today, only this last limitation exists. They have
become undying beings, able to act unchecked in the economic ream and dominate
both politics and our cultural life. And the final limitation, that they
existed to serve a specific social need, also has been lifted. The
responsibility of the corporation today is to make money for its shareholders,
and the collateral damage to human beings and our planet is an externalized
cost to be borne by the entire society, not the corporation itself.
We need to return the corporation to
its original form and social intention. To begin, we should work to redefine
corporations as subordinate entities that may enjoy privileges granted by human
beings, not rights. Perhaps the most important of these privileges to take
back is that of free speech. It is through this right that corporations
inundate us with advertising, buy politicians, influence elections, and exert a
stranglehold on our media and all our communications. The curtailing of
corporate free speech is not an attack on the concept of free speech in our
society—it is an essential precursor to the reestablishment of human free
speech.
When Oakhurst Dairy, a family-owned
Maine business, used labels that stated they did not use artificial growth
hormones, Monsanto Corporation sued them. They claimed it was an unfair
business practice because it implied the inferiority of products derived from
cows fed artificial hormones. Oakhusrt backed down and diluted their statement.
This is only one example among many of how corporations routinely seek to curtail
criticisms of their products and practices by using their vast resources to sue
humans who question their work. The attempt to impose “ag-gag” laws, making the
obtaining and publishing of photos exposing conditions on factory farms is a
stark illustration of the relationship between corporate “rights” to advertise
and sell their products as safe and healthful, and our right to know the truth
about what we are being fed.
In a situation where resources can
trump truth, both free speech and equality under the law for humans are clearly
in danger. The Post-Civil War amendments, passed to protect the rights of newly
freed slaves, have become a huge and mighty shield for corporations to hide
behind as they work their will upon an increasingly powerless human population.
On a practical level, an effective
tool would be a constitutional amendment clarifying the fact that the rights
enumerated in the constitution apply strictly to natural persons, not
artificial beings created by law.
Tactically, I believe this to be
both worthwhile as a goal and valuable as a tool of education and organization:
- It is completely legal.
- It is absolutely non-violent.
- It can be worked for on a local, state and national level.
- It is simple to explain.
- It can unite many groups—social conservatives, economic activists, people concerned with the environment, people of faith, etc.
- It allows us to challenge politicians and political parties with a very simple question: Do you support the rights of human beings over the rights of corporations?
- Despite the “simplicity” of the question, it goes to the spiritual core of the issue: Do we work for the good of the developing human being, the bearer of the Christ within each of us, or do we acquiesce to the forces that seek to control, manipulate and exploit human beings on the physical, emotional and spiritual levels of our existence?
An amendment to our constitution, as
described above, would go a long way towards bringing corporations under
control and allow us to build a free and humane future for ourselves and our
children. I urge people of faith to examine this issue, and to join this effort
in whatever way makes sense to you.
A coalition has been formed of
groups interested in working on this constitutional amendment. Information on
this coalition can be found at www.MoveToAmend.org, along with descriptions and contact information on local
groups and activities. This is a unique opportunity to build bridges and work
in a positive way with people from many communities, and a movement in which
people of faith can play an important role.
Each day, the threads of corporate control weave
tighter, and the threat to our planet, our freedom and our future looms larger.
If we are to achieve our goal of incorporating the Christ within ourselves, and
giving our children a chance to do the same, we must begin today. It is, in
fact, our sacred duty as Christians and as human beings
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