[lbo-talk] Challenge for leftists of all stripes

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Mon Nov 29 13:00:12 PST 2004


----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>

John Thornton wrote:
>All persons are guaranteed "free speech". Corporations can donate
>money to political parties or individuals as a guaranteed form of
>free speech.
-I think this line of complaint is more petit bourgeois than -proletarian. It seems founded on an often undisclosed nostalgia for -the 19th century world of proprietorships or small partnerships. And -what a wonderful time that was!

No, the complaints about legal personhood for corporations have to do with the history of courts in the US using that "personhood" to endow them with a range of constitutional rights that legislatures could not regulate. For decades, those rights included a range of economic contracting rights that stunted legislative regulation.

More recently, "free speech" and other "associational" rights have been raised to try to block a range of regulations. Let me give one example. At one point, California required Pacific Gas & Electric to include a flyer by a consumer group, TURN, advertising to ratepayers their ability to join TURN and support a consumer advocate against higher electric rates. The US Supreme Court struck down this law as violating the free speech rights of PG&E against having to be associated with the views of TURN.

Believe me, in the legal work I do on economic regulation, corporate opponents cite their constiutional rights against violations of equal protection, free speech, due process and a range of other rights to combat economic regulation. Corporate personhood is indeed one of the deadlier weapons against democracy in the United States. We had a period after the New Deal when this was largely abandoned, but it is creeping up on us day-to-day and is likely to accellerate in the coming years as more reactionary jurists extend their control of the courts.

Nathan Newman



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