A former Reagan administration financial regulator and author, William Black, in a Democracy Now! interview on the ongoing financial crisis and the Occupy Wall Street movement, appears to be one of the more impartial yet knowledgeable voices I’ve heard regarding the subject—Elizabeth Warren also being one of those voices. Black stopped just short of specifically reminding us that the US Supreme Court’s actions have made “slaves” of the majority of those who work in corporate environments for a living.
Regarding Black’s statement about the history of the corporate personhood movement, it may have accelerated after the US Civil War, but its roots are a response to the signing of the Magna Carta that declared kings were not entitled to “divine rights.” Now we just need to recognize that neither are the mega-international-respect-no-government corporations nor Wall Street banks “divine” and should not be bestowed with “personhood-in-perpetuity,” when it comes at unreasonable expense to the communities and other stakeholders with which they co-exist—and without which they could not exist at all. States really need to take a look at how they charter these corporations so that CEOs don’t have their hands tied with regard to doing the right thing by stakeholders, not just shareholders—especially when they are rarely willing to do anything beyond the legal mandate of delivering profit to shareholders at all costs.
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