=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #316
—December 16, 1992—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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CLARIFICATION: RIGHTS OF CORPORATIONS
Last week we suggested the need for a Constitutional amendment
declaring that a corporation is not a natural person and is therefore not
protected by the Bill of Rights and the 14th amendment to the
Constitution. Such an amendment would level the playing field
somewhat, giving communities and individuals a greater chance of
controlling anti-social corporate behavior. As we noted in earlier
newsletters (RHWN #308, #309), corporations are
now literally out of
control. Shareholders cannot control them; boards of directors cannot
control them; workers cannot control them; in a competitive world
market, even managers have lost control. In some cases, of course,
management doesn’t care about the environment or the community.
But even when managers, as individuals, want to do the right thing,
the logic of corporate growth and short-term gain often dictates
choices that do not serve the environment or the community. Since
corporate behavior is at the root of nearly all environmental problems,
stripping corporations of some of their rights (such as the
Constitutional protections guaranteed to individual citizens, which the
Supreme Court extended to corporations in 1886), would help
communities assert control over corporate behavior. Merely
DEBATING such an amendment would get people thinking about
power in the modern world, asking who has a legitimate right to
control what. Ask yourself: who ever gave private corporations the
right to manufacture and sell products that can destroy the planet as a
place suitable for human habitation? In suggesting such a
Constitutional amendment, we omitted reference to the original source
of the idea, author Richard Grossman.
For historical background on control of corporations, get: Richard
Grossman and Frank T. Adams, TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS:
CITIZENSHIP AND THE CHARTER OF INCORPORATION
(Cambridge, Mass.: Charter, Inc., 1992). For a copy, send $4.00 plus a
self-addressed, stamped envelope containing 52 cents postage to:
Charter, Inc., P.O. Box 806, Cambridge, MA 02140.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: corporations; constitution; us;