Ralph Nader has just make a pretty good stab at coining a new catch phrase in a column for the Washington Post.
Excerpt:
"Corporate socialism" -- the privatization of profit and the socialization of risks and misconduct -- is displacing capitalist canons. This condition prevents an adaptable capitalism, served by equal justice under law, from delivering higher standards of living and enlarging its absorptive capacity for broader community and environmental values. Civic and political movements must call for a decent separation of corporation and state.
And, on the CitizenWorks page, they’ve got a long list of what Nader’s folks would like to do about it. Including: Amend the Constitution to define only people as "persons," preventing powerful corporations ("artificial persons"), already given privileges and immunities denied human beings, from usurping rights designed to protect natural human beings. Because U.S. courts have not made the distinction between natural "persons" and artificial "persons" more commonly known as corporations, the latter have been able to exercise rights originally intended exclusively for real people. Corporations have used the right to free speech, for instance, to defend political advertising campaigns. Large chain stores have invoked their 14th Amendment personal liberty rights -- the same amendment that freed the slaves -- to stop state and local governments from favoring local businesses over corporate chains. Corporations, using Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure statutes the framers of the Constitution originally reserved for private citizens, have also successfully argued against surprise inspections under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Strictly from the memetic perspective, this seems like a way of framing the problems of multinationals and globalization in a way that makes it very sticky for right wingers, strict Constitutionalists & fiscal conservatives. Which is kind of cool. |
