(2003-01-02) Corporate Rights

Thom Hartmann says corporations should obey Isaac Asimov's Laws Of Robotics. Contra Nike's defending its "right to lie" (Corporate Rights) (about Sweat Shops, in PR/Advertising). Plus other good stuff. Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same "FreeSpeech" right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives... Thomas Jefferson and James Madison proposed an 11th US Constitutional Amendment that would "ban monopolies in commerce," making it illegal for corporations to own other corporations, banning them from giving money to politicians or trying to influence elections in any way, restricting corporations to a single business purpose, limiting the lifetime of a corporation to something roughly similar to that of productive humans (20 to 40 years back then), and requiring that the first purpose for which all corporations were created be "to serve the public good." The amendment didn't pass because many argued it was unnecessary: Virtually all states already had such laws on the books from the founding of this nation until the Age of the Robber Barons.

Update: they settled later in 2003.


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