CORPORATIONS ARE NOT HUMANS : NOT EVEN CLOSE --- Episode 7

                 Picking Up After the Erroneous Spin Placed On
                 The Santa Clara Case By Legal Commentators 

   Thus corporations came to claim the full rights enjoyed by individual citizens while being exempt from many of the responsibilities and liabilities of citizenship. In being guaranteed the same right to free speech as individual citizens, they achieved precisely what the Bill of Rights was intended to prevent : domination of public thought and discourse. The subsequent claim by corporations that they have the same right as any individual to influence government in their own interest pits the individual citizen against the vast financial and communications resources of the corporation and mocks the constitutional intent that all citizens have an equal voice in the political debates surrounding important issues. 
  The latter 19th century and early 20th century were times of violence and social instability brought on by the excesses of capitalism that Karl Marx described to powerful political effectWorking conditions were appalling, and wages scarcely covered subsistence. Child labor was widespread. By one estimate, 11 million of the 12.5 million families in America in 1890 subsisted on an average of $380 a year and had to take in boarders to survive. Both organized and wildcat strikes were common, as was industrial sabotage. Employers used every means at their disposal to break strikes, including private security forces and federal and state military troops. Violence evoked violence, and many died in the industrial wars of this era.
   These conditions gave impetus to a growing labor movement. Between 1897 and 1904, union membership rose from 447,000 to 2,073,000. Unions provided fertile ground for the thriving socialist movement that was taking root in America and called for the socialization and democratic control of the means of production, natural resources, and patents. These were times of open class warfare, with zealous new recruits joining the army of the dispossessed in growing numbers, ready to fight and sacrifice for the cause. Socialists who sought to organize labor along class lines vied for primacy with more conventional unionists who 
preferred to organize along craft or industrial lines.
   These movements united ethnic groups. An emergence of black pride and culture began to unify blacks. The women's movement took hold,with women forming their own labor unions, leading strikes, and assuming active roles in populist and socialist movements. In 1920, female suffrage was guaranteed by a constitutional amendment. 
   In the end, the conditions of chaos and violence that characterized the period of explosive free-market industrial expansion were not conducive to the interests of either industrialists or labor. Competitive battles between the most powerful industrialists were cutting into profits. There was considerable fear among industrialists of the growing political power of socialist and other popular movements, which threatened to bring fundamental change that might eliminate their privileged position. 
   This set the stage for consolidation and compromise, which transformed social and institutional relationships among the corporate barons. Industrialists merged their individual empires to consolidate their power and limit competition among them. Formerly bitter rivals, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller joined forces in 1901to amalgamate 112 corporate directorates, combining $22.2 billion in assets under the Northern Securities Corporation of New Jersey. This massive sum was equivalent to twice the total assessed value of all property in thirteen states in the southern United States. 
   Eventually, major industrialists came to realize that by providing better wages, benefits, and working conditions, they could undercut the appeal of socialism and at the same time win greater worker loyalty and motivation. There was a parallel interest in regularizing loosely organized, craft-based production processes tot take greater advantage of the methods of industrial engineering and mass production. This meant organizing around more highly structured, rule-driven production processes that demanded worker stability and discipline.