The U.S. was born in a revolt against the British monarch’s system of taxation, government and its corporations. For 100 years after the Boston Tea Party revolt in the Boston harbor and the ensuing Declaration Of Independence, Americans remained extremely suspicious of corporate power and were careful how they granted corporate charters in America, including the powers that were granted to them. So, initially corporations were controlled by the states which granted charters to incorporate and the states could dissolve any corporation if it violated its state charter. Limitations were set by the individual states on how big and powerful companies could ever become. Moreover, corporations were not allowed to participate in the political process and they could not buy stock in other corporations. If caught doing so the consequences were severe. This means at one time the people, not corporations, were in control.
So what happened? After the Civil War of 1860, this essentially marked the beginning of the struggle between corporations and civilians. During the Civil War corporations made huge profits off supplying war materials and services and thus began to pay-off or buy legislators, judges and supposedly even Presidents! President U.S. Grant, who was the first elected President after Lincoln was assassinated, has been accused by critics as one of the most corrupt Presidents ever. Before Lincoln was killed he warned that corporations have become enthroned and corruption will follow as corporate power and money will be used to work on the prejudices of the people to help aggregate the wealth into the hands of a few, thus destroying what our Founding Fathers envisioned as the republic and the true spirit of democracy!
Remember too that just a few hundred years before the Civic War currency became standardized by the aristocracy to maintain and sustain power and to this day everyone is still forced to use and borrow this same standardized currency from the aristocrat land owners who, in turn, became the governments, bankers and insurers we have today.
No one in power paid much attention to Lincoln’s protest about the corruption of corporate power and money. In fact, corporations grew stronger and more powerful until they were able to have the laws governing their very creation amended so that states could not revoke corporate charters and corporate profits could not be limited to how they would be used!
Eventually, even the U.S. Supreme Court virtually turned on the citizenry by declaring in a court case that a private corporation was entitled to protection under the Bill Of Rights, which then gave corporations all the rights and privileges enjoyed previously only by the people and this also included freedom of speech!
Freedom of speech gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. However, considering the vast financial and political resources wielded by corporations, they became far more powerful than the average citizen, essentially gaining more freedom and the ability to defend and exploit corporate rights and freedoms more than the citizenry.
This act by a few men on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to undermine the U.S. Constitution of one man one vote and equality in public debates. Sixty years later, Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, said this one court case had no historical precedence to be based on and was illogical and unreasonable. This one great legal blunder in the 19th Century seems to have changed the whole idea of democracy in government!
Today, in many cases, corporate trusts are far too powerful to be challenged and the court system seems to tend to consistently favor corporate interests. Also, many critics feel that America is now ruled by a coalition of government and business interests. Unlike a military takeover that could be pointed to, American corporations waged a gradual, subversive, covert takeover of power. Now many corporations are more powerful than many countries! The top 500 corporations in America hold 42% of the world’s wealth! They control the airwaves, bankroll elections and constantly lobby legislators to set their own industrial, economic and cultural agendas.
We, the People, have lost all control and have unknowingly even accepted it. We go to corporations on our knees and say please do not do this or do that. Have we forgotten how to stand up straight? The unofficial history of American corporations is a story of democracy derailed. The revolutionary spirit has been effectively suppressed. We, the People, have been reduced to servitude.
We, the affluent People, may be in no mood to revolt against our way of life…consumer capitalism. The masses seem unmoved by ecosystems collapsing all around us and wholesale corporate takeovers. We seem more concerned about getting good seats at sporting events while ordering up drinks to celebrate our newfound wealth provided by corporations and the stock market.
Today, you are either a player on the inside with your hand in the cash register and head in the sand with your lifestyle choices being approved by the unaware, unknowing and uncaring mass media, OR you are on the outside looking in and are considered to be of no consequence, just a pawn for the players to push around as they see fit. Are the power elites ignoring the angry rebels? As with most revolutions, the elite never really seems to notice the rage that is building invisibly, except for flashpoint revolts like the Black Panthers of the 1960s, the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, the Paris Latin Quarter Riot of 1968, the Vietnam War protests of the 60s & 70s, the Soviet and Berlin Wall collapse of the 70s, the 1910 Zapatista Mexican Revolution, and yes, even the Seattle protest of 1999 which was rage against the World Trade Organization (WTO) all of which planted the much needed seeds for social change.
Remember, the WTO has given corporations so much power that even countries are essentially powerless to enact legislation capable of fighting the biggest worldwide corporate conglomerates. Now, is it any wonder then why a large number of activists gathered in Seattle in 1999 to protest against the WTO? Radicals in the past have fought for intangible ideas that seem like dreams. Today, we look back and ask was there ever any doubt that these particular events and social movements would not affect social change?
In future protests against corporations they may be chanting “Remember Seattle!” like we used to chant “Remember the Alamo.” Remember the movie The Fight Club? In a strange way this movie expresses consumer rage against the deadening forces of commercialism, consumerism and corporate takeovers. The movie’s main characters harness the discontent of a generation whose identities have been forged from clothes, cars and other creature comforts. In the movie, government officials tell the band of rogues that they are wasting their time, like trying to fight a 700 pound gorilla! However, the anarchists remind the government and its corporate overseers that the People they are trying to keep down are the same people that government and corporations depend on to cook, clean, service, produce and even haul the trash, as well as guard them at night, so in the long run do not mess with the People. So, the bottom line to all this may be something as simple as, “Remember Seattle!”
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE WINTER 2000