PART VI
America the Corporatocracy

FEW MODERN WRITERS HAVE DOCUMENTED THE CORPORATE stranglehold on our lives more convincingly than Thom Hartmann. From the debacle of our privatized health care system in “Medicine for Health, Not for Profit,” to the takeover of our natural resources in “Privatizing the Commons,” to the ruthlessly predatory worldview in “Sociopathic Paychecks,” Hartmann shows how corporate powers have seized control of most of the details of our daily lives, down to the air we breathe and the water we drink. Corporate-funded think tanks and corporate lobbyists have twisted and perverted our democracy. Corporations influence our elections by giving millions of dollars to political candidates (a practice, Hartmann points out, that used to be called bribery). At a time when we have the highest unemployment in decades and safety net programs are struggling, corporate profits in the third quarter of 2010 were $1.6 trillion, the highest on record.

How did we get here? How did American corporations insinuate themselves into the US Constitution and claim for themselves the rights of human beings? Curious, Hartmann visited the old Vermont State Supreme Court law library and dug up an original copy of the court proceedings from the 1886 US Supreme Court case, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. He discovered that “corporate personhood”—the concept that a corporation has all the rights of a person under the Constitution—was based on a mistaken interpretation of a corrupt court reporter’s notes in the case. “It was like running down a detective mystery,” he said. “That was when the foundations for corporate power were laid in the United States, and they were laid on the basis of a lie.”

While this erroneous notion has done immeasurable damage to our country, we face an even greater threat from the Citizens United decision, as Hartmann writes in “Wal-Mart Is Not a Person.” This 2010 Supreme Court ruling asserted that because corporations are people, they have First Amendment rights to free speech and may spend unlimited money supporting the politicians and the ballot initiatives of their choice. The consequences, Hartmann writes, will be “the complete transformation of this country from a democracy into a corporate plutocracy.”

He also investigated “The True Story of the Boston Tea Party,” overturning centuries-old misconceptions and discovering that “that incident in Boston Harbor” was actually a revolutionary protest over a corporate tax break. “It was a real shock to me to discover that the event that kicked over the first domino leading directly to the American Revolution was a direct-action protest against multinational corporate power,” he said. By going back to the beginnings of our nation, Hartmann shows how corporate personhood is incompatible with democracy. Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders were acutely aware of the dangers of unlimited corporate power and worked hard to ensure that a small group of affluent people would never dominate the United States.

Despite grave setbacks, it’s not too late to protect our public institutions and our commons. There is a growing movement to rescind corporate personhood and amend the Constitution to say that only humans are living people, relegating corporations to their rightful place—as nonliving, nonbreathing entities.^* Many communities have passed resolutions saying they will not recognize corporations as persons. We can all join this movement and work to abolish the corporate takeover of our politics and our culture. When you envision a world in which mega-corporations can pollute our air and water with impunity, cut down our forests, dodge taxes, control our media, buy and sell our elected officials, break laws at will, and even kill people without being held accountable, you begin to see that bringing an end to what Hartmann calls “the cancer of corporate personhood” is truly a life-or-death matter. “Rescinding corporate personhood is the first step toward a larger vision of reclaiming and reinvigorating democracy around the world,” he writes.

It’s always been Hartmann’s deepest aspiration that his audience do more than just passively listen or read—that they become active, awakened, agents of change. That’s why he wraps up each episode of his radio show with the slogan “Activism begins with you, democracy begins with you, get out there, get active! Tag, you’re it!” Many listeners proudly share stories on Hartmann’s blog of how they’ve become involved in local politics or grassroots organizing after listening to his radio program and becoming informed. In book after book, in articles and talks, on television and radio, Thom Hartmann constantly underscores the fact that a better, more sustainable, more equitable world begins with you. No special skills are required; just being a citizen of the United States gives you instant membership and a potent voice in our democracy. The rest is up to you. “Tag, you’re it!”