On Thu, 3 Jun 1999 12:55:01 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>annia wrote:
>
>>There's some citizens or lawyers group in colorado trying to pass a
>>three-strikes law for corporations: break three state laws, and you
>>can't do business there any more. I think it's a way of highlighting
>the
>>double standard: i.e., we crack down on people for three offenses,
>but
>>violate three environmental or labor laws and you'll *still* get a
>huge
>>tax break, etc. Does anybody know anything about this? Like the name
>of
>>the group, for example? I read about it somewhere, but can't remember
>>where ...
>
>Don't know about the Colo thing, but the anti-corporate charter crowd
>has a
>web site at <http://www.ratical.com/corporations/index.html>. It all
>seems
>very legalistic to me - very Constitutional, in that classically
>American
>way, with lawyers standing in for mass political movements - and it's
>not
>clear what they'd replace corporations with. But there it is.
>
>Doug
Don't such reformers fall into the error of confusing property relations with the social relations of production? In Marxian terms. the latter are a part of the economic base whereas the former are a part of the legal superstructure. As part of the superstructure they function to help stabilize the base. If corporations as a legal form are abolished or modified, this is not likely to have much effect on the social relations of production unless such reforms come as Doug suggests as part of a mass political movement. Otherwise, corporations as legal entities will simply be replaced by some other legal entity that will perform the same type of functions in regards to the existing mode of production. Alas, as Doug suggests such legalistic hocus pocus is too much a part of American reformist politics, and is a poor substitute for the real thing.
Jim Farmelant
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