Customer Reviews

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

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I was actually in the process of writing a book about the same subject matter when I became aware of Mr. Hartmann's book. After reading this book I conclude that Mr. Hartmann beat me to it and has done a more thorough job than would have satisfied me. It is a very important matter and threatens to change our nation in fundamental ways. A shortcoming in Mr. Hartmann's book is the weakness of his proposed solutions. I have proposed to Mr. Hartmann actions which I think would be more effective in the long haul. I am searching for an existing organization having the sole goal of putting back in their place those corporations which are usurping the power given We the People by the Constitution. I'm too old to form a new orgnization and those I have learned of are not sufficiently focused.

Disclaimer: I'm a bit more than half through the book - and ready to comment on it.

I read quite a few books on liberal politics. This one is on a very short 'best' list of them.

It hits its mark right on - just the right amounts of history, the scope of its message, the gritty details when needed, the pacing.

I began to learn new details on well-trodden ground early in the book - for example, who knew that the pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower in 1620 were hardly England beginning its presence in North America - that it was the Mayflower's third or fourth trip carrying over staff of the East India company since 1601 - it was a company presence, the religious visitors were an afterthought.

He does an outstanding job of explaining the dominant role of colonists' opposition to the East India company in our own resolution. It's important to understand these things when we look at how to respond to powerful corporations today.

He does an excellent, balanced expose of the history of the legal doctrine that corporations are entitled to equality with humans.

The ramifications are huge, as today we face a political system in which the influence of our citizens is dwarfed by that of the inhuman organizations - where the citizens are turned into consumers to be sold to and manipulated with well-funded marketing, rather than acting as the sovereigns necessary for a democracy to work well.

If we don't begin to do something now, the chances may begin to disappear to be able to. Even now, we have democracy's power to represent its people castrated by clauses in the so-called 'free trade' agreements which allow the corporations to get all kinds of laws nullified.

I highly recommend the book.

My only problem with this book is that it's not more politically neutral, so that conservatives could read it without wincing. If you're liberal, you'll have no trouble at all (I'm fiercely post-partisan).

Given the recent ruling by our newly conservative Supreme Court, I think book is a must read. Pick your favorite problem for "whats wrong with America" and I think what the SC just did trumps them all in the grand scheme of things.

So everyone needs to read this book so they know the historical facts about the relationship between corporations and our human rights. Ayn Rand fans love to say that there is no such thing as a "conflict of rights", that people just don't properly understand what is a "right" and what are real valid human rights. I think this book points up a true conflict of rights. Unfortunately, I think the Supreme Court has made what Ken Wilber would call a "category error" when they extended the right of free speech to corporations.

Corporations are MADE UP of individuals, but they are NOT individuals. They are collectives. So how simple is that logic? For more reading on how flawed this logic is, one could read a book like "Complexity" by M.M. Waldrop. That would hammer the point home to the dipsticks on the SC who made such a deeply flawed logical error that even a 1st year philosophy student could play "name that fallacy."

Anyway, READ THE BOOK, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum. Yes, one of the reviewers here who is trained in corporate law correctly points out how it's a lot more complicated than what Hartmann presents in his book. But isn't that the case for almost everything in life? The main point that needed to be made was, legally, what we have now is VERY different from where we have come from, and that it's certainly not what the Founding Fathers intended, in fact, it's one of the reasons there was a revolution in the first place.

"We the People" is now a joke. If the recent "financial reform" in DC didn't make it clear that Wall St is running the show, then you're asleep at the wheel, and in that sense, all Americans bear some responsibility for letting our system go so far off the rails.

Recently I read a statistic that isn't in Thom Hartmann's UNEQUAL PROTECTION: THE RISE OF CORPORATE DOMINANCE AND THE THEFT OF HUMAN RIGHTS but illustrative of the book's central theme: Because of automobile industry lobbying against airbag requirements, 100,000 Americans whose lives airbags would have saved died in car crashes while car company lobbyists held up airbag implementation as standard equipment. To put that number in perspective, consider the Vietnam War took 58,000 American lives. Yet which caused people to demonstrate, the Vietnam War or the delay in airbag installations?

UNEQUAL PROTECTION covers the sick history of corporate influence in the United States government. While people rightly call for prevention of and protection from visible dangers such as war and street crime, hazards they don't see put them at greater risk because corporations pay bribes (excuse me, I mean to say make campaign contributions) to lawmakers to weaken regulations that would guard the public from toxic waste, unsafe working conditions and other such unseen peril.

As I write this in April 2009, on April 15 divisive organizations staged reenactments of the Boston Tea Party in the name of fighting what they call excessive taxation. As UNEQUAL PROTECTION explains, in reality the Boston Tea Party protested the government giving monopoly status to the East India Tea Company, the Wal-Mart of its time.

Read UNEQUAL PROTECTION.

This might have been more succinct, but it does a thorough job of showcasing the history behind corporate dominance in the US and how this has extended to the world-at-large as a clerical "head note" was accepted into law. In all, if you are interested in how corporations have usurped human rights and undermined our legal system, this may be just the place to start...or read more, as the case might be.

Thom Hartmann has provided a synthesis of history, economics, politics and social issues in a way that is grounded, easy to read, and above all, provides a secure understanding of the path this country has taken to surrendering democracy.

I must emphasize how nicely this information and analysis sticks to your brain, and yet is a comprehensive work that does not dumb down to the reader.

Great Christmas gift for your conservative friends who don't even know why they are conservative!!!!

Thom starts with the East India Company of the 1500's and its "corporate" charter, and walks you through to today. Then he presents you with several sources and methods or starting a grass-roots movement to change the "Santa Clara" decision, which gave corporations personhood...excellent, excellent.

A very good evaluation how business dominates govenments, now and in the past. It illustrates how everyone must be vigilent if an individual is to be of any importance in any society. The informed reader will find the book somewhat redundant, because the author tends repeat examples after he has clearly made his point.

Going into the Freedom Portal (Free State) I had doubts about the morality, perhaps even the constitutionality, of corporations.

What, after all, is a corporation?

American Heritage says: "a) A body of persons granted a
charter legally recognizing them as a separate entity having
its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those
of its members. b) Such a body created for purposes of
government."

Now isn't the b) part of that definition interesting? At the very least we know corporations are creatures of the government and do not exist at common law.

Thomas Hartmann, a true modern lower-case democrat, writes that Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and several other Founders warned strenuously against monopoly corporations:

"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816

And from Andrew Jackson:

"Corporations have neither bodies to kick nor souls to damn."

These conscientious men were worried about abuse of power. Early chartering of corporations in America reflects this concern, often imposing severe limitations--such as prohibiting corporations from owning other corporations and requiring annual renewal of the charters.

Many people do not realize the Boston Tea Party was a revolt against corporate privilege. Queen Elizabeth charted the East India Company (EIC) in 1600; into the 1700s it dominated trade by Britain with America. Tea became a huge import to America by the mid-1700s and EIC wanted all the business.

Several acts prohibited Americans from acquiring tea from other sources. In 1773, the Tea Act exempted EIC (of which the king was a stockholder), but not colonial merchants, from taxes to the crown. The tea partiers were telling the Crown and the EIC stick their cheap tea where the sun don't shine.

...

For my complete review of this book and for other book and movie
reviews, please visit my site [...]

Brian Wright
Copyright 2007

Thom Hartmann traces the history of corporations, using the East India Company as an example of the power and behavior that they can exhibit.
Nothing has changed except the growth of power of the modern corporation.
The Boston Tea Party is revisited in light of some antiquated books of that era that the author purchased. This material is intriguing with the circumstances and motivation for the incident.

The history of corporate charters was another subject that rarely is discussed. The coporations were held accountable with revocation of their charters.

Of course the main bone of contention for Mr. Hartmann is the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.
He goes into great detail about how this case was decided on a small technicality. That being a fence and who could legally count it in taxing the railroad. Corporate personhood and the Fourteenth Amendment defense were never considered or factored into the ruling. The historical significance of this case is based on Headnotes written by court reporter J.C Bancroft Davis.

On page 161 the author quotes Theodore Roosevelt from 1910-
"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains".

And on page 75 he quotes Edward G. Ryan Chief Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court who offered these prescient questions-
"The question will arise and arise in your day, though perhaps not fully in mine, which shall rule-wealth or man; which shall lead-money or intellect; who shall fill public stations- educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital.."
Those quotes, among many others, emphasize Thom Hartmann's point that there have been a lot of historical figures that distrusted corporate or "monied" power.And they had good reason!

Chapters 3 in Part II "The Boston Tea Party Revealed" and Chapter 6 "The Deciding Moment" are great lessons in history and the corporate power grab that set the foundation for the corporatocracy that we currently have.

Part III lists the many inequalities enjoyed by corporations. Part IV offers solutions and examples to implement at a local level.

On the subject of corporate dominance this book is both thoroughly researched and well thought out.
Considering the recent Citizen United ruling, this book is definitely a must read!!