corporate personhood

We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights
by Adam Winkler
Published 27 Feb 2018

Beginning with Bank of the United States v. Deveaux, and for most of American history, corporate personhood has been deployed in precisely the opposite way from how today’s critics of Citizens United imagine. Counterintutively, it has usually been populist opponents of corporations who have argued in favor of corporate personhood. For them, treating corporations as people was a way to limit the rights of corporations. And many of the most important Supreme Court decisions extending rights to corporations did not rely on corporate personhood at all. More commonly, the Supreme Court rejected the idea that a corporation was an independent, legal person with rights and duties all its own, and instead allowed the corporation to claim the rights of its members.

…

Ironically, it was the famously liberal New Deal and Warren courts of the mid-twentieth century that first extended liberty rights to corporations. This long view also illuminates the nuanced role of corporate personhood in the story of corporate rights. Many critics of Citizens United believe that corporations have the same rights as individuals because the Supreme Court defines them as people. The proposed constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United is based on this idea, declaring that only human beings are people under the terms of the Constitution. Yet corporate personhood has played only a secondary role in the corporate rights movement. While the Supreme Court has on occasion said that corporations are people, the justices have more often relied upon a very different conception of the corporation, one that views it as an association capable of asserting the rights of its members.

…

Another issue on which corporationalists and populists disagreed was corporate personhood. From the start, the Supreme Court has wrestled with whether corporations should be considered “people” under the Constitution and what exactly that might mean. Some critics of Citizens United argue that the reason corporations have constitutional rights today is that the Supreme Court has said that corporations are people. Indeed, one proposed response to Citizens United has been a constitutional amendment to clarify that corporations are not people under the language of the Constitution and do not have the rights of people. Yet, as we will see, corporate personhood has played only a small role in the expansion of constitutional rights to corporations.

Occupy
by Noam Chomsky
Published 2 Jan 1994

Van de Water, “Romney Budget Proposals Would Require Massive Cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Other Nondefense Spending,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, revised February 16, 2012. ** Allison Kilkenny, “Report: 26 Arrested at Occupy Foreclosure Auction Blockade January 27, 2012, In These Times. †† Bailey McCann, “Cities, states pass resolutions against corporate personhood,” January 4, 2012, CivSource. http://civsourceonline.com/2012/01/04/cities-states-pass-resolutions-against-corporate-personhood/ ‡‡ Emily Ramshaw and Jay Root, “A New Rick Perry Shows Up to GOP Debate,” The Texas Tribune, October 18, 2011. Occupy Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Occupy Boston, MA, Dewey Square, October 22, 2011 It’s a little hard to give a Howard Zinn memorial lecture at an Occupy meeting.

…

Chomsky speaks to the many options and opportunities that exist to change the system, and he points to examples in which the movement’s vision has already impacted city council proposals, debates and resolutions, such as the case of New York City Council Resolution 1172, which formally opposes corporate personhood and calls for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to permanently ban it. The resolution creates clear dividing lines between the rights of corporations and the rights of citizens, and it adds to the momentum produced by a growing list of cities—including Los Angeles, Oakland, Albany and Boulder— that have passed similar resolutions.†† Underling Occupy’s success has been its focus on the daily details of organizing.

…

But unless the process that is taking place here and elsewhere in the country and around the world, unless that continues to grow and to become a major force in the social and political world, the chances for a decent future are not very high. QUESTIONS FROM OCCUPY BOSTON Regarding fixing political dysfunction in this country, what about enacting a Constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood or to get corporate money out of politics? These would be very good things to do, but you can’t do this or anything else unless there is a large, active, popular base. If the Occupy movement was the leading force in the country, you could push many things forward. But remember, most people don’t know that this is happening.

California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric--And What It Means for America's Power Grid
by Katherine Blunt
Published 29 Aug 2022

In eighteenth-century England, amid the rise of the East India Company and other aggressive multinationals, Lord Chancellor Edward Thurlow felt hamstrung in considering whether a corporation could be convicted of a crime. “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like,” he said. In the United States, where corporations have wielded power since the charter of the British colonies, the concept of corporate personhood is rooted in a United States Supreme Court case heard three decades after the ratification of the Constitution. The 1809 decision, involving Alexander Hamilton’s Bank of the United States, determined that corporations have the constitutional right to sue in federal court. The precedent set the stage first for the recognition of corporations as people under the Fourteenth Amendment, and then for the expansion of their civil rights to include many of those afforded to individual citizens.

…

The precedent set the stage first for the recognition of corporations as people under the Fourteenth Amendment, and then for the expansion of their civil rights to include many of those afforded to individual citizens. It remains an evolving subject, with two recent Supreme Court cases—Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores—thrusting the controversial idea of corporate personhood into the public consciousness. The idea of corporate liability, meanwhile, is almost as old as PG&E, stemming from a 1909 Supreme Court case involving a New York railroad company. The court’s decision set a significant precedent: A corporation could be criminally prosecuted for the actions of a single employee.

…

It would have been almost impossible to miss. Another cloud hung over the defense. America was awash in anti-corporate sentiment. Anger at big banks and businesses had crested after the recession and plateaued during the plodding recovery. Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court cases that took expansive views on corporate personhood, had been decided in the middle of it all, fanning the flames of mistrust. Overturning Citizens United became part of the rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the nationwide protest against inequality and corporate influence that began in 2011 when several hundred activists descended on New York’s financial district.

A Hacker's Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society's Rules, and How to Bend Them Back
by Bruce Schneier
Published 7 Feb 2023

This disruptive power can also be harnessed by those at the bottom of our power structure and serve as an engine for social change. It’s how revolutions happen. Hacking is one of the weapons of the weak, and an important one at that. Here’s one example: people are hacking the notion of corporate personhood in attempts to win rights for nature, or great apes, or rivers. The very concept of corporate personhood is a hack of the Fourteenth Amendment, which lays out the rules of citizenship and the rights of citizens. In Darwinian evolution, Mother Nature decides which hacks stay and which hacks go. She can be cold and brutal, but she doesn’t play favorites.

…

Uri Friedman (14 Jun 2017), “Why conservative parties are central to democracy,” Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/ziblatt-democracy-conservative-parties/530118. David Frum (20 Jun 2017), “Why do democracies fail?” Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/why-do-democracies-fail/530949. 141concept of corporate personhood: Adam Winkler (5 Mar 2018), “ ‘Corporations are people’ is built on an incredible 19th-century lie,” Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/03/corporations-people-adam-winkler/554852. 35. HIDDEN PROVISIONS IN LEGISLATION 145intercepting network equipment: S. Silbert (16 May 2014), “Latest Snowden leak reveals the NSA intercepted and bugged Cisco routers,” Engadget, https://www.engadget.com/2014-05-16-nsa-bugged-cisco-routers.html. 146lobbied for by Starbucks: Ben Hallman and Chris Kirkham (15 Feb 2013), “As Obama confronts corporate tax reform, past lessons suggest lobbyists will fight for loopholes,” Huffington Post, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-corporate-tax-reform_n_2680880. 146exemptions for “natural monopolies”: Leah Farzin (1 Jan 2015), “On the antitrust exemption for professional sports in the United States and Europe,” Jeffrey S.

…

See market hacks Cappiello, Leonetto, 184 card counting, 36–37 CARES Act (2020), 147, 149 cartoon characters, 218 casino hacks, 35–37, 46, 51 category errors, 222 Cato the Younger, 155 certificates of deposit (CDs), 75 chatbots, 188, 210 Chatmost, 190 Chéret, Jules, 184 children as hackers, 3, 25–26 Citizens United, 169 claims-authorization decisions, 210 Clinton, Bill, 151, 196 cloture rule, 155 Club Penguin, 25–26, 46, 47 cognitive hacks, 179–82 addiction as, 185–87 AI hacking and, 181–82, 201–2, 216, 218–19 attention and, 183–87 defenses against, 53–54, 182, 185, 198–99 disinformation as, 81, 181 fear and, 195–97 general nature of, 181 hacking hierarchy and, 201–2 persuasion, 188–90, 218–19, 220–23 trust and, 191–94, 218 Cohen, Julie, 121, 248 Collingridge dilemma, 246 colonialism, 197 Combined Reporting Systems for State Corporate Income Tax, 128–29 Commodities Futures Trading Commission, 76–77 common law hacks, 135–38 compartmentalization, 60 complexity design process and, 59 as system characteristic, 17, 20 in tax and computer codes, 13–14 vulnerabilities and, 28 computational propaganda, 222 computer code, 13–14, 15 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (1986), 18, 65 computerization, 224–27, 242–43 context, 157–60, 237 corporate personhood, 141 COVID-19 pandemic, 27, 45, 110–11, 196 creative hackers, 22 credit cards, 39 customer reviews, 194 dark patterns, 182, 189–90 Darling, Kate, 222 DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, 228–29 de minimis rule, 249 debt financing, 101–2 decoy prices, 189 deep-fake technology, 192–93, 221 Deep Patient, 213 defense in depth, 59–60 Delaware Loophole, 130 DeSantis, Ron, 132–33 design process, 58–61 financial exchange hacks and, 85 simplicity in, 59, 80 threat modeling, 62–63, 64 destruction as result of hacking, 172–75 disinformation, 80–81, 181 Doctorow, Cory, 181 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010), 76–77, 80, 82, 97, 98 dolls, 218 domestic production activities deduction, 157–58 Donotpay.com, 225 DoorDash, 99, 124, 125 dot-com bubble (2001), 99–100 “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich” tax loophole, 15–16, 22, 128 drip pricing, 189 dry sea loans, 91 due process, 213 election hacks, 164–67 advertising and, 185 AI and, 220, 221 authoritarian governments and, 174–75 fear and, 197 “independent spoiler,” 169–70 trust and, 193 voter eligibility and, 161–63 wealth and, 168–71 ELIZA, 217 emissions control tests, 234 emotional lock-in, 223 Entick, John, 135–36 Equifax, 49–50 equitable ownership, 138 EternalBlue, 21–22 Eurodollar accounts, 75 Evans v.

Hopes and Prospects
by Noam Chomsky
Published 1 Jan 2009

As noted above, by the early twentieth century legal theorists and courts were coming consistently to adopt and implement the Court’s 1886 (Santa Clara) principle that these “collectivist legal entities” have the same rights as persons of flesh and blood,50 rights since expanded far beyond those of persons, notably by the mislabeled “free trade agreements.” The conception of corporate personhood evolved alongside the shift of power from shareholders to managers, and finally to the doctrine that “the powers of the board of directors…are identical with the powers of the corporation.”51 As corporate personhood and managerial independence were becoming established in law, the control of corporate management of the economy had reached the stage that elicited Woodrow Wilson’s description of the “very different America” that was taking shape, cited above.

…

W., 45, 46, 62 East Germany and, 273, 279 Iraq and, 128 Israel and, 187 NATO and, 279 Nicaragua and, 275 Panama and, 134 terrorism and, 42 Bush, George W., 12, 45 Afghanistan and, 263–64 Arabs and, 192–93 Axis of Evil speech, 138 “democracy promotion” and, 42, 44–46, 66, 143, 144 economic policies, 64 Europe and, 170 expansion of military capacity under, 136 Hamas and, 147 Iraq and, 23, 24, 42–44, 140, 141 North Korea and, 138, 139 on “Palestinian state,” 178, 186 preventive war doctrine, 23 (See also Bush doctrine) Syria and, 144 Tony Blair and, 170 torture and, 260 Venezuela and, 66 “vision,” 203 Bush doctrine, 23, 24, 42, 51, 239 Butler, Lee, 165 Calderón, Felipe, 216 Cambodia, 312n15 Camp David 2000 Summit, 179, 225 Canada, 69, 243 Canova, Tim, 221 capital investment and productivity, 76 Carothers, Thomas, 45, 270–71 Carriles, Luis Posada, 51 Carter, Jimmy, 41, 62, 254, 302n23 Castro, Fidel, 51–53 Caterpillar, 217–18 Catholic Church, history of, 272–74 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “torture paradigm,” 260, 262, 264 Chang, Ha-Joon, 72, 91 Chávez, Hugo, 98, 100, 141, 142 Chellaney, Brahma, 167–68 Cheney, Dick, 259, 260, 266 Chile, 92–93, 116 China, 69, 78, 114 Christianity, history of, 272–74 Cirincione, Joseph, 135 Citigroup/Citicorp, 219–20 civilians, responsibility to protect, 20 climate change, 95, 111, 217, 232 Clinton, Bill, 24, 168, 171, 179, 180, 187, 223 Haiti and, 11 Iraq and, 128, 129 NATO and, 136 Operation Gatekeeper, 29 torture and, 262 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 186, 189, 225, 226 Clinton doctrine, 24 Clive, Robert, 14 cocaine, 215 Cochabamba, 104 Cohen, Roger, 21 Cold War, 37 Colombia, 58–59, 215 colonialism, 14–15, 17, 22. See also imperialism; specific topics Columbus, Christopher, 3, 18–19 “Convergence program” and “Convergence plus,” 180–81, 203 Cooper, Helene, 137 cooperative security location (CSL), 58–59 corporate law, 30–31 corporate personhood debate, 31–35 corporations, nature of, 30–31 Correa, Rafael, 57 “crisis of democracy,” 98 Crocker, Ryan, 132 Cuba, 14, 22, 49–53 economic warfare against, 51–53, 55 Guantánamo Bay and, 31 Haiti and, 14 Henry Cabot Lodge and, 22 Spain and, 14, 22, 50 U.S. diplomacy with, 136 U.S. intervention in 1898, 14, 22–23, 50, 136 Cuban Five, 51 Cuba-Venezuela relations, 69–70 Cumings, Bruce, 138, 139 Dahlan, Muhammad, 147, 148 Davidson, Basil, 81 Day of Mourning in Panama, 134 Dayan, Moshe, 148–49, 160, 186 Dayton, Keith, 201, 202 Declaration of Principles for U.S. and Iraqi governments, 140 “defense industrial base,” 277.

…

See “American exceptionalism” Fall, Bernard, 122 Fayyad, Salam, 253–54 Federal Reserve Board, 113 Feldman, Noah, 52 Felix, David, 71, 83, 107, 219 Ferguson, Thomas, 32, 108, 208 financial crises, 93, 107, 108, 207, 228 deregulation and, 219 financial liberalization and, 105, 108 recent and current, 63, 73, 109, 110, 212–13, 217, 221–22, 226 Savings & Loan crisis, 211 See also housing bubble financial institutions, 92, 107–11, 113, 209, 228 Charles Schumer and, 221 China as model for, 114 Glass-Steagall Act and, 219 globalization and, 35, 73 Haiti and, 10 recent bailouts of, 105, 219–21 Timothy Geithner and, 221 financial instruments, 220, 221 financial liberalization, 72, 93, 97–98, 105, 107, 108, 111, 114 financial sector, 93, 107, 110–11 financial liberalization and the power of, 212 Iran and, 174 Joe Biden and, 216 Obama and, 212, 228–29 Patriot Act and, 174 financialization of the economy, 34, 79, 93, 94, 97, 231 Fites, Donald, 218 Florida, 23, 24, 49, 51 Fourteen Points (Woodrow Wilson), 48 Framework Agreement of 1994, 138 France, 80 Franklin, Bruce, 56 Franks, Tommy, 57 Fraser, Doug, 218 free speech, corporate personhood and, 32–34 “free trade,” 6, 37, 78, 93 criticism of the term, 90 drug trade and, 78–79 “free circulation of labor” and, 29 vs. protectionism, 6, 76–78, 80, 81, 89, 211 Reagan and, 12 slavery and, 78, 79 See also neoliberalism “free trade agreements,” 31, 90–91, 93, 103–4 monopoly pricing rights in, 86 national security exemptions in, 86 See also North American Free Trade Agreement freedom of association, 208 Freeman, Chas, 171 French colonies, 7.

Dreaming in Public: Building the Occupy Movement
by Amy Lang and Daniel Lang/levitsky
Published 11 Jun 2012

If, on the other hand, as the movement has grown, GA has become so hyper-bureaucratic that it has effectively stalled effective organization, the Spokes Council model claims to remedy that by giving those who determine where and how we eat or receive mail a separate decision-making structure through which to work, enabling the rest to use GA to consider ‘larger’ ideas, for instance, the constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood and overthrowing Citizens United. Regardless, on Friday 28 October a 9/10ths vote (note: not consensus) passed the Spokes Council Model, and there will no longer be nightly GAs at 7pm in Liberty Park. The Bureaucracies of Anarchy Part 2: People Before Process 14 December 2011 Some time in early October I showed up to an OWS organizers’ meeting at 16 Beaver Street. 16 Beaver, like 56 Walker or Charlotte’s Place, is one of these magically anachronistic spaces in lower Manhattan that feel like something out of Patti Smith’s Just Kids – free space for art, activism and organizing, embedded in some of the most expensive real estate in the world.

…

He, like many, feels being broke, struggling with cashflow and financial uncertainty, as being a different identity than that of being poor. As Occupy Wall Street and then the local Occupy Boston began to gain their legs and solidify their place in the public discourse, so too did an analysis. Corporate personhood, bank bailouts, executive bonuses and general Wall Street excess at the expense of democracy were at the top of the list of grievances. Personal stories have been told: stories of unemployment lasting two or more years, home foreclosures, bankruptcy due to medical expenses, untenable student loan debts and more.

…

Moving beyond individual interests to a collective understanding of shared interests for economic justice. Protecting and improving social safety net and entitlement programs such as unemployment insurance, food stamps, foreclosure protection and other social safety net programs, needs to be the context in which other demands such as financial industry regulation and an end to corporate personhood are placed. Messaging and tactics deployed against direct attacks to the social safety net that hit poor communities the hardest, with that distinctive Occupy analysis that ties economic hardship to big finance, could be powerful. A move in this direction would also create an opening for solutions to immediate needs of people now and in the long term.

Literary Theory for Robots: How Computers Learned to Write
by Dennis Yi Tenen
Published 6 Feb 2024

In assigning decision-­making powers to a country, we mean to draw an analogy between countries and natural individuals. A metaphor tames the complexity of political decision. It also misleads, by implying more than it suggests. States or corporations do not “decide” in the same way humans do. Their mechanisms of coming to a decision differ entirely from that of humans. In this way, we may speak of “corporate personhood” or a nation being “offended” metaphorically, not in the literal sense of being a person or having feelings. The “intelligence” part of “artificial intelligence” presents a similar condensed figure. Take “machine learning” for example, which Oracle defines as “improving system performance based on consumed data.”

…

W., 110 Bloomfield, Leonard, 83 Bobrow, Daniel, 92 body posture, 4 Boeing, 11, 97 Boston, Mass., 70 bots, 136–37 Brecht, Bertolt, 61 Brin, Sergey, 113 Browning, I., 110 brute force computing, 110 Byron, Lady Anne Isabella, 51, 52 Byron, Lord George, 12, 51, 61 bytes, 6–9, 88 Calculus of Probabilities (Tenen), 103 Cambridge University, 60, 92, 113 care, 13 cars, self-driving, 14 Cast Away (film), 36 Cauchy, Augustin-Louis, 44 cells, 27 Center for Communications Sciences, 87 Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, 131 chains, 105 Characteristica universalis (Leibniz), 44 characters, 9 Charles Joseph, Archduke, 32 Charniak, Eugene, 92 charts, 9, 19, 22, 25, 76 chatbots, 9, 11, 16, 20, 113–15, 118, 120, 122–24, 129 Chautauqua Literary File, 74 chemistry, 82, 85 China, 10 Chinese language, 43 Chomsky, Carol, 92 Chomsky, Noam, 21, 86–87, 90, 92, 93, 97, 102, 114 Clark, Peter, 97–99 clock-making, 52 cognition, distributed, 123–25 Colby, Kenneth, 92 collective intelligence, 133 collective labor, 123 collective nouns, 128 college papers, 137 Collegio Romano, 30 Columbia University, 83 combinatorial sonnets, 34 command and control, 88 communication(s), 105–6, 109–10, 119 comparative philology, 80, 83 computers, 8, 12, 37, 48, 87, 88, 91–93, 97, 105, 109 computer science, 121, 135 consciousness, 3 context, and meaning, 115 controlled taxonomies, 23 conversational AI, 135 conversational intelligence, 139 Cook, William Plotto: A New Method of Plot Suggestion for Writers of Creative Fiction, 71, 75–77, 81, 94 Cornell University, 110 corporate personhood, 125, 127 corporations, 128 corpuses, 12 counterprogramming, 136 Crane, Gregory, 28 creativity (creative process), 14, 21, 61, 63, 67, 68, 133, 134, 140–41 Darwin, Charles, 51 databases, 3, 24 Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe, 36, 65 De Morgan, Sophia Elizabeth, 51 Descartes, Réné, 44 Meditations, 35 de Stael, Germaine, 80 Detroit, Mich., 74 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), 23–24 Dial, 74 Dickens, Charles, 51, 65, 67 dictionaries, 29 Diderot, Denis Encyclopédie, 122 Difference Engine, 48–49, 52, 60 disinformation, 132 distributed intelligence, 123–24 distributed thought, 123–25 divination circles, 24 document retrieval, 110 Donbas region, 121 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 65, 121 Douglas, Mary How Institutions Think, 127 Downey, June Plots and Personalities, 71 Dowst, Robert Saunders The Technique of the Fiction Writing, 71 Dumas, Alexandre, 65 Dwarf Fortress, 100 eclipses, 52 Editor: Journal of Information for Literary Workers, 70, 72, 74 educational reform, 67 Educational Specialty Company, 74 ELIZA (chatbox therapist), 20, 92, 93 emergence, 16 encryption, 119 Encyclopédie (Diderot), 122 English, Thomas, 71 Skeleton Essays, or Authorship in Outline, 71, 72 Enlightenment, 46, 67 epistemology, 84 equality, concept of, 116 Esenwein, Joseph Writing the Short Story, 71 Esperanto, 45 Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, An (Wilkins), 10, 41–45 Eugene Onegin (Pushkin), 104, 117 Eureka Pocket Scrap Book, 74 event horizons, 7 exceptions and exceptionalism, 38, 39, 52, 59, 61, 62, 79–80, 133 FAA Incident Data System (FIDES), 98, 99 failure, concept of, 116 fairness, concept of, 116 fairytales, See folktales Fansler, Harriott Types of Prose Narratives, 71 Faraday, Michael, 51 Faulkner, Mary, 66 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 98 Fiction House, 66 fictions, real effect of, 127 FIDES (FAA Incident Data System), 98, 99 film, 61 Finns, 80 Firth, John, 114, 115 “flora and fauna,” 129 folklore studies, 80–82, 93–96 folktales, 79–83, 88, 93, 96–98 Franklin, Ohio, 70 freedom, concept of, 116 Garcia-Molina, Hector, 113 gears, 14, 49, 52–53 general intelligence, 37–38 generative grammars, 87, 88, 91, 94, 97 generative pre-trained transformers (GPT), 139 German language, 121 Germany, 26, 34 Gibson, Kevin, 127 global positioning system (GPS), 15 Godard, Jean-Luc, 93 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 65 Gore, Al, 17 GPS (global positioning system), 15 GPT (generative pre-trained transformers), 139 GPT-4 algorithm, 129, 130 grammar(s), 21, 38, 40–42, 85–88, 90–95, 97, 102, 108, 113–14 Green, Bert, 92 Grimm, Jacob, 80 ground truth, 40 GRU, 132, 136 Gulliver’s Travels (Swift), 65 GUS (story generator), 92–93 Gutenberg printing press, 39 Habsburgs, 30 Hanks, Tom, 36 Harris, Zellig, 83, 86, 114 Harry Potter, 107 Harvard University, 72–73, 113 Hayy ibn Yaqzan (Ibn Tufail), 36 “Heavenly Love-Kiss XLI” (Kuhlmann), 31, 40 Hegelianism, 6–7 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 80 hermeneutics, 2 Hill, Wycliffe, 75, 77 Plot Genie, 75–77, 81, 94 history, 5–9, 12, 91 Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan, 127 Hollywood, 71, 94–95, 134 Home Correspondence School, 70–71 Hopi, 80 Horne, Charles The Technique of the Novel, 71 How Institutions Think (Douglas), 127 human intelligence, 116, 122, 123, 134 humanities, 121 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 50 IBM, 8, 87, 113 IBM 709 computer, 88, 109 Ibn Khaldun, 9, 18–21, 25, 45–46, 48, 118, 139 Muqaddimah, 18–19, 26 Ibn Tufail Hayy ibn Yaqzan (“Self-Taught Philosopher”), 36 indexers and indexing, 113 induction, 52 industrial age, 2, 64 information, flow of, 105 innovation, 8 inputs, 5 Inquisition, 31 inscription, 12 Institute for Ethics in AI, 131 intellectual work, 61–62 intelligence, 34–37; See also artificial intelligence (AI) of AI, 14–16, 21, 125 collective, 133 concept of, 116 conversational, 139 defining, 4 distributed, 123–24 general, 37–38 human, 116, 122, 123, 134 as labor, 61, 124 linguistic, 101 machine, 37, 115–16 military, 132 spectrum of, 17 statistical, 114 super-, 21 unevenness of, 139 universal, 37–38, 139 internet, 17, 136 Italy, 30 Ivan V, Tsar, 34 Jacquard loom, 60, 67 Jakobson, Roman, 84 Jones, Karen Spärck, 113 journalism, 61 Journal of Business Ethics, 127 justice, concept of, 116 Kafka, Franz, 61 Kane, William R., 70 Kaplan, Ronald, 92 Kay, Martin, 92 Kazakhstan, 139 Keeler, Harry Web-Work, 73, 95 Kepler, Johannes, 30 keywords, weighted, 113 keywords in context, 113 Khwarizmi, Muhammad ibn Musa al-, 9 Kircher, Athanasius, 30–34, 36, 39–40, 44, 48, 49, 56, 60, 75 Kissinger, Henry, 16 Klein, Sheldon, 92 knowledge, 11, 21, 31, 32, 35–36, 46, 132 knowledge work, 5, 62, 133–36 KPMG, 131 Kubrick, Stanley, 93 Kuhlmann, Quirinus, 30–32, 34, 40 “Heavenly Love-Kiss XLI,” 31, 40 Kyrgyzstan, 8 labor, 123 collective, 123 intellectual, 61–62 and knowledge work, 133–36 Latin, 39 Latin Word Study Tool, 28 Laughery, Kenneth, 92 law, 127 Law & Order (television series), 79 “Laws of Literary Invention,” 81 learning, 115–16, 125–26 Lehert, Wendy, 93 Leibniz, Gottfried, 10, 43–46, 48, 55, 60, 118 Characteristica universalis, 44 Plus Ultra, 44–45 Leningrad State University, 82 Lenski, Lois The Little Train, 87, 88, 90, 109 Lermontov, Mikhail, 121 letter magic, 20–22 Leviathan (Hobbes), 127 Li, Robin, 113 Lindsay, Kathleen, 66 linguistic intelligence, 101 linguistic proficiency, 115–16 linguistics, 2, 83–87, 92–93, 101, 103, 113, 114, 119 literacy, 38, 64, 67 literary markets, 65, 70 literary production, 64–67, 69, 71–72, 79 literature, 1, 9–11, 59, 61, 65, 80–82, 120–21 Little, Paul, 66 Little Train, The (Lenski), 87, 88, 90, 109 Llull, Ramon, 9, 10, 24–27, 31, 46, 48, 91, 118 Ars Brevis, 24, 31 local values, 38 London, Jack, 74 Longfellow, Henry, 80 Lost (television series), 36 Lovelace, Ada, 12, 43, 48, 51–52, 54–60, 64, 91, 118 Lucas, George, 93 Luhn, Peter, 113 machine intelligence, 37, 115–16 machine learning, 115–16, 125–26 machine translation, 119 mainframe computers, 87, 88 malicious agents, 136 manual transmissions, 14 manufacturing mass, 133–34 template-based, 60–61, 64 MARGIE (story generator), 92 markets, literary, 65, 70 Markets and Methods for Writers, 71 Markov, Andrey Andreyevich, 103–5, 109–10, 112 Markov chains, 10, 101, 106, 108–9 Marx, Karl, 29 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 21, 87, 92, 105 mass literacy, 38 mass manufacturing, 133–34 Masterman, Margaret, 92, 113, 119 Mathematical Organ, 32–34, 39–40, 44, 48, 75 matrix, 64 meaning (meaning-making), 8–9, 57, 91, 93, 101–3, 105, 110–12, 114, 115, 138 Meaning of Meaning, The (Ogden and Richards), 102 mechanical notation, 53–54 Meditations (Descartes), 35 Meehan, James, 92, 94–97, 99 memorization, 3 memory, 8–9, 28–29 MESSY (story generator), 92 metaphors, 6, 13, 17, 29, 111, 115, 125–28 military, 10, 87–88, 93, 97, 119, 132 mind, 3, 4, 6, 16, 62, 84, 92–94, 96, 102, 114–15 missile defense systems, 10, 87 MIT, See Massachusetts Institute of Technology MITRE Corporation, 10, 88 mobile phone assistants, 123 moral agency, 131–32 Morphology of the Folktale (Propp), 80–82, 93, 96 Morse code, 7 Moscow, Russia, 34 MS.

The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement
by David Graeber
Published 13 Aug 2012

If there was going to be an assembly, it was going to be beforehand, to determine what exactly that demand was: that Obama establish a committee to reinstate Glass-Steagall (the Depression-era law that had once prevented commercial banks from engaging in market speculation) or a constitutional amendment abolishing corporate personhood, or something else. Colleen pointed out that Adbusters was basically founded by marketing people and their strategy made perfect sense from a marketing perspective: get a catchy slogan, make sure it expresses precisely what you want, then keep hammering away at it. But, she added, is that kind of legibility always a virtue for a social movement?

…

By the next day the listserv for our little group was up and all the people who had been at the original meeting started trying to figure out who we were, what we should call ourselves, what we were actually trying to do. Once again, it all started with the question of the one single demand. After throwing out a few initial ideas—Debt cancellation? Abolishing permit laws to legalize freedom of assembly? Abolish corporate personhood?—Matt Presto, who had been with Chris among the first to rally to us at Bowling Green, pretty much put the matter to rest when he pointed out there were really two different sorts of demands. Some were actually achievable, like Adbusters’ suggestion—which had appeared in one of their initial publicity calls—of demanding a commission to consider restoring Glass-Steagall.

…

It’s interesting to think about what a parallel strategy might look like for Occupy Wall Street: that is, a mode of engagement with the existing political structure that rather than compromising its directly democratic process would actually help foster and develop it. One obvious approach might be an attempt to promote one or more constitutional amendments, which has already been proposed in some quarters: for example, for eliminating money from political campaigns, or an abolition of corporate personhood. There are parallels to that, too: in Ecuador, for example, indigenous groups that mobilized to put a moderate left-of-center economist named Rafael Correa in power insisted, as their expected payback, that they play a major role in writing a new constitution. One could anticipate a lot of problems here, particularly since one is working within the confines of a constitutional structure that was, as noted in the last chapter, largely designed to prevent direct democracy, but if nothing else, it would be far easier to create firewalls in this sort of process than if one was dealing directly with elected officials

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
by Joel Bakan
Published 1 Jan 2003

With shareholders, real people, effectively gone from corporations , the law had to find someone else, some other person, to assume the legal rights and duties firms needed to operate in the economy. That "person" turned out to be the corporation itself. As early as 1793, one corporate scholar outlined the logic of corporate personhood when he defined the corporation as a collection of many individuals united into one body, under a special denomination, having perpetual succession under an artificial form, and vested, by the policy of law, with the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly of taking and granting property, of contracting obligations, and of suing and being sued, of enjoying privileges and immunities in common." 

…

.: First Amendment of, 103 Fourteenth Amendment of, 16 consumer democracy, 143-44, 145-47, 151 consumers, 24, 45-46, 60, 72, 102, 119, 144, 150, 162, 163, 166 children as, 112, 122, 127, 129; see also children's marketing environmental issues and, 146 unsafe products and, 61-65, 73-74, 149 corporate laws, 1-2, 6-16, 28 "best interests of the corporation" principle in, 35-36 charter revocation, 156-58, 161 constituency statutes, 159 corporate "personhood" in, 15-16, 17, 28, 79, 154, 158 English, 6-8, 9, 13, 38-39 limited liability in, 11-13, 79, 154 social responsibility vs., 35-39, 41, 46,57 see also regulatory laws corporate mascots, 26 corporations: amorality of, 53-59, 69, 79, 88-89, 110,134 backlash against, 25-27, 140-43 benevolent, 18-19, 151 church replaced by, 134 definition of, 3 democracy corrupted by, 101-2 devastation as opportunity for, 111, 124-25 dominance of, 5, 21-27, 134, 139-40,153,159 elimination of, 159-60 English banning of, 6-8, 9 exploitation by, 74, 112, 118, 122, 123, 138, 139, 140, 148, 149, 163 as "Frankenstein monsters," 19, 149 as government creations, 153-58, 164 grant theory of, 16 historical development of, 5-21, 153,156 as institutions, 1-3, 28, 50, 56-57, 59,64 as instruments of destruction, 71-73,110 natural entity theory of, 16, 154-55 Nazis assisted by, 87-89 no accountability of, 152 nonprofit, 166 philanthropy of, 30, 31, 45, 47-49 political systems as viewed by, 88-89 profits and, 31, 34, 36, 41, 45, 48, 49, 50,51,52,53,55,57,58,62,69, 88-89 profits and, 31, 34, 36, 41, 45, 48, 49, 50,51,52,53,55,57,58,62,69, 73,82,88-89,101,103,105, 113,117,122,126-27,138,154, 165 psychopathy of, 28, 56-59, 60, 69, 79, 85, 110, 122, 134, 158, 161 public good and, 156, 158 public-purpose, 160-61 "rising tide lifts all boats" principle of, 142-43 and self-interest as human nature, 116-17,134-35,138 self-interest of, 1-2, 28, 37-39, 44-50,58-59,60,61,80,101-2, 105,109-10,117-18,134,142, 149, 156, 160, 161, 167 cost-benefit analysis, 62-65, 79-80, 149-50,152 in oil industry, 82-83 costs: externalized, 61, 62-65, 71-73, 149-50 of social responsibility, 45, 47-48, 49 'creative destruction" toys, 126-27 Croix de Feu, 91 Back Matter Page 1 70 2 NOTES 6.

Team Human
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 22 Jan 2019

As they have already discovered, the more they can trigger our social instincts and tug on our heartstrings, the more likely we are to engage with them as if they were human. Would you disobey an AI that feels like your parent, or disconnect one that seems like your child? Eerily echoing the rationale behind corporate personhood, some computer scientists are already arguing that AIs should be granted the rights of living beings rather than being treated as mere instruments or slaves. Our science fiction movies depict races of robots taking revenge on their human overlords—as if this problem is somehow more relevant than the unacknowledged legacy of slavery still driving racism in America, or the twenty-first-century slavery on which today’s technological infrastructure depends.

…

Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (New York: Basic Books, 1993). They came up with two main innovations Douglas Rushkoff, Life, Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back (New York: Random House, 2011). 46. human beings now strive to brand themselves in the style of corporations Taylor Holden, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Corporate Personhood,” Harvard Law and Policy Review, November 13, 2017. the New York Stock Exchange was actually purchased by its derivatives exchange in 2013 Nina Mehta and Nandini Sukumar, “Intercontinental Exchange to Acquire NYSE for $8.2 Billion,” Bloomberg, December 20, 2012. 47. digital technology came to the rescue, providing virtual territory for capital’s expansion Joel Hyatt, Peter Leyden, and Peter Schwartz, The Long Boom: A Vision for the Coming Age of Prosperity (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

Freedom
by Daniel Suarez
Published 17 Dec 2009

NSA: "Sixteen lawsuits were filed by Daemon-infected multinationals yesterday in federal district courts." Now the corporate side of the table fell into stunned silence for a moment. BCM: "Which companies?" NSA (handing over a list): "They're filing suit against the U.S. government. Its lawyers claim that the Daemon has a constitutional right to exist under the precedent of corporate personhood." CSC: "Holy hell . . ." BCM: "The Daemon has lawyers?" NSA: "And it's retained lobbyists. We're negotiating with the courts to keep these cases classified; however, we can't be certain what the judicial branch is going to do about them." BCM: "This is insane. The Daemon is a computer virus, not a corporation."

…

Or maybe the attorneys are just following instructions from the corner office. We don't know yet. Either way, we should be able to get the courts to close a nineteenth-century loop-hole that has unanticipated twenty-first-century consequences." BCM: "Wait. Let's just wait a second. There are complex considerations relating to an entire body of legal precedents on corporate personhood, and the rights of free speech to corporate interests have a necessary and guiding effect on policy. Let's not do anything rash. We should let these cases run their course. We'll have neutralized the Daemon before they get their day in court, and then these companies will be back in the fold."

…

CIA (writing notes): "What was the name of that case again?" BCM: "This is a perfect example of why government isn't nimble enough to deal with the Daemon. It's using our own laws and government institutions against us. To divide us. We should be helping one another." NSA: "Wait a minute. Nobody's dividing anyone. Does corporate personhood expose us to danger?" BCM: "That's not the point. What I'm saying is that we can't follow legal niceties in dealing with this thing. We cannot demonstrate weakness. Ever." FBI: "Our laws demonstrate weakness?" The corporate side of the table conferred for a moment, and then the lobbyist turned to face the intelligence directors again.

Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
by Jason Hickel
Published 12 Aug 2020

It’s what is driving the pharmaceutical companies behind the opioid crisis in the United States; the beef companies that are burning down the Amazon; the arms companies that lobby against gun control; the oil companies that bankroll climate denialism; and the retail firms that are invading our lives with ever-more sophisticated advertising techniques to get us to buy things we don’t actually want. These are not ‘bad apples’ – they are obeying the iron law of capital. Over the past 500 years, an entire infrastructure has been created to facilitate the expansion of capital: limited liability, corporate personhood, stock markets, shareholder value rules, fractional reserve banking, credit ratings – we live in a world that’s increasingly organised around the imperatives of accumulation. From private imperative to public obsession But understanding the inner dynamics of capital only partly explains the growth imperative.

…

The preferences of the majority who want to sustain our planet’s ecology for future generations are trumped by a minority of elites who are quite happy to liquidate everything. If our struggle for a more ecological economy is to succeed, we must seek to expand democracy wherever possible. That means kicking big money out of politics; it means radical media reform; strict campaign finance laws; reversing corporate personhood; dismantling monopolies; shifting to co-operative ownership structures; putting workers on company boards; democratising shareholder votes; democratising institutions of global governance; and managing collective resources as commons wherever possible.63 I opened this book by pointing out that large majorities of people across the world are questioning capitalism and yearning for something better.

Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets
by Brett Scott
Published 4 Jul 2022

, we would have found it absurd if Bank of America pretended to be a real person by saying ‘Would you like me to give you a mortgage?’ Bank of America, though, can now do this, because it has a digital interface with a human first name – Erica. These shapeshifting digital interfaces with names are an evolution in corporate personhood: financial institutions are re-skinning themselves in a machine shell that no longer even refers to their employees, but to itself. This quest to give automation a personality goes beyond the visual: HSBC, for example, is branding the ‘sound of HSBC’ for its chatbots. The next phase of this shapeshifting is to add personalisation, with the interface morphing to mimic your accent, turns of phrase or favourite emojis, like a chameleon skin that changes depending on who touches it.

…

, 49, 72 ‘Cashfree and Proud’, 40 Cashless Catalyst, 127–8 Cashless Challenge, 40 cashless society, 2, 5, 10, 15, 38, 64, 81, 83, 84, 251 inevitability, 10–12, 121–33, 260–61 Cashless Way, 37 casinos, 66–9, 70–71, 83, 236 categorisation, 109, 113–14, 162, 167 Catholicism, 131, 212 Cayman Islands, 111 censorship, 33, 116–18, 250 central banks, 36, 42–5, 51, 84, 254 data surveillance, 115 digital currencies (CBDC), 242–5, 254, 255 international transfers, 79 transfers, 73–4 centralisation of power, 15, 180–83 centralised–decentralised model, 136 Chama, 130 charging up, 22–5 chatbots, 146–8 Chaum, David, 106–7, 117, 183 cheques, 89 Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 158 China, 2, 7, 18, 33, 74–5, 79, 114–15, 254 CBDC plans, 245, 254–5 facial recognition in, 150 leviathan complex, 178 People’s Bank of China, 79, 242 Social Credit System, 115, 245 choice, 124–6, 251 Christianity, 154, 175–6, 212 Christl, Wolfie, 109 cigarettes, 181 Circles, 260 Citigroup, 1, 37, 109, 132, 150, 227 City of London, 6, 135 class, see social class Cleo, 146 climate change, 226 cloakrooms, 66–9, 70–71 cloud, 30 cloudmoney, 82 Coca-Cola, 31, 131 cocaine, 98 code is law, 223, 224 Coinbase, 233 collateralised debt obligations, 26 colonialism, 55, 97, 175–6, 178, 239 Commerzbank Tower, Frankfurt, 18–20, 143, 156 computer boys, 158 conductivity, 179, 249 ConsenSys, 229 conservatism, 7, 131, 155, 184, 192–3, 211 see also right-wing politics consortium blockchains, 231, 233 conspiracy theories, 261–2 constitutional monarchies, 56 consumers, 25 contactless payments, 13, 31, 37–8, 91, 125, 127 core, 28 corporate personhood, 147 Corruption Perceptions Index, 43 counterfeiting, 60–61 countertradability, 209–10, 213, 256–7 Covid-19 pandemic, 2, 10, 16, 34, 36, 181, 249, 254 ATM use, 36 cash and, 2, 34, 40–41, 249, 261 conspiracy theories, 261 Cracked Labs, 109 credit cards, 39, 91, 109 credit creation of bank-money, 70, 72 credit default swap market, 232 credit expansion, 168–9 credit ratings, 17, 114, 160, 162–3, 167, 168, 170 crime cash and, 36, 42–3, 45, 81, 112 cybercrime, 32 financial crime, 111–12 marijuana industry, 102 trust and, 93 Crypto Sex Toys, 13 crypto-anarchists, 183 Cryptocannabis Salon, 101–2 cryptocurrencies, 13–15, 16, 101–2, 103, 184–5, 187–246, 254–60 alt-coins, 217–18 as commodity, 206–10, 213–14, 217, 246, 256 countertradability, 209–10, 213, 256–7 decentralisation and, 14, 15, 189–94, 196, 230, 234, 255, 258 forks, 214, 217 millenarianism and, 212, 213 mutual credit systems and, 260 oligopolies and, 229–33, 246 politics and, 191–3, 211–12, 215–17, 225–6 smart contracts, 220–24, 258 stablecoins, 233–41, 245–6, 255 Currency Conference (2017), 60 Curse of Cash, The (Rogoff), 93 Cyber Monday, 86 cyberattacks, 32, 48 cybercrime, 34 cyberpunk genre, 10 cypherpunk movement, 106, 183–5, 216–17 Dahabshiil, 116 DAI, 235 dark market, 216–17, 259 Dark Wallet, 216 data, 2, 8, 10, 33, 39, 104–19, 156–72 AI analysis, 108, 153–72 banking sector and, 108–9 Big Brother and, 113–15 categorisation, 109, 113–14, 162 panopticon effect and, 118–19, 172 payments censorship and, 116–18 predictive systems and, 105 states and, 110–12, 114–15 Data Bank Society, The (Warner), 106 data centres, 3, 4, 5, 30, 32, 34, 35, 47, 73, 76–7, 149 Davos, Switzerland, 11 debit cards, 39 Decathlon, 40–41 decentralisation, 14, 15, 189–94, 196, 230, 234, 255, 258–60 decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), 221–4, 258 DECODE, 236 DeepMind, 8 DeFi (decentralised finance), 258 Delft University of Technology, 31 demand, 29 demonetisations, 43, 44, 93 deposits, 66–7, 69 derivatives, 6, 18, 21, 26, 27, 160 Desparte, Dante, 238 Diamond, Robert ‘Bob’, 38 Diem, 241, 244 DigiCash, 106, 183 digital footprint, 169 disruption, 8, 9, 14, 32, 140–43 distributed ledger technology (DLT), 229–46, 258 Dogecoin, 13, 218 dollar system, 80, 182, 210, 233–6, 239, 240 double spending, 182, 194 doublethink, 143 Dow Chemical, 24 Drakensberg Mountains, 3–4 Dridex, 32 drones, 11 drug dealers, 96 Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 248 Dylan, Robert ‘Bob’, 90 e-commerce, 40, 77 East India Company, 178 eBay, 109, 113 ecological activism, 7 economic syncretism, 175–6 Ecuador, 240 Egypt, 116 El Salvador, 98, 208 elderly people, 126 electricity, 247 Elwartowski, Chad, 216 Emili, Geronimo, 37 employees, 25 enclosure, 86 Enlightenment (c. 1637–1789), 252 enterprise blockchains, 231 Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, 233 entrepreneurs, 1, 15, 129, 155 equivocation fallacies, 85 Erica, 147 Ethereum, 219–24, 257–8 Ethereum Classic, 224 European Union, 14, 37, 42, 254 Central Bank, 51, 74, 79, 242 DECODE project, 236 Eurozone, 51, 74, 79 Evans, Mel, 144 exiting, 39, 48, 61, 63, 68, 83 Experian, 163 F-16 fighter jets, 153 Facebook, 7, 38, 105, 150, 166, 198, 255, 262 Libra, 236–41, 245 Messenger, 237 facial recognition, 10, 138, 150, 181, 245 far-left politics, 7, 215 far-right politics, 7, 14, 215, 225–6, 261–2 fascism, 7, 14, 226 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 111 Federal Reserve, 32, 35, 36, 234, 242 federated frontline, 136–8, 147 fees, 39, 57, 91, 94 feminism, 226 fiat money, 51–2, 56, 192, 193 Fidor, 142 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, 111 financial crisis (2008), 6, 8, 17–18, 26–7, 96, 184, 232, 248 financial inclusion, 37, 39, 93–9, 130–32, 167, 238, 262 fingerprints, 150 Fink, Stanley, 38 fintech, 8, 41–2, 140–43 first-world problems, 154 fitness centres, 17 fixed money supplies, 191–3 Floored (2009 film), 158 Florentine Republic (1115–1569), 135, 159 Follow the Money, 112 Fourth Industrial Revolution, 11 fractional reserve banking, 70 France cashless payments strategy, 43 Frankfurt, Germany, 18–20, 143, 156, 248 frogs, slow-boiling, 104 futurism, 1, 12, 86, 122–3, 250, 252 gambling, 105 game theory, 220 Gap, 131 Gates, William ‘Bill’, 44–5, 261–2 GCHQ, 112 Generation Z, 86, 140 gentrification, 128–33 Germany, 7, 18 Bundesbank, 35, 47 cash thresholds, 42–3 Corruption Perceptions Index, 43 Frankfurt, 18–20, 143, 156 honesty boxes in, 91 get-rich-quick investments, 26 Getty Images, 80 giant parable, 52–6, 63–4, 188 global matrix, 12 Gmail, 203 gold, 192–3, 207, 214 Goldman Sachs, 38, 150, 157, 158, 230 Golumbia, David, 225 Google, 2, 5, 7, 262 Cashe, 150 data, 105, 108 DeepMind, 8 Gmail, 203 Maps, 4 Mastercard deal, 109 Pay, 1, 78, 125 Singularity University, 153–6, 252–3 Trends, 84 USAID and, 128, 178 Grassroots Economics, 260 Greece, 42, 43, 62, 131 Green Dot, 150 Greenpeace, 116 growth, 123, 126–7, 249 hackers, 6–7, 101, 184 Hacktivist Village, 101 Halkbank, 131 Handmaid’s Tale, The (Atwood), 117 Hansen, Tyler, 101–2 Harvard University, 47, 93 hawala systems, 179 ‘Here Today.

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco
Published 7 Apr 2014

I saw this man talking in short phrases and people were repeating them. I don’t know whose idea it was, but that started on the first night. The first general assembly was a little chaotic because people had no idea . . . “a general assembly, what is this for?” At first it was kind of grandstanding about what were our demands. Ending corporate personhood is one that has come up again and again as a favorite and. . . . What ended up happening was, they said, “OK, we’re going to break into work groups.” “People were worried we were going to get kicked out of the park at 10 P.M.,” she goes on, speaking of the first night. “This was a major concern.

…

See Coalition of Immokalee Workers Clark, Ben, 8, 9 Clearwater, Frank: death of, 46 Clinton, Bill: agrobusiness and, 203–204 Coal camps, 130, 160 Coal companies, 159, 170, 172, 266 blasting by, 116 control by, 121, 128, 148–149, 152, 174 digging by, 122 health/safety/environmental issues and, 120, 165, 172 politics and, 165 problems with, 117, 118, 173 Coal dust, problems with, 148, 159, 162, 164, 170, 172 Coal mining, 144, 156, 162 carcinogens from, 148 drop in, 144 exhaustion of, 130 impact of, 117, 118–120, 128, 166 Coal towns, decline of, 151–152 Coal trucks, 148, 164 illustration of, 167 Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), 182, 187, 199, 203, 204, 206, 207, 218, 220–222 Coler, Jack R., 20, 51 Collier County, 203 Collier County Sheriff’s Department, 179, 197, 202 Commerce Bank of Toronto-Dominion Bank, Norcross and, 91 Communist Party, 230, 240, 241 Complaint Investigation and Resolution Process, 222 Cone, James, 102 Conner Strong & Buckelew, 88 Connor, “Bull,” 263 Convict labor, 64, 196 Cooper Medical School, 91 Cooper University Hospital, 91, 94 Cordero, Angel: on Norcross, 94 Coriolanus (Shakespeare), 267 Cornu, Sharon, 242 Corporate culture, 238, 242, 267, 269 Corporate personhood, ending, 253 Corporate power, 236, 237, 238, 242 Corporate state, 233–234, 244, 263 decay of, 232 suffering/rage of, 237 Corporations, 264 assault by, 174 more and, 265 workers and, 219–220 Corruption, 72–73, 90, 229, 230, 240–241 Coyotes, smuggling by, 187 Crazy Horse, 16, 24 death of, 41, 43, 44 resistance by, 13, 41 Crazy Horse Memorial Highway, 41 Crazy Horse Ride, 41, 43–44 illustration of, 42–43 Crew leaders, 187, 199, 210 Crips gang, 64 Cross and the Lynching Tree, The (Cone), 102 Crow Dog, Leonard, 47–48, 52, 56 illustration of, 47 Crum, Matt, 164 Culture, 4, 46, 130, 239, 255, 256 corporate, 238, 242, 267, 269 dominant, 40 Custer, George Armstrong, 8, 9, 10, 11, 23, 41 D&S Pioneer Service, 3 Daniels, Destry, 133 Davis, Lallois (Lolly), 102–103 on poor, 101 story of, 103–108 (illus.)

Two Nations, Indivisible: A History of Inequality in America: A History of Inequality in America
by Jamie Bronstein
Published 29 Oct 2016

Journal of Supreme Court History vol. 24 no. 3 (2011): 269–281. 9. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company 118 US 394, decided May 10, 1886, available online at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/394/case.html, accessed April 7, 2016. 10. Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, “The History of Corporate Personhood,” Brennan Center for Justice, April 7, 2014, available online at https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument, accessed April 7, 2016. 11. Jacqueline Jones, “Southern Diaspora: Roots of the Northern ‘Underclass,’ ” in Michael B. Katz, ed., The Underclass Debate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 29. 12.

…

W., 117, 124, 134–135 Calhoun, John, 32 California Life Pension movement, 87–88 Caliver, Ambrose, 84 Carnegie, Andrew, 45–46, 50 Carter, Jimmy, 111–112 Caudill, Harry, 103, 107 Child labor, 64–65 Childcare, 65–66, 103, 110, 115, 125–126 Children, 25, 52, 58–59, 64–66, 102, 115 Christianity, 29, 44, 65, 116, 134–135 Citizens United (2010), 134, 143–144, 147 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 104, 114 Civil War, 33–35, 152 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), 82, 94 Clay, Henry, 15 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, 62 Clinton, Bill, xvii, 117, 124–130, 132, 135 Clinton, Hillary, 117, 127 Cold War, 97–98, 119, 123, 142, 153 Collectivism, 147–148 Colored Farmers’ Alliance and Cooperative, 43 Community Action Agencies, 105 Congress of Industrial Organizations, 90 Constitution, 2, 8, 37, 114–115, 129 Contract with America, 117, 125 Cook, Noah, 22 Cooke, Jay, 40 Coolidge, Calvin, 75 Cooper, Anna Julia, 66 Corporate personhood, 37, 42, 55, 134, 143–144, 147 Coughlin, Father Charles, 89 Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), 98, 105 Coxey, Jacob Sechler, 54–55 Crummell, Alexander, 71 Croly, Herbert, 67–69 De Tocqueville, Alexis, 19 Debs, Eugene V., 63–64, 74 Declaration of Independence, 2, 5, 16 Deindustrialization, 120–121, 142 Dew, Thomas, 32 Dewey, John, 69, 84–85, 88 Disraeli, Benjamin, ix, 154 Distributive justice, 112–114, 123 Donnelly, Ignatius, 44 Drugs, War on, 117–118, 128–130, 132 Drury, Victor, 50 DuBois, W.

The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age
by Tim Wu
Published 14 Jun 2018

There is an unfortunate tendency within enforcement agencies to portray breakups and dissolutions as off the table or only for extremely rare cases. There is no legal reason for that presumption: Indeed, the original practice favored dissolution as the default remedy—implied in the very word “antitrust.” Too much of the resistance to dissolution comes from taking too seriously the legal fiction of corporate personhood. In reality, a large corporation is made up of sub-units, whether functional or regional, or independent operations that have been previously acquired. It is not “impossible” to administer a breakup as is sometimes claimed. Many breakups are akin to the spinoffs or dissolutions that are not uncommon in business practice as it stands, such as AOL-Time-Warner’s decision to break itself up into multiple units in the early 2000s.

Chokepoint Capitalism
by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow
Published 26 Sep 2022

Perhaps because it was too complex to limit this to Japan, Apple announced that this change would apply globally.33 Although this is a relatively small concession, and much more needs to be done, it demonstrates the power of change in one country to influence what happens elsewhere. And of course, pro-creator policies don’t have to take the form of regulation. Revolutionary arts funding programs and new investments in collectively owned public infrastructure can be powerfully contagious too. Corporations rely on the illusion of corporate personhood, using expensively crafted “brand identities” to present themselves to us as having personalities aimed at making us feel an emotional connection—and like we’re all in this together. But firms have no intrinsic virtues. They are not our friends. If a corporation is a “person,” it’s an immortal colony organism that treats human beings as inconvenient gut flora.

…

See radio broadcast industry Brook, Becky, 227 Buckmaster, Jim, 39 Buffet, Warren, 6 Burgess, Jean, 124 Burgess, Richard, 54, 82, 90, 171 Caldas, Charles, 72 California tech industry, 165, 249 Canada, 189, 236 capital, 246–47 capitalism, 4–5, 13 Carstensen, Peter, 10, 23, 148 Carter, Jimmy, 102 Chance the Rapper, 62 Chapel Hill, NC, 239–41 Checkm8, 120 Chen, Steve, 124 Chicago school of economics, 3–4, 5, 92–93, 146–47, 213 chickenization, 96 Childish Gambino, 73 China, 122–23 chokepoint capitalism, 9–10 cinema, 242 Citizens United case, 152 class action lawsuits, 248 Clear Channel, 90, 94 Coker, Mark, 22 Cold Case (TV series), 105 Coldrick, Annabella, 225 Cole, Henderson, 243–44 collective action: antitrust barriers to, 171–72; arbitration, 166–67; atomization of labor and, 31; collective ownership, 229–30; creator visibility and power, 169–70; importance of, 246–47, 256; job guarantees, 251–56; organizing, 178–79; private coordination and, 171–72; Writers Guild of America (WGA), 173–77 college tuition, 249 Comcast, 5 command economy, 13 Compaq, 201 comparison, 170 competition, 3–6, 13, 173 competitive compatibility (comcom), 202–4, 206–11 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 200, 209 computer universality, 197–99 conduct remedies, 148 Conger, 183 consent decrees, 100 consumer debt, 249 consumer harm standard, 117, 146, 173, 250 consumer rights movement, 145–46 consumer welfare, 4, 147 Content ID, 129–35 contextual ads, 231–32 contract labor, 173 cookies, 44 copyright: about, 63–65, 246; anticircumvention laws and infringement, 209; freedom of contract, 184; industrial aggregation of, 57–58, 60–61, 181–82; orphan works, 189, 192–94; registration, 192; reversion proposals, 189–95; reversion rights, 183–89; Statute of Anne (1710), 182–83; term extension, 257; termination law, 186–88; US Copyright Act (1976), 183–84; use-it-or-lose-it rights, 194–95; works for hire, 185–86; and YouTube, 125–29 corporate mergers, 5 corporate personhood, 258 cost moats, 6 COVI D-19, 97, 101, 254 Craigslist, 39–42 Creative Artists Agency, 104, 107, 176 Creative Commons licensing, 151 creative workers: about, 3, 5, 14–19; interoperability and, 203; pay and wages, 16–17 Cross, Colleen, 156 culture, 14 Culture Crash (Timberg), 110–11 culture markets, 3, 13, 14–15 Cumulus Media, 94 data moats, 6 Dayen, David, 94 The Death of the Artist (Deresiewicz), 10 Deezer, 68, 73, 163 The Deficit Myth (Kelten), 255 Dell, 201 Deresiewicz, William, 10 device manufacturers, 43 diapers.com, 37 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 25, 26, 28, 38, 128, 134, 199–200, 208–9 digital rights management (DRM), 25–28, 33–34, 37–38, 202 Dinielli, David C., 50 Discovery Network, 215 Disney, 2, 161–62, 172, 212–13 Doctorow, Cory, 34, 116, 227 domain spoofing, 49 DoorDash, 166–67 DOS, 201 DRM (digital rights management), 25–28, 33–34, 37–38, 119, 120, 121 Drummond, David, 127 Dryhurst, Mat, 67, 220, 238 eBay, 40 ebooks market, 24–33, 37–38, 238 ecology movement, 251 economic rents, 118–21 The Economics of Imperfect Competition (Robinson), 10 Ek, Daniel, 84 Electronic Frontier Foundation, 202, 209 Epic Games, 115–18, 119–20 Epidemic Sound, 81–82 European Union: App Drivers and Couriers Union, 171; competition regulation, 233–34; Copyright Directive (2019), 195; dispute resolution, 166–67; General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 136–39, 144, 171, 231; payment data disclosure, 162, 164; press publishers’ right, 233–34; pro-creator policies, 257; remuneration legislation, 214 The Everything Store (Stone), 21 Excel, 201 Facebook, 2, 18, 45–51 Fairchild Semiconductor, 165–66 Fair Labor Standards Act, 150 fair use/dealing, 130, 189 film scoring, 215 Forbes, 47 Fortnite Battle Royale, 115–18 Foster, Alan Dean, 161–62, 212–13, 215 France, 233 freedom of contract, 184 free market, 118–21 Freire, Paulo, 237 Friedman, Milton, 152, 153, 252 Frisch, Kevin, 48 Game Workers Unite (GWU), 239 gaming industry, 115–18, 239 Gates, Rebecca, 3 Gateway, 201 Gaye, Marvin, 63–64 Gazelle Project, 21 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 136–39, 144, 231 geography, and labor market, 15–16 Germany, 214 Getty Images, 229 Gibbs, Melvin, 3 Giblin, Rebecca, 186, 187, 193, 194 gig economy companies, 249 Gilded Age, 178–79 Gioia, Ted, 64 Glatt, Zoë, 133 Glazier, Mitch, 186 Goldenfein, Jake, 235 Goodman, David, 106, 175, 176 Google: about, 2, 7, 10, 15, 18; in Australia, 235; Content ID system, 129–35; and Epic Games, 116, 117; and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 136–39; news and advertising, 42–45; News Showcase, 234; streaming share, 83; third-party cookies, 232; YouTube acquisition, 125–29, 134 Google Classroom, 210 Green, Joshua, 124 Green, Matthew, 209 Hachette, 23, 28 Haggard, Merle, 166 Harcourt, Amanda, 70, 83 hate, and profits, 95 health insurance, 249, 256 Herndon, Holly, 66–67 Hind, Dan, 244 hip-hop, 61 horizontal integration, 45, 46, 57, 69–70, 97 Howard, George, 82 HP, 199 Huang, Andrew, 209 Hundt, Reed, 90 Hurley, Chad, 124, 128 Hwang, Tim, 46, 50 IBM, 149, 201 ICM Partners, 104 iHeartMedia, 18, 56, 90, 91, 94 Imeem, 133 independent cinema, 242 indyreads, 241–42 information, 14 Intel, 166 International Confederation of Authors and Composers Society, 67 interoperability: adversarial, 201–3; competitive compatibility (comcom), 202–4, 206–11; computer universality, 197–99; digital lock-in, 196–97; DMCA and, 199; as essential, 120; interoperator’s defense, 210; mandated, 204–6; physical lock-in, 196; video streaming, 198; virtual machines, 198; voluntary, 200–201 iWork, 202 Japan Fair Trade Commission, 258 Jay-Z, 2, 160 Jennings, Tom, 201 Jensen, Rich, 237 job guarantees, 251–56 Johannessen, Chip, 105 Johnson, Dennis, 21–22 Johnson, Paul, 78 Kanopy, 242 Kanter, Jonathan, 147 Karim, Jawed, 124 Karp, Irwin, 184 Kates, Mark, 62 Keating, Zoë, 66, 68 Kelten, Stephanie, 255 Khan, Lina, 6, 147 Kindle ebook store, 26–34, 37–38 Kindle Unlimited, 159–60 Kirkwood, John, 173 Klein, Naomi, 152, 254 Knowledge Ecology International, 153 Kobalt, 73 Kowal, Mary Robinette, 212–13 Kun, Josh, 59 labor, 5–6, 253–54 labor, job guarantees, 251–56 labor market and geography, 15–16 LaPolt, Dina, 61 lending right, public, 242–44 Leonard, Christopher, 96 leveraged buyouts, 91–93 libraries, 35–36, 241–44 Linda, Solomon, 188 “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (song), 188 literary agents, 23 litigation costs, 166–67 live music industry: grind and difficulties of, 97–98; Live Nation consolidation of, 98–103; scalping, 98, 100 Live Nation: about, 2, 18, 56; antitrust remedies, 148; domination of industry, 97–103 Livingstone, Bruce, 229 local public ownership models, 239–42 location data, 50 Lofgren, Zoe, 209 Lotus 1-2-3, 201 Love, Courtney, 53 Love, James, 153 Lovett, Lyle, 53 Lyft, 249 Lynn, Barry, 22 Lynskey, Orla, 15 Macmillan, 30 Maker Studios, 133 Malamud, Carl, 130 mandated interoperability, 204–6 Manne Seminars, 103 market power, 13–14 Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, 153 Marshall, Josh, 43 Marx, Paris, 239 May, Susan, 154, 156, 158–59 Medicare for All, 256 Meese, James, 232, 235 Melville House Publishing, 21–22 Merlin, 71–72, 77 # Me Too, 47 Microchip Technology, 166 Microsoft, 201 middlemen, 46 Mills, Martin, 59 Minogue, Kylie, 3 moats, corporate, 6–7, 136 monopolies, 3–6, 9–10, 11–12, 118–19, 146, 256–59; maintenance of monopoly, 58 Monopolized!

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It
by Lawrence Lessig
Published 4 Oct 2011

Just four years prior, in 2006, independent expenditures totaled $37,394,589). 43. It is for this reason that I am skeptical of the utility of efforts to try to “reverse” Citizens United by denying corporate personhood. The root problem is an influence that drives representatives away from a focus on “th cocutp:e People alone.” Even if a reform were to achieve the reversal of corporate personhood, that wouldn’t by itself change the existing skew of influence. 44. Of course not all courts are this enlightened. In Miles v. City of Augusta, 710 F.2d 1542 (11th Cir. 1983), the Court refused “to hear a claim that” a talking cat’s First Amendment rights had been infringed, finding the cat not a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment. 45. 494 US 652, 660 (1990). 46.

Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian
Published 1 Nov 2012

That’s independent of how long it might take to ratify something like that. If enough people get interested in the issue, they may turn to more radical goals and, I think, more principled ones. Which takes us to the principled issue. I think Citizens United is a very bad decision. However, it’s kind of the icing on the cake. The idea of corporate personhood goes back a century. It wasn’t instituted by Citizens United. And we should be thinking about that. Why should corporations be granted personal rights? By now corporations have rights way beyond persons of flesh and blood. They are immortal, they are protected by state power. In fact, the basis of a corporation is limited liability, meaning as a participant in a corporation you’re not personally liable if it, say, murders tens of thousands of people at Bhopal.

The View From Flyover Country: Dispatches From the Forgotten America
by Sarah Kendzior
Published 24 Apr 2015

More attention was paid to the shutdown of the Panda Cam, a livestream of a bear cub, than to the suffering of America’s poorest citizens. Water is a human right, but who is a human being? Corporations, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June, as the parched citizens of Detroit started filling up at water fountains. “In its last day in session, the high court not only affirmed corporate personhood but expanded the human rights of corporations, who by some measures enjoy more protections than mortals—or ‘natural persons,’” wrote Dana Milbank at the Washington Post. The mortals of Detroit enjoy no such protection. Perhaps that is why the city’s corporate venues—like its high-end golf club, hockey arena, football stadium, and over half of the city’s commercial and industrial users—still have their water running despite owing over $30 million, while its most impoverished residents have their water, and their rights, taken away.

Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons
by Peter Barnes
Published 29 Sep 2006

.”: Walter Hickel, Crisis in the Commons: The Alaska Solution (Oakland, Calif.: ICS Press, 2002), p. 217. 120 a handful of corporations: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (London: Penguin Books, 1982 [originally published 1776]). 121 corporations were persons”: The Supreme Court decision that established corporate personhood was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). 122 Fortune 500 sales: I computed the annual sales of Fortune 500 corporations from data available (for a fee) on Fortune magazine’s website. See http:// money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1955/index.htm. 123 “So great has been the change . . .”: John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1958), p. 2. 124 scarce factor is trees: See www.worldchanging.com/archives/004143.html. 125 capitalism’s stages: I’m pleased to note that ecological economist Herman Daly has a two-stage schema similar to mine.

Making the Future: The Unipolar Imperial Moment
by Noam Chomsky
Published 15 Mar 2010

This attack on classical liberalism was sharply condemned by the vanishing breed of conservatives. Christopher G. Tiedeman described the principle as “a menace to the liberty of the individual, and to the stability of the American states as popular governments.” In his standard legal history, Morton Horwitz writes that the concept of corporate personhood evolved alongside the shift of power from shareholders to managers, and finally to the doctrine that “the powers of the board of directors . . . are identical with the powers of the corporation.” In later years, corporate rights were expanded far beyond those of persons, notably by the mislabeled “free trade agreements.”

Let them eat junk: how capitalism creates hunger and obesity
by Robert Albritton
Published 31 Mar 2009

Economist (1993) “A survey of the food industry”, December 4. Economist (1994) “A survey of television”, February 12. Economist (1996) “A survey of living with the car”, June 22. Economist (2000) “A survey of agriculture and technology”, March 25. Economist (2003) “A survey of food”, December 13. Edwards, J. and Morgan, M. (2004) “Abolish corporate personhood”, [online] <www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/edwards_morgan_corporate.html>. Eisenitz, G. (1997) Slaughterhouse, New York: Prometheus. Ellis, H. (2007) Planet Chicken, London: Sceptre. Ellwood, W. (2001) The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization, Toronto: New Internationalist Publications.

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity
by Douglas Rushkoff
Published 1 Mar 2016

That’s the basis of the recent Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court, which decided that a corporation’s personhood entitles it to deny aspects of a health plan with which it morally disagrees.5 It’s also the driving force behind the Citizens United case, in which corporations were granted the right to free speech formerly reserved for humans—but not the corresponding limitations on campaign donations. And these cases all trace back to the most hard-fought battle of all, won during Lincoln’s era, of corporate “personhood” itself.6 The objective, true to the corporation’s three other core commands, was to give railway corporations the same rights to land as that of its local human inhabitants. This way, people would no longer be able to object to railways’ seeking right of passage through their towns or property.

Who Rules the World?
by Noam Chomsky

Collingwood, Charles Colombia Colombian Permanent Committee for Human Rights colonialism Columbia Journalism Review Columbus, Christopher Command and Control (Schlosser) Committee on Public Information commons communism Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Congo consent, manufacture of Constantine, Emperor Contras Copenhagen Global Climate Change Summit Corcoran, Paul corporations personhood and Costs of War Project counterinsurgency Counterterrorism Security Group Creveld, Martin van Crimea Crisis of Democracy, The (Crozier) Cruickshank, Paul Cruz, Ted Cuba Bay of Pigs and missile crisis and Cyprus Daily Mail (London) Damascus, Syria Danger and Survival (Bundy) Darwish, Mahmoud Davar Dayan, Moshe Debs, Eugene debt Declaration of Independence defense spending deindustrialization democracy Democratic Party Dempsey, Martin Depression deregulation Dewey, John Dhanapala, Jayantha Diem, Ngo Dinh Diskin, Yuval Dobbs, Michael Dole, Bob Domínguez, Jorge Dorman, William Dostum, Abdul Rashid Dower, John Dreazen, Yochi Dreyfus, Alfred drones Duarte, Sergio due process Dulles, John Foster E1 project East Asia Eastern Europe East Timor Ebadi, Shirin Economic Charter of the Americas economic crises crash of 2008 Economic Policy Institute Ecuador education efficient market hypothesis Egypt Israeli treaty with Israeli war of 1967 Einstein, Albert Eisenhower, Dwight D.

Owning the Sun
by Alexander Zaitchik
Published 7 Jan 2022

The basic idea was that the myths of American individualism, self-reliance, and autonomy had become mismatched with the facts of modern industrial society, resulting in policies and outdated thinking that ranked among “the most unrealistic in the world.” Among the ideas he considered fonts of magical thinking, bad policy, and undemocratic concentrations of power: corporate personhood and an outdated, idealistic attachment to the patent as a sensible reward for plucky “lone inventors.” Arnold’s long preoccupation with the myths and modern realities of intellectual property prepared him to continue Jackson’s project to liberate wartime production from the suffocating grips of corporate patent strategies.

Rage Inside the Machine: The Prejudice of Algorithms, and How to Stop the Internet Making Bigots of Us All
by Robert Elliott Smith
Published 26 Jun 2019

Hayek’s neoliberal theories, which gained widespread acceptance in the 1980s and 1990s, were based on the idea that the pursuit of individual, economic self-interest leads to the creation of greater value, which inevitably benefits society and results in the improvement of humankind and their general lot in life. The individual self-interest being pursued in this case is that of Facebook, a legal person (thanks to the notion of ‘corporate personhood’), whose board and directors are mandated to deliver the maximum value to the company’s shareholders. Facebook’s algorithms are the virtual limbs of this corporate body, tasked with reaching out into the marketplace and finding the best financial returns. In such a situation, where only a single agenda is present, the optimization algorithms involved are the ultimate realization of the rational agents at the centre of two centuries of economic theory.

A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption
by Steven Hiatt; John Perkins
Published 1 Jan 2006

Four years later, another Pennsylvania township, Porter, challenged the constitutional rights of corporations with passage of an ordinance stating, “Corporations shall not be considered to be ‘persons’ protected by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” In June 2006, California’s Humboldt County took this legislation one step farther, passing a resolution that not only directly challenged corporate personhood but also banned all out-of-county corporations from making political contributions in local campaigns. In 2005, Charlevoix Township in Michigan was one of dozens of cities to approve ordinances giving local government the authority to limit the size of big-box stores. That same year, Maryland passed legislation requiring organizations with more than 10,000 employees in the state to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits.

What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence
by John Brockman
Published 5 Oct 2015

In addition to passing the maturity/sanity/humanity test, perhaps the copy needs to pass a reverse Turing Test (a Church-Turing Test?). Rather than demonstrating behavior indistinguishable from that of a human, the goal would be to show behavior distinct from human individuals. (Would the current U.S. two-party system pass such a test?) Perhaps the day of corporate personhood (Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819) has finally arrived. We already vote with our wallets. Shifts in purchasing trends result in differential wealth, lobbying, R&D priorities, etc. Perhaps more copies of specific memes, minds, and brains will come to represent the will of We the (hybrid) People of the world.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
by Robert M. Sapolsky
Published 1 May 2017

Cheese’s, 342n Churchland, Patricia, 541 Cinderella effect, 367 cities, 296, 298–99 civilizing process, 617 Civil War, 409, 662 Battle of Gettysburg, 554, 644 Clark, Kenneth and Mamie, 415 class, see socioeconomic status Clay, Henry, 285 cleanliness, 564–65 climate, 302–3 Clinton, Bill, 640 cognition, 617–18 adolescence and, 159 cognitive load, 49–50, 416–17, 546 empathy fatigue, 534–35 emotion and, 54–58 empathy and, 528, 531–35, 552 frontal cortex and, 47–50, 159 stages of cognitive development, 176–79 cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), 61 Cohen, Dov, 285, 286, 287 Cohen, Jonathan, 47, 58, 609 Cohn, Alain, 491 Cohn, Roy, 396 Colburn, Lawrence, 657, 658n, 658, 660, 670 Coles, Robert, 181n Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Diamond), 302 collectivist cultures, 97, 156, 206–7, 273–82, 474, 501–3 Coming of Age in Samoa (Mead), 122 compassion, 15, 522, 523, 542 acts of, 542–45, 551, 614 effective, 545–46 in animals, 523–26 in children, 527–28 self-interest in, 547–50, 642 wealthy people and, 533–34 see also empathy compatibilism, 586 competition, 2–4, 15, 16 moral judgment and, 495–500 COMT (catechol-O-methyltransferase), 256–58 conditioned place preference, 103 confidence, 102–3, 237 confirmation biases, 403 conflict monitoring, 528–29 conflict resolution, sacred values in, 575–79, 643–44 conformity, see obedience and conformity congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), 215–18 consequentialism, 504–7, 520 consolation behavior, 525–26 contact theory, 420, 626–30 cooperation, 3, 4, 15, 547, 633–35 moral judgment and, 495–500, 508–9 optimal strategy for, 345–53 punishment used to promote, 635 starting, 353–54, 508–9 corporate personhood, 411n, 503 Correll, Joshua, 86 corruption, 267 Corry, Stephen, 315 cortex, 29 Cotton, Ronald, 641–42 Craddock, Sandie, 124 CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone), 125, 129, 132, 708–9 Crick, Francis, 714 crime: abortion and, 190–91 broken window theory of, 95–96 income inequality and, 295 in 1970s and 1980s, 311 organized, 395–96 urbanization and, 296 Crimean War, 662 criminal justice system, 171, 253, 398, 502–3, 580–600, 608–12 adolescents and, 170–71, 589–90, 592–93 brain damage and, 590–91, 597, 598, 601–2, 609 and causation vs. compulsion, 593 cognitive biases in jurors, 582 and diminished responsibility for actions, 587 free will and, see free will judicial decisions, 448, 449, 483, 583, 643 neuroimaging data and, 582, 599 and starting a behavior vs. halting it, 594–95 and time course of decision making for action, 592–93 crises, cultural, 301–3 culture(s), 7, 11, 21, 266–327 adolescence and, 155–56 changes in, over time, 276–77 childhood and, 202–10 collectivist, 97, 156, 206–7, 273–82, 474, 501–3 crises and, 301–3 definitions of, 269–71 differences in, 271–73 gender-related, 272 diffusion and, 621 egalitarian, 291–96 of honor, 207, 283, 284, 501 American South, 207, 284–88, 501 honor killings in, 288–91, 290 human universals in, 271–72 hunter-gatherer, 291, 315–25, 318, 372–73, 407, 499, 616–17, 620 gods in, 297 Hadza, 317–19, 318, 498, 620 violence in, 319–25, 322 individualistic, 97, 156, 206–7, 273–82, 474, 501–3 learning in, 457 long-lasting effects of, 267 math skills and, 266–67, 406 moral judgments and, 275, 493–503 pastoral, 282–83, 288, 379 religion and, 283, 304 prehistoric and contemporary indigenous, 305–26, 307, 310, 318, 320, 322 religion in, see religion sensory processing and, 276 similarities in, 271–72 stratified, 291–96 stress responses and, 274–75 violence and, 272 Cushing’s syndrome, 151n Cyberball, 165–66, 529–30, 559 Dalai Lama, 544 Dale, Henry, 692 Dalton, Katharina, 123 Daly, Martin, 367 Damasio, Antonio, 28, 56, 61, 97, 507, 538 Darden, Chris, 396 Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon (Tierney), 312n Darwin, Charles, 230n Darwin’s finches, 379 Das, Gopal, 147 Davidson, Richard, 544 Davis, Richard, 574–75 Dawkins, Richard, 330, 333, 361, 362 DeCasper, Anthony, 210–11 deception, 512–17 Decety, Jean, 180, 532 decision making, 38–39, 46–47 De Dreu, Carsten, 116–17 De Kock, Eugene, 629–30 Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Wrangham and Peterson), 316, 317 Dennett, Daniel, 607, 668–69 deontology, 504, 505, 520 depression, 143, 437, 602–3 childhood adversity and, 196–97 5HTT variant and, 246 Descarte, René, 28 Descartes’ Error (Damasio), 28 despotism, avoidance of, 324 DeVore, Irven, 384, 427, 651 De Waal, Frans, 271, 444, 457, 484–87, 525, 526 diabetes, 379–80 gestational, 359n dichotomizing, 392 see also Us/Them dichotomies Dictator Game, 497, 498 Diallo, Amadou, 86 Diamond, Jared, 302 Diana, Princess of Wales, 401n–2n disgust, 411, 560–65 adolescents and, 160n insular cortex and, 41, 46, 69, 398–99, 454, 560–61 interpersonal, 399 moral, 398, 454, 561–65 political orientation and, 453–55 Us/Them and, 398–99 dishonesty, 512–17 Disney, Walt, 84 DNA, 108, 147, 223, 225–33, 261–62 as blueprint for constructing proteins, 712–14 exons and introns and, 230–31 mutations and polymorphisms and, 714–17 noncoding, 226 Dobzhansky, Theodosius, 328 dog(s), 112 deception in, 513 dog-meat market and, 510, 510 feral Moscow, 378, 379 scenario of saving person vs., 368, 371 doll studies, 415 Donohue, John, 190 dopamine (mesolimbic/mesocortical dopamine system), 30, 64–77, 84, 103, 151, 275, 390, 555–56, 692 in adolescence, 162–64, 163 arbitrary signals and, 391 charitable acts and, 548–50 childhood adversity and, 196 D4 receptor, gene for (DRD4), 256, 258, 260, 261, 279 7R variant, 256, 279–81 empathy and, 534, 545, 546 genes and, 255–58, 264, 279–81, 280 L-DOPA and, 693 DRD4 gene, 256, 258, 260, 261, 279 7R variant of, 256, 279–81 drone pilots, 645–46 drought, 303 drugs, 65, 76, 196 neuropharmacology, 693–94 Drummond, Edward, 586 Dunbar, Robin, 429 Dunbar’s number, 430 Dweck, Carol, 595 Dylan, Bob, 184 Eakin, John, 554 East Asia, 277–78 Eckford, Elizabeth, 640 E. coli, 343, 380 economic games and game theory, 18, 55, 66, 77, 89, 93, 104, 112, 116, 255, 272, 292, 345, 393, 398, 497–500, 609, 610, 624 Dictator Game, 497, 498 hunger and, 92, 449 language effects on, 92–93, 491 Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD), 92, 116, 345–46, 372, 393, 557, 633, 634 public good, 495–96 third-party punishment, 497 Tit for Tat, 346–53, 363, 634, 666 Contrite, 350 Forgiving, 350, 351 Ultimatum Game, 38–39, 106, 486, 497, 498, 500, 610, 635 educational attainment, 263 egalitarian cultures, 291–96 egalitarianism, 167, 180–81 Eichmann, Adolf, 464, 475 Eisenberger, Naomi, 165 Eisenegger, Christoph, 106 Eldredge, Niles, 374–75, 385 Elias, Norbert, 617 Ellsberg, Daniel, 652 El Niños, 302 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 641 Ember, Carol, 319, 321 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 520 emotional contagion, 522 in animals, 523–26, 569 in children, 527–58 brain and, 22–28 cognition and, 54–58 eyes and, 89, 97 and frontal cortical changes in adolescence, 160 reappraisal and, 60–61, 160, 453 empathy, 3, 4, 15, 18, 46, 169, 454, 521–52, 617 in adolescence, 167–69 affective side of, 528–31, 552 cognitive load and, 534–35, 546 cognitive side of, 528, 531–35, 552 compassionate acts and, 542–45, 551, 614 effectiveness in, 545–46 emotional contagion, 522 in animals, 523–26, 569 in children, 527–28 group loyalty and, 395 mimicry and, 102, 522–24 mirror neurons and supposed role in, 540–41 pain and, 86, 133, 169, 180, 395, 522, 523, 527, 532, 533, 540, 545–47, 550–52, 560, 568 self-interest in, 547–50, 642 stress and, 133 Us/Them and, 532–35 wealthy people and, 533–34 in young children, 179–81 endocrinology, 7 basics of, 707–10 see also hormones Enlightenment, 615, 617 environmental degradation, 302 envy, 15, 67 epilepsy, 605–6, 610, 611 epinephrine, 27, 126 equality, 395 Escherichia coli, 343, 380 estrogen, 117, 118, 144, 158 genes and, 260 prenatal, 211–13 ethology, 10, 81–84 Evans, Robert, 294–95 evolution, 7, 15, 21, 328–86 adaptation in, 380–85 basics of, 328–31 behavior and, 331–32 continuous and gradual, 374–80 evidence for, 329–30 exaptation in, 381, 569 fossil record and, 329, 330, 375, 376 founder populations and, 353–54, 633 genes and, 328–29, 373–74 genotype vs. phenotype in, 360–62 group selection in, 332–33, 426 human, 365–73 individual selection in, 366–68 kin selection in, 368–72, 499 and reciprocal altruism and neo-group selectionism, 372–73 as tournament vs. pair-bonded, 365–66 individual selection in, 333–36, 366–68 intersexual genetic conflict and, 359–60 kin selection in, 336–42, 368–72, 499, 570 cousins and, 339–40 green-beard effect and, 341–42, 353, 390, 409, 633, 637 and recognizing relatedness, 340–41, 570 misconceptions about, 328–29 multilevel selection in, 360–65 natural selection in, 330–31 neo-group selection in, 360, 363–65, 372–73 observed in real time, 379–80 and pair-bonding vs. tournament species, 354–58, 360, 365–66, 383 parent-offspring conflict and, 358–59 punctuated equilibrium in, 374–80, 384–85 reciprocal altruism and, 342–54, 372–73 optimal cooperation strategy and, 345–53 starting cooperation and, 353–54 selection for complexity and, 329 selection for preadaptation and, 329 sexual selection in, 330–31 sociobiology and, 331–33, 374–76, 380–84 spandrels and, 381–82, 382 survival of the fittest and, 328–29 tinkering and improvisation in, 381, 568–69 evolutionary psychology, 331–32 executions, 170–71, 472, 582 firing squads, 471–72 executive function, 48 sustained stress and, 130–31 see also cognition; frontal cortex executive stress syndrome, 436 eyes, social impact of, 89, 97, 623 Facebook, 164, 667 faces, 85–89, 129, 275 amygdala and, 85, 89, 388, 395, 408–9, 416, 418 beauty in, and confusion with goodness, 88, 443 disgust and, 411 dominant, 432, 433 eyes, social impact of, 89, 97, 623 fear and, 85, 395, 411 fusiform response to, 80, 85–86, 88, 114, 122n, 388, 402 gender of, 88 infants and, 391–92 race of, 85–87, 89, 391–92, 398, 408–9, 418–19, 614, 628–29 testosterone and, 102, 104 voting and, 442–44 FADS2 gene, 246 Fail-Safe (Burdick and Wheeler), 349n–50n Fairbanks, Lynn, 337 fairness and justice, 323–24, 449, 450 children’s sense of, 181, 483–84 see also morality and moral decisions Farah, Martha, 195 fascism, 202, 308, 401 fear: aggression and, 44 amygdala and, 34, 36–40, 42, 44, 85, 87–90, 97, 129 faces and, 85, 395, 411 innate vs. learned, 36 pheromones and, 90 sustained stress and, 128–30 Fehr, Ernst, 55, 106, 517 Felt, W.

…

The dying Armistead asked after Hancock’s well-being and requested that Bingham send his warm greetings to his old friend. * The punch line here is how such individuals barely register with us as people—as we’ll see, neuroimaging supports this. A recent finding highlights the opposite concerning the weird American legal notion of “corporate personhood”—when people contemplate the morality of corporate actions, they activate Theory of Mind networks, just as when contemplating the morality of actions of fellow humans. * With the reminder that “competence” is used not in the everyday sense where “low competence” would seem pejorative but simply as a measure of agency

The Ones We've Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America
by Charlotte Alter
Published 18 Feb 2020

Occupiers felt no need to sharpen their collective demands to a single concrete point, because any one demand might exclude hundreds of other priorities. There was no single objective but dozens, hundreds, or none, depending on whom you asked. Occupy Seattle held votes on its website over demands such as “end corporate personhood” and “universal education,” but a nationwide, officially sanctioned list of demands never emerged, partly because there was never a unifying governing body authorized to decide what Occupy stood for and what it didn’t—which was just the way the activists wanted it. The press couldn’t understand this.

Stacy Mitchell
by Big-Box Swindle The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses (2006)

See also downtowns Penjajawoc Marsh, 108 Penn, Felicia, 219 Pennsylvania: Carlisle, 33; East Lampeter, 67; Lancaster, 89; Philadelphia, 15, 87; Whitpain, 89 Penofin Performance Coatings, 55 Perrette, Virginie-Alvine, 96 Peskin, Aaron, 217 Petrocelli, Bill, 176, 177 PetSmart, 158 pet stores, 158–59, 232 pharmacies: consolidation among, 11; and consumer choice, 154–56; cooperatives in, 247; destruction of historical landmarks, 89–90; health insurance discrimination against independent, 155–56, 190; increase in independents, 226–27; level of service, local vs. chain 154–56; market share for corporate retailers, xii, 11; pricing, 134–35; trade association, 226–27 place, sense of, 79–80, 83–85, 92–96, 105, 124. See also community life police expenses from chain retail, 67–68 politics: and consumer vs. citizen identity, 4, 205, 209–210; and corporate personhood, 208, 218; corporate retail clout in, 164, 171, 175, 177, 182, 201–2; and power of citizen groups, 205; and public spaces’ value, 83–85, 92–96; and quality of community life, 77, 81; and restrictions on megaretail, 192–93. See also campaigns, grassroots pollution, 88, 106, 114–19, 218 Pomp, Richard, 174 Popelars, Craig, 143 Portland Development Corporation (PDC), 203–4 poverty, xiv, 57–58, 59, 64–65, 69–70 Powell Mercantile, 235–37 predatory expansion strategies of corporate retailers, 7, 8, 36–37, 102–3, 135 predatory pricing, xi, 178–83 INDEX Presser, Steve, 102, 105 Price, Sol, 9, 60 Price Club, 9, 10 price discrimination, 183–190 price flexing, 134–35 pricing: corporate retail strategies for, xvii, 54–55, 127–37, 185–87; loss leader, 7, 29, 30, 130–31, 135, 148, 181 private-label products, 25, 50–51 Procter & Gamble, 21, 24 product diversity.

Ways of Being: Beyond Human Intelligence
by James Bridle
Published 6 Apr 2022

Imagine a system with clearly defined goals, sensors and effectors for reading and interacting with the world, the ability to recognize pleasure and pain as attractors and things to avoid, the resources to carry out its will, and the legal and social standing to see that its needs are catered for, even respected. That’s a description of an AI – it’s also a description of a modern corporation. For this ‘corporate AI’, pleasure is growth and profitability, and pain is lawsuits and drops in shareholder value. Corporate speech is protected, corporate personhood recognized, and corporate desires are given freedom, legitimacy and sometimes violent force by international trade laws, state regulation – or lack thereof – and the norms and expectations of capitalist society. Corporations mostly use humans as their sensors and effectors; they also employ logistics and communications networks, arbitrage labour and financial markets, and recalculate the value of locations, rewards and incentives based on shifting input and context.

To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise
by Bethany Moreton
Published 15 May 2009

“I Â�don’t want to be bolshevistic,” wrote one Texan in support of Depression-Â�era antichain legislation, but€“it certainly is no permanent relief or progÂ�ress for the government to create temporary jobs and distribute money and in a few days it all winds up in Chicago or New York City in the hands of a few extremely wealthy men, owners of the chains and utilities.”61 Patman, the leading ConÂ�gresÂ�sional champion of the inÂ�deÂ�penÂ�dent stores, pointed out that while 200 companies controlled more than half the country’s corporate wealth, only eleven of these were based in the West and a mere nine in the South: “‘How a true Texan can favor ownership and control of local€business by Wall Streeters,” he concluded, “I cannot understand.’”62 Members of the Ku Klux Klan in Clarke County, Georgia, railed against the chain owners as a “‘Little Group of Kings in Wall Street’” and warned 21 TO SERVE GOD AND WAL - Â�M ART that Jewish and Catholic immigrants were using the chain to pauperize native-Â�born white ProtÂ�esÂ�tants.63 Employing a metaphor familiar to rural ProtÂ�esÂ�tants, a 1937 novel cast chain stores as evidence of the approaching Apocalypse.64 Even the fundamental myth of corporate personhood came up for debate: contrasting “arÂ�tiÂ�fiÂ�cial beings” like the American Retail Federation to tangible, “honest-Â�to-Â�God citizens,” Patman attacked the premÂ�ise that legal incorporation permitted companies to claim the constitutional protections of private citizens.65 The suspicion of “foreigners” was echoed in charges of shady business practices.

The Cigarette: A Political History
by Sarah Milov
Published 1 Oct 2019

Lamoreaux, The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 1; Jonathan Levy, Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 276–277. 27. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886); Enstad, Cigarettes, Inc., 75–76. As Enstad notes, what was significant about the creation of corporate personhood was the way in which it augured a shift in the public imagination of the corporation as a private rather than public entity. 28. Enstad, Cigarettes, Inc., 67. 29. Brandt, Cigarette Century, 32–36. 30. P. G. Porter, “Origins of American Tobacco Company,” Business History Review 43, No. 1 (1969): 59–60. 31.

A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America
by Bruce Cannon Gibney
Published 7 Mar 2017

The time to act had been sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, before there were billions of facts/dollars on the ground, all eager to undo McCain-Feingold. By the 2000s, it became trivial to dispose of irritants like McCain-Feingold, and courts dispatched them in a series of cases culminating in Citizens United v. FEC (2010).* Anyway, political theatre aside, the Boomers were largely content with the idea of corporate personhood and speech, and the culture of political money. Hillary Clinton said she despises the idea of PACs, but she’s enjoyed several, most quite large. Lest this seem merely academic, the corrosive money politics of the Boomer era have become so entrenched and pervasive that the Supreme Court now seems unable to even define corruption.

What Went Wrong: How the 1% Hijacked the American Middle Class . . . And What Other Countries Got Right
by George R. Tyler
Published 15 Jul 2013

Goodman, as quoted in “A Fresh Look at the Apostle of Free Markets,” New York Times, April 13, 2008. 9 Catherine Rampell, “Same Old Hope: This Bubble Is Different,” New York Times, Sept. 14, 2009. 10 Mathias Döpfner, “On the Search for the Honor of the Merchant,” Handelsblatt, Nov. 19, 2011. 11 John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (London: Cresset Press, 1960). Catherine Rampell, “Same Old Hope: This Bubble Is Different.” 12 Timothy H. Parsons, The Rule of Empires (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 170, 194, 201–202. 13 John Gillespie and David Zweig, Money for Nothing (New York: Free Press, 2010), 20–24 and Jan Edwards, “Challenging Corporate Personhood,” Multinational Monitor, November 2002. 14 Amrit Dhillon, “Fresh Brew,” Sydney Morning Herald, June 5, 2010. 15 Ralph Nader, The Nader Reader, Feb. 21, 2000, speech. 16 R. Jeffrey Smith, “DeLay Trial a Window Into Influence,” Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2010. 17 Justin Fox, “What the Founding Fathers Really Thought about Corporations,” HBR Blog Network, Harvard Business Review, e-mail exchange between Justin Fox and Brian Murphy, April 1, 2010, http://blogs.hbr.org/fox/2010/04/what-the-founding-fathers-real.html 18 John Kay, “Beware the Bailout Kings and Backbench Barons,” Financial Times, May 20, 2009. 19 Luke Mitchell, “Understanding Obamacare,” Harper’s Magazine, December 2009. 20 Hedrick Smith, Who Stole the American Dream (New York: Random House, 2012). 21 Charles Morris, “A Recession Can Clear the Air,” Washington Post, Nov. 16, 2008. 22 Northeast Public Power Association (NEPPA), “Deregulation Continues to Impact Retail Electric Prices in Region,” NEPPA News Line, vol. 43, no. 12, December 2007.

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
by Shoshana Zuboff
Published 15 Jan 2019

Among these, several became essential shelter for the surveillance capitalists’ bold actions, secret operations, and rhetorical misdirection: (1) democracy was to be constrained in favor of actively reconstructing the state as the agent of a stable market society; (2) the entrepreneur and the corporation were conflated, enshrining “corporate personhood,” rather than the rights of citizens, as the focus of legal protections; (3) freedom was defined negatively, as “freedom from” interference in the natural laws of competition, and all control was understood as coercive, except for market control; and (4) inequality of wealth and rights was accepted and even celebrated as a necessary feature of a successful market system and a force for progress.

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World
by Malcolm Harris
Published 14 Feb 2023

Aggregating the three cases, the justices of the Supreme Court agreed in 1886’s Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that corporations were entitled to avail themselves of the young Fourteenth Amendment and its equal protection clause.13 They ruled for the Combine and established the doctrine of corporate personhood. Long before Santa Clara County stood for Silicon Valley, Santa Clara County meant that companies are people, too, and the United States endowed its scams with civil rights. The case itself, of course, was part of the game. Representing California on the Supreme Court was Stephen J. Field, appointed by Lincoln on the recommendation of the state’s governor: Leland Stanford.