Product Description

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Was the Boston Tea Party the first WTO-style protest against transnational corporations? Did Supreme Court sell out America's citizens in the nineteenth century, with consequences lasting to this day? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people?

Thom Hartmann takes on these most difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history. He begins by uncovering an original eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party and demonstrates that it was provoked not by "taxation without representation" as is commonly suggested but by the specific actions of the East India Company, which represented the commericial interests of the British elite.

Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America.

It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162172 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

Review

Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies. (Paul Hawken, author of Natural Capitalism and The Ecology of Commerce )

Hartmann combines a remarkable piece of historical rersearch with a brilliant literary style to tell the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel. I intended to take a first quick glance and then couldn't put it down. (David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World )

Unequal Protection should be in the hands of every thinking American. If we do not awaken soon, democracy will be replaced by a new 'Third Reich' of corporate tyranny. To be aware of the danger is the responsibility of each of us. No one has told us the truth better than Thom Hartmann. Read it! (Gerry Spence, author of Give Me Liberty )

From the Publisher
"If you wonder why the corporate world constantly lurches from malaise to oppression to governmental corruption and back, Unequal Protection reveals the untold story. Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."
--Paul Hawken, author, Natural Capitalism

"I am grateful for this gift. It should be in the hands of every thinking American. If we do not awaken soon, democracy will be replaced by a new 'Third Reich' of corporate tyranny. To be aware of the danger is the responsibility of each of us. No one has told us the truth better than Thom Hartmann. Read it!"
--Gerry Spence, author, Give Me Liberty!

"This extraordinary book combines meticulous historical and legal research with a clear and compelling writing style to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt the incompatibility of corporate personhood with democracy, the market economy, and the well-being of society. Complete with a practical program for essential reform to restore the rights of real persons - including model legislation - it is essential reading and an invaluable reference work for every citizen who cares about democracy, justice, and the human future."
--David C. Korten, author, When Corporations Rule The World

"Unequal Protection is a blueprint for revitalizing the spirit of American democracy. Sometimes you have to understand the bad news in order to appreciate the good news. Thom Hartmann connects the dots in a way that is a tremendous gift for our generation of Americans."
--Marianne Williamson, author, Healing the Soul of America

"Essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of democracy, both here and abroad. With devastating precision and well-reasoned passion, Thom Hartmann shows the reader precisely how the corporate entity gained such a perilously dominant role in the life of a nation whose founders meant for its politics to respond to the concerns of people and communities, not return-seeking corporations."
--Jeff Gates, president, Shared Capitalism Institute, author, Democracy At Risk

"We thought it was only in science fiction that things created by humans could actually take over what is inherently our human heritage. But Thom Hartmann shows how we've already let that happen on a frightening scale - not in Frankenstein's monsters or Kubrick's creeping computer Hal - but in the corporations that present their friendly 'faces' to us as if we have nothing to fear from this ultimate usurpation of our rights as real humans."
--Ed Ayres, Senior Editor at Worldwatch and author, God's Last Offer

"For years, Thom Hartmann has been asking the important questions and inspiring people to act on their solutions. Now he tackles one of the hardest - how democracy in America and worldwide has been eroded by unaccountable corporate power. He looks at the structures that encourage destructive behaviour and offers alternatives. Fascinating history told engagingly. We need books like this to find a way forward."
--Paul Loeb, author, Soul of a Citizen

"Hartmann goes where no person has gone before - towards uncovering the true history of how corporations and the wealthy people behind them transformed our law and culture to usurp democracy. This book is an inspiration to all groups and communitites and explains why we must rethink our engagement in single issue struggles and move towards the assertion of direct, democratic control over corporations."
--Thomas Linzey, Esq., Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

"Many consider Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address to be the penultimate statement of our nation's spiritual mission. It's climactic words resolve that 'government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.' But we are today allowing a rise of corporate dominance that is producing a 'government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation.' Our government has lost track of its mandate to serve the public interest and seems increasingly to do the bidding of corporate interests. The consequences - for human rights, social justice, public health, and the environment - are catastrophic. How has this come to pass? And most critically, is there anything we can do about it? Unequal Protection is nothing less than an act of compelling and heroic sanity. It is THE book to read if you want to perceive corporate dominance clearly, become more able to stand in its way, and more able to uphold the true values of this nation."
--John Robbins, author The Food Revolution, and Diet For A New America

From the Inside Flap
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights

Was the Boston Tea Party the first WTO-style protest against transnational corporations? Did Supreme Court sell out America's citizens in the nineteenth century, with consequences lasting to this day? Is there a way for American citizens to recover democracy of, by, and for the people?

Thom Hartmann takes on these most difficult questions and tells a startling story that will forever change your understanding of American history. He begins by uncovering an original eyewitness account of the Boston Tea Party and demonstrates that it was provoked not by "taxation without representation" as is commonly suggested but by the specific actions of the East India Company, which represented the commericial interests of the British elite.

Hartmann then describes the history of the Fourteenth Amendment--created at the end of the Civil War to grant basic rights to freed slaves--and how it has been used by lawyers representing corporate interests to extend additional rights to businesses far more frequently than to freed slaves. Prior to 1886, corporations were referred to in U.S. law as "artificial persons." but in 1886, after a series of cases brought by lawyers representing the expanding railroad interests, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were "persons" and entitled to the same rights granted to people under the Bill of Rights. Since this ruling, America has lost the legal structures that allowed for people to control corporate behavior.

As a result, the largest transnational corporations fill a role today that has historically been filled by kings. They control most of the world's wealth and exert power over the lives of most of the world's citizens. Their CEOs are unapproachable and live lives of nearly unimaginable wealth and luxury. They've become the rudder that steers the ship of much human experience, and they're steering it by their prime value--growth and profit and any expense--a value that has become destructive for life on Earth. This new feudalism was not what our Founders--Federalists and Democratic Republicans alike--envisioned for America.

It's time for "we, the people" to take back our lives. Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that could truly save the world from political, economic, and ecological disaster.

About the Author:

Thom Hartmann is an award-winning author of more than a dozen books, an international relief worker and psychotherapist, a former business and marketing consultant, and the founder and former CEO of seven corporations that have generated over a quarter-billion dollars in revenue. The father of three grown children, he lives in central Vermont with his wife, Louise.

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Customer Reviews

The end of the American dream?
America's Founding Fathers and early Presidents warned that the success of the new republic depended on keeping corporations in check (p. 5). In fact, Thomas Jefferson believed that big government, organized religion, and commercial monopolies (the "pseudo aristoi") posed the biggest threats to human rights (pp. 69-70). In this sobering history of corporate America, Thom Hartmann demonstrates rather convincingly that inequalities of corporate regulation, taxes, responsibility for crime, privacy, wealth, trade, influence and access to natural resources are depriving us of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," the very rights that constitute the heart and soul of the American dream.

Hartmann draws parallels between the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and the more recent WTO protests. While most of us were taught that the colonists were upset about "taxation without representation," Hartmann asserts that the colonists were, in fact, protesting "government sponsorship of one corporation over all competitors, plain and simple" (p. 60). He also examines how corporations have used the Fourteenth Amendment--originally enacted to grant rights to freed slaves--to further their own economic interests to the detriment of our individual interests guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. Because of the notion that corporations have the same rights as persons, Hartmann asserts, the world is becoming more unequal everyday (p. 154). Painting a devastating picture of the state of our union, for the most part, Hartmann succeeds in ending his book with a rallying call for "we, the people," to reclaim our lives from corporate America, and to begin living the American dream once again, rather than the corporate dream that has been imposed upon us.

Critical and well-researched, this is a book that will no doubt be labeled as "radical" by corporate America, and like David Korten's WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD (1995) and the more recent CASE AGAINST THE GLOBAL ECONOMY (1997), Thom Hartmann's UNEQUAL PROTECTION is a book corporate America is hoping you won't read.

G. Merritt

Assault on the commons
Hartmann's analysis of the roots of corporate power is essential reading. He undermines the policies that have protected corporations for over a century. Legally protected today, corporations were long subject to general suspicion. Government charters to operate a business contained many constraining clauses that are now missing. How and why did this change come about? Should government constraints be restored, and if so, how would be brought about? Hartmann presents the history, issues and solutions to the growing corporate takeover of the global commons.

He opens by reminding us that the "commons" once represented a village pasture, shared by all. In modern times he argues the same concept embraces the entire planet. The sharing implies common sense be applied to its use. We are beginning to understand our planet is "the commons" for all humanity. Every human has some rights to that commons, but shares a responsibility for its well being. That set of rights and responsibilities is set by the community as a whole, not by any one individual. The community concept, however, is based on the idea that its members are essentially equal. The corporation, due to its amorphous structure and unique powers has gone beyond community ideals.

The history of corporate power rests on continued attempts to upgrade an "artificial" entity to a "natural" one. Hartmann traces the erosion of that ideal through this book. An early chip was taken when Queen Elizabeth I granted Francis Drake "freedom from liabilitie" to go pirating. It was an omen for the future. Although the Framers of the Constitution of the United States were vociferous in their resistance to corporations, events pushed their ideals aside. In a rapidly developing economy and to confront European competion, corporations arose and grew. As they grew, they sought not only protection from State taxation, they sought to further their ends by political action, something nearly all governments restrained. After many tries, they seemed to have accomplished it in 1889 during a court case over the collection of property taxes.

Hartmann details the events surrounding the case, pointing out that the corporate "victory" of achieving "personhood" is spurious. It was not part of the decision and added as a post judgement note. He suggests that railway lawyer Stephen J. Field likely influenced the writing of the notes by court reporter John C.B. Davis. The victory for business interests virtually turned the 14th Amendment to the Constitution on its head. Business now had the same "rights" as any naturally born human - privacy, investment, political activity and right to trial. Where a state issuing a corporate charter previously had the right to withdraw it for improper activity, a corporate existence was now sacrosanct. Given the vague nature of the corporation, "improper behaviour" could punish individuals, but not the corporation's
existence. Hartmann explains how this condition has led corporations to invade the global "commons" with impunity, ravaging nature to acquire resources and markets.

People often ask "if corporate dominance is so bad, what will you replace it with?" Hartmann states "the suggestion i'm putting forth in this book is to try democracy." The solution is simple enough - a return to Jeffersonian principles. That doesn't mean a regression to an agrarian society. It means, instead, a restoration of democratic practices - the raising of humans to their natural place of dominance over artificial entities. He encourages local communities to begin redefining their laws to reflect the concept that corporate organizations are not people. Once that precedent is established, the democratic ideal can be restored by revising laws and constitutions up through the political hierarchy. From communities through the states to the national government. He stresses that while there will certainly be resistance and scare tactics, enough popular pressure can restore those lost ideals.

Have We Come Full Circle?
To say the bookshelves are flooded with political fodder these days is an understatement. Some blame the state of the nation on "Stupid White Men", others talk about "Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism". No matter where you look or what you read, the mudslinging is intense. At times, these authors make EMINEM's rap "battles" with gangsters in the movie "8 Mile" look like an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club.

Unequal Protection, however, is not one of these books. It is an historical documentary of sorts that traces the history of the corporation and its role in society from the East India Company, through the FORTUNE 500 of today. It examines the people, actions, beliefs, and mistakes that have led to the extreme concentration of power and wealth among a select few global corporations.

While laying the foundation for the future of the United States, keeping power in the hands of the people and preventing institutions similar to the East India Company from gaining unlimited economic and political power was one of the key drivers. For many years corporations were kept relatively well in check and responsible to the people and governments that granted them the right to exist.

The passage of the 14th amendment, intended to give all persons (not corporations) equal rights, combined with a ruling in single court case that has been mistakenly interpreted to define corporations as "persons" like you and me opened the door to all kinds of crazy claims by corporations.

Subsequent claims and court rulings have directly and indirectly granted corporations virtually unbridled power through creative legislation and enabled some to operate with no consequences whatsoever for damaging and deadly actions.

"Unequal Protection" also discusses of NAFTA, which appears to have granted corporations the authority to override what people and sovereign nations have determined to be in their own best interest. This may include protecting local jobs and economies, banning Frankenfoods with the potential to disrupt and/or destroy the food supply and outlawing toxic additives or chemicals known to have adverse effects on public health and the environment.

The pursuit of profit is a necessary and healthy part of a democracy and free market economy. However, when it is the exclusive focus, to the detriment of the environment, the commons, and the health and well being of the people that make up societies and corporations, its time to take back the reigns. When corporations factor in the human and environmental costs associated with doing business and can be held accountable for their actions will real change begin.

Through the acceptance of corporations as persons in the legal sense, we've come full circle to facilitate and reward the types of actions and behaviors of the East India Company that this country originally fought so hard to get away from.

Unequal Protection is an outstanding work. It's history with a perspective, but does not in any way sink to the political mudslinging ways of other books that may be classified in a similar category.