Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It [Paperback]

Jeffrey D. Clements (Author), Bill Moyers (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2012

This is the first practical guide for every citizen on the problem of corporate personhood and the tools we have to overturn it. Jeff Clements explains why the Citizen's United case is the final win in a campaign for corporate domination of the state that began in the 1970s under Richard Nixon. More than this, Clements shows how unfettered corporate rights will impact public health, energy policy, the environment, and the justice system. Where Thom Hartmann's Unequal Protection provides a much-needed detailed legal history of corporate personhood, Corporations Are Not People answers the reader's question: "What does Citizens United mean to me?" And, even more important, it provides a solution: a Constitutional amendment, included in the book, which would reverse Citizens United. The book's ultimate goal is to give every citizen the tools and talking points to overturn corporate personhood state by state, community by community with petitions, house party kits, draft letters, shareholder resolutions, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeff Clements is a co-founder and General Counsel of Free Speech for People, a national, nonpartisan campaign to strengthen self-government and democracy in America by reversing Citizens United v. FEC and corporate rights doctrines that unduly leverage corporate economic power into political power. Jeff is also founder of Clements Law Office, LLC, and has represented and advocated for people, businesses and the public interest since 1988.

Bill Moyers is an American journalist and public commentator with an extensive involvement with public television, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has been president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy since 1990.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers (January 9, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1609941055
• ISBN-13: 978-1609941055
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #177,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Following the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, when the Supreme Court empowered corporations, regardless of size or global reach, to spend unlimited money in our elections, I co-founded Free Speech for People (www.freespeechforpeople.org). We are part of the growing movement for a Constitutional amendment that will overturn Citizens United and take back our government and Bill of Rights for people.

I live and work in Concord, Massachusetts, not far from Walden Pond and the North Bridge over the Concord River, where the American Revolution began. Since 1988, I've represented people and businesses as an attorney, and have served as an Assistant Attorney General in Massachusetts.

I hope that you will check out the book, Corporations Are Not People, and consider joining the growing reform efforts to rebuild that rarest of things: A peaceful republic of free and equal people. Also, please check in at my blog, www.corporationsarenotpeople.com, and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

103 of 107 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Worse Than We Thought But More Easily Fixed Than We Imagined January 8, 2012

By David C N Swanson

Format:Paperback

This book should mainstream the campaign to end corporate personhood.

Clements traces the development of the legal doctrine of corporate personhood back long before the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision two years ago this month, in particular to President Richard Nixon's appointment of Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court in 1972. Led by Powell's radical new conception of corporate rights, Clements shows, the court began striking down laws that protected living breathing persons' rights in areas including the environment, tobacco, public health, food, drugs, financial regulation, and elections.

In 1978 the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had speech rights that prevented banning their money from an election, a conclusion that might have been nearly incomprehensible a decade earlier before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and various corporate foundations began filling our public discourse with phrases like "corporate speech." In 1980 Congress forbade the Federal Trade Commission from protecting children or students from junk food advertising and sales. In 1982 corporate speech rights in the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a state law that had attempted to block energy companies from promoting greater energy consumption. In the 1990s, the Monsanto corporation, whose genetically engineered drug was banned in many countries, won the right to include it in milk in the United States and the "right not to speak," thereby overturning a law requiring that milk be labeled to indicate the drug's presence.

Decision after decision has extended corporate rights to a position of priority over actual human rights on everything from food and water and air to education and healthcare and wars. The ground has shifted. In 1971 Lewis Powell argued on behalf of the cigarette companies that they had a corporate person's right to use cartoons and misleading claims to get young people hooked on nicotine, and he was laughed out of court. In 2001, the Supreme Court struck down a state law banning cigarette ads within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. The reason? The sacred right of the corporate person, which carries more weight now than the rights of the people of a community to protect their children ... er, excuse me, their "replacement smokers."

And why do corporate rights carry so much weight? One reason is that, as Clements documents and explains, "transnational corporations now dominate our government" through election spending. This is why a civilized single-payer health coverage system like those found in the rest of the wealthy nations of the world is not "practical." This is why cutting military spending back to 2007 levels would mean "amageddon" even though in 2007 it didn't. This is why our government hands oil corporations not only wars and highways but also massive amounts of good old money. This is why we cannot protect our mountains or streams but can go to extraordinary lengths to protect our investment bankers.

"Since the Citizens United decision in 2010," Clements writes, "hundreds of business leaders have condemned the decision and have joined the work for a constitutional amendment to overturn expanded corporate rights." You might not learn this from the corporate media, but there is a widespread and growing mainstream understanding that abuse by oversized mega-corporations has been disastrous for ordinary businesses as well as communities, families, and individuals. Clements' turns out to be a pro-business, albeit anti-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, book.

And what can be done? We can build an independent, principled, and relentless Occupy movement and include as a central demand the amending of the U.S. Constitution to end corporate personhood. Clements' book offers a draft amendment, a sample resolution, a collection of frequently asked questions (and answers), a list of organizations, websites, resources, books, and campaigns.

This is doable, and it is what we should do this election year so that in future election years we might actually have elections.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, Educational, Inspiring January 30, 2012

By Diogenes

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a social-change activist since 1969, and one who has been studying and writing about "The Pernicious Fiction of Corporate Personhood" for many years, I can heartily recommend Jeff Clement's book. It brings the work of the late Richard Grossman (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) and Thom Hartmann (Unequal Protection) up to the present moment, lucidly explains the effect of corporate dominance on our daily lives, and paves a path for all those who care about restoring our "improbable" experiment in republican democracy both back to its foundations and forward to its promise.

With clarity and eloquence unexpected in such a treatise, Jeff Clements articulates a positive vision and a practical guide for Tea Partiers and #Occupiers alike to join hands in the most important work that American citizens can take on at this pivotal moment in our common journey. It is an inspiration and an invitation. Read it and you will want to do your part in creating a legacy worth leaving to our progeny.

In 1776, Thomas Paine published his pamphlet Common Sense, which laid out the historical precedents and current sad state of affairs of America, and proposed that we unite in drawing a line and standing together for "the rights of mankind and of the free and independent states of America". That pamphlet inspired a revolution. Two hundred thirty-six years later, almost to the day, Jeffrey Clements published another clarion call for restoring our human rights and the independence of our nation, with a similarly common sense strategy for a second American revolution.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A significant study of the problem and clear, meaningful steps to help us take back our democracy February 11, 2012

By mackolb

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you care about our democracy and the value of your vote in local, state and national elections, then this is a MUST READ!
First read the Constitution of the United States of America - all ~4500 words which take about 1/2 hour to read.
Then read this book. It is an intelligent, reasoned, thorough and complete handbook every American should read.