The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC is a historic case, and a staggering blow against the First Amendment. In his Jan. 30, 2010 column, Leland Browne argues that an entity has the right to spend its own money in its own behalf.
While I agree with him where it concerns business decisions, I fail to understand how he has arrived at the illogical conclusion that corporations merit treatment equal to that of citizens of these United States. The Constitution, as I recall, starts with the words “We the people.” It does not say, “We, Nike, McDonald’s and Ford.”
Browne wastes no time in dismissing all critics of corporations, but fails to actually understand why these critics exist in the first place. Adam Smith even saw the possibility for corruption and dysfunction back in 1776 when he published “The Wealth of Nations.” He wrote, “The directors of such (joint-stock) companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private co-partnery frequently watch over their own... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company.”
The modern corporation, especially the international variety, is a far cry from the original model, which had to have a very specific purpose and was constrained to a particular industry. But after the Civil War the laws began to shift, and the past 50 years have seen change of unprecedented scope.
Why do people consider corporations evil? Perhaps because that’s how they act, often putting profit before all other concerns. Consider the Ford Pinto, and it’s fatal rear-end design. Consider Nike, which moved its factories from Taiwan and Korea when minimum wages increased. Now it manufactures in countries like Vietnam, where workers average 20 cents per hour. Consider Monsanto, the agriculture giant based here in Missouri, which produces genetically modified seeds and has a habit of suing small farmers for patent infringement.
The obvious truth is that there are more than “a few” corporations with devious intent. The problem is it is endemic to the corporate structure. The unabated pursuit of profit causes individuals to make decisions that they otherwise wouldn’t if they were running a company or a local firm. The end result is Third World laborers work for slave wages while a select few reap obscene profits.
But, as Browne states, we shouldn’t be painting all corporations and individuals with the same brush. I agree. To put them in the same category is simply infantile. The living, breathing, citizens of these United States are what the Constitution was designed to uphold and protect. It was designed to protect our right to freedom of speech; to allow us, the ones who can speak, to voice our opinion on government. It was designed to allow us to make careful, balanced selections on who to elect to lead this nation. These rights do not belong to an entity whose sole purpose is profit for the stockholder and the board of directors.
A corporation should not be afforded the right to buy in to our political process and bombard us with billions of dollars of their opinion on who should be president, or who we should go to war with, or which way we should vote on the issues. Corporations do not have the best interests of our country at heart. They can’t. They don’t possess one.
Anthony Monteleone lives in Carl Junction.
