Reprinted from the September-October 2014 Postscript of Church & Life.
Who/what is, and is not a person, is basic to our democracy; personhood is the basis for establishing equality. But right now the struggle in itself is not even newsworthy! It is receiving little attention. We are hungrier to hear about war in Iraq or Syria or about football stars who beat up their wives.
The historic “Democracy for All” amendment received its first full vote in the Senate on 9/11/14, receiving 54 votes, but due to a Republican filibuster was not passed because it needed 60 votes. Nevertheless, getting the amendment to a vote was a victory itself.
But whether the Supreme Court’s decision that corporations have personhood will hold fast may be the most urgent question of our lifetime. This is true in the United States, certainly, but also felt throughout the world in a global economy where the wealth and power of multi-national corporations far surpasses that of many countries and their government.
Who/What is entitled to the rights of personhood? What about abortion? At least the personhood of a fetus has intellectual and moral logic. A robot? One can conceive of arguing over whether an exceptional robot should be granted personhood—several are performing duties similar to those accomplished by humans, sometimes better and cheaper. Certain animals? My dog has more similarities to humans than a corporation—but his rights come under the classification of animal rights, not personhood. A clone? Should a cloned human being be considered a human being in his/her own right with all the rights of personhood? I doubt it, because I don’t think we’re talking about personhood at all when it comes to the Citizen United decision to grant personhood to corporations. This was an activist Supreme Court decision based on a thin thread sewn in another situation in a different time. It was a decision to make inequality legal between corporations and individuals.
I am interested in the statement Danish parliamentarian Esben Larsen made when I asked him about the French Revolution. Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood. Why didn’t that work? His answer was straightforward. “Because they left out the God dimension.” The Supreme Court also left out the God dimension in its decision regarding corporations and personhood.
People were created in God’s image. “In the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” How else would Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply? But Corporations.—they don’t multiply. Often they do the opposite—they merge! They develop franchisees, but they don’t multiply. There is nothing in Genesis that indicates God created corporations. He created the waters, the dry land. Day and Night. The sun, the moon, the stars, God created. The fish, the birds in the air? Yes. The cattle and the beasts. Yes. And it was good. But corporations? Nope.
But perhaps there was an 8th day! Maybe after God had rested he got to thinking that He really should add something more and He went ahead and created Corporations. Perhaps a secret lost manuscript says: “And on the Eighth Day, God made corporations. And God said, “They shall be very rich; and shall have dominion over all the people: they shall have offices on small islands and not pay taxes, and shall decide who wins elections and who should go to war and who should not. The earth will firstly be theirs to do as they please and also all the creatures who dwell there upon. They may drink oil and minerals from the land and the oceans as they wish and foul the air since the waters and airs are created primarily for them. They shall make billions in profits and keep wages low so the people will despair, and have war with one another in the name of liberty; and these corporations will flourish from these wars. And then God said, ‘That’s good”???
There was no 8th Day. Nope.
Namaste is a Hindu greeting which means “The divine in me salutes the divine in you.” It is for people, fellow divine beings. A corporation is not a divine being. A corporation is a complexity of policies and goals carried out by people. We need corporations! We depend on them! But there are important differences. Every corporate decision must first and last be a business decision. There is nothing wrong with that. Corporations are established to succeed financially. Human beings must also consider economic consequences of decisions, but often our personal goals, our relationships to the community, how a decision affects our families as well as ourselves, precedes a purely economic motive.
But the Supreme Court has turned our entire country over to those who first and foremost make “business decisions” in the interests of the most powerful. The United States of America was set up to have a government “of the People, by the People and for the People.” That now means “with special powers to Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations.” There is no more equality.
This is NOT to say corporations in themselves are bad—it is only to say they are not people and should not be treated as such. People are divine beings—many have a ways to go, but nevertheless they are divine beings. Corporations are not divine beings.
Wealth and success accomplish great things. It may be legal but it is also immoral for multi-millionaire corporations to not pay taxes, corporations who have made fortunes because of this country. And it is immoral to make billions of profits and pay poverty-level wages to workers who have enabled them to be successful.
We press on.
ji
But whether the Supreme Court’s decision that corporations have personhood will hold fast may be the most urgent question of our lifetime. This is true in the United States, certainly, but also felt throughout the world in a global economy where the wealth and power of multi-national corporations far surpasses that of many countries and their government.
Who/What is entitled to the rights of personhood? What about abortion? At least the personhood of a fetus has intellectual and moral logic. A robot? One can conceive of arguing over whether an exceptional robot should be granted personhood—several are performing duties similar to those accomplished by humans, sometimes better and cheaper. Certain animals? My dog has more similarities to humans than a corporation—but his rights come under the classification of animal rights, not personhood. A clone? Should a cloned human being be considered a human being in his/her own right with all the rights of personhood? I doubt it, because I don’t think we’re talking about personhood at all when it comes to the Citizen United decision to grant personhood to corporations. This was an activist Supreme Court decision based on a thin thread sewn in another situation in a different time. It was a decision to make inequality legal between corporations and individuals.
I am interested in the statement Danish parliamentarian Esben Larsen made when I asked him about the French Revolution. Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood. Why didn’t that work? His answer was straightforward. “Because they left out the God dimension.” The Supreme Court also left out the God dimension in its decision regarding corporations and personhood.
People were created in God’s image. “In the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.” How else would Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply? But Corporations.—they don’t multiply. Often they do the opposite—they merge! They develop franchisees, but they don’t multiply. There is nothing in Genesis that indicates God created corporations. He created the waters, the dry land. Day and Night. The sun, the moon, the stars, God created. The fish, the birds in the air? Yes. The cattle and the beasts. Yes. And it was good. But corporations? Nope.
But perhaps there was an 8th day! Maybe after God had rested he got to thinking that He really should add something more and He went ahead and created Corporations. Perhaps a secret lost manuscript says: “And on the Eighth Day, God made corporations. And God said, “They shall be very rich; and shall have dominion over all the people: they shall have offices on small islands and not pay taxes, and shall decide who wins elections and who should go to war and who should not. The earth will firstly be theirs to do as they please and also all the creatures who dwell there upon. They may drink oil and minerals from the land and the oceans as they wish and foul the air since the waters and airs are created primarily for them. They shall make billions in profits and keep wages low so the people will despair, and have war with one another in the name of liberty; and these corporations will flourish from these wars. And then God said, ‘That’s good”???
There was no 8th Day. Nope.
Namaste is a Hindu greeting which means “The divine in me salutes the divine in you.” It is for people, fellow divine beings. A corporation is not a divine being. A corporation is a complexity of policies and goals carried out by people. We need corporations! We depend on them! But there are important differences. Every corporate decision must first and last be a business decision. There is nothing wrong with that. Corporations are established to succeed financially. Human beings must also consider economic consequences of decisions, but often our personal goals, our relationships to the community, how a decision affects our families as well as ourselves, precedes a purely economic motive.
But the Supreme Court has turned our entire country over to those who first and foremost make “business decisions” in the interests of the most powerful. The United States of America was set up to have a government “of the People, by the People and for the People.” That now means “with special powers to Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations.” There is no more equality.
This is NOT to say corporations in themselves are bad—it is only to say they are not people and should not be treated as such. People are divine beings—many have a ways to go, but nevertheless they are divine beings. Corporations are not divine beings.
Wealth and success accomplish great things. It may be legal but it is also immoral for multi-millionaire corporations to not pay taxes, corporations who have made fortunes because of this country. And it is immoral to make billions of profits and pay poverty-level wages to workers who have enabled them to be successful.
We press on.
ji
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