Labor & the Economy

The Corporation

Corporations are everywhere in our contemporary life . Their pervasiveness in our daily lives is apparent in our newss , our television shows , and even our language . We don 't think we want a soda we want a Pepsi or a Coke , when reviewing a film targeted for young children , we call it a Disney movie , when we want to sell our unused stuff we eBay them . However , corporations as an entity are a relatively recent phenomenon whose roots could be traced to the end of the 19th century

Corporations first

came into being as creations by the state for serving the public good . Corporations were given charters to do things like build bridges , operate railroads , supplying water , collecting and disposing of garbage and other operations which the state deemed as needed by society . At the beginning , corporations were defined and were their charters . These Charters defined what the corporation is and what it should produce or operate . These same charters also served as a form of public control over corporations . According to their charters corporations cannot own other corporations , their stockholders were liable for the corporations operations , among other things . Also , these limitations were justified because corporations and their charters were a privilege given by the public trust . Corporations are charters created by the public for the public

These all changed when corporations stopped being treated legally as charters but rather as people . In a series of legal battles , corporate lawyers were successful in having the state recognize corporations as people . As legal people , these corporations also enjoyed the same rights that you or any other Americans have . However , the limitations stipulated in these corporations ' charters were violating their newfound rights and slowly , these limitations were removed as corporations slowly started to act and be treated like ordinary right bearing citizens

It was as legal individuals ' that these corporations started to amass the wealth and power they have today . They used their right to property to buy land , resources and other corporations . They used their right to the justice system to litigate against their opponents as well as to protect their interests in the court of law . As legal persons , they can charges like libel or slander against those who speak badly of the corporation . The corporation can invent things and own the patents and profits from these inventions . Most importantly , as legal individuals they have the right to profit and that right to profit should be protected and upheld by the United States government

However , even if corporations do have the same rights as you and me they are vastly different from us . Corporations can pursue wealth more aggressively than ordinary persons . No ordinary individual has the amount of manufacturing ability that corporations can . No ordinary individual has the legal budget that corporations have . No individual also has the same weight corporations has on lobbying for laws , the same weight on defining the news , the same weight on shaping mainstream media . Corporations in a sense are super...