On the History of Corporations in America

Corporations have not always existed in their current form throughout the history of America. In fact, our founding fathers were against such grouped power as a corporation. Our founding fathers recognized that when any entity becomes too powerful it will eventually influence the lives of individuals, destroying freedom in the process. It will corrupt our governments that are designed to protect our own interests as individuals. The first modern corporation did not exist until the later 1800's and was an offshoot of land trusts groups. These were land trust groups speculated the value of land, bought whole chunks of land, and then resold that land in smaller portions for increased prices. In this manner, the first modern corporation was formed.

Our Courts previously viewed corporations as a nexus of individual contracts. A corporation is the point were all individual contract agreements converged. However, as more people became involved in large scale groups designed for profit there was a need to create a single entity in which to manage these individual contracts. Thus, we created the modern corporation as a vehicle to manage all individual interests in that corporation. It does make sense, that Courts responsible for enforcing individual contracts might demand a more simplified understanding of the nature of those contracts.

Previous to the modern corporation our founding fathers understood the threat posed by economic powers.

Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.

Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end.

The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these:

* Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.

* Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.

* Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.

* Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.

* Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.

* Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.

These initial mandates are a stark difference to what we see in a corporation today. Almost all the protections have been removed, allowing corporations to run largely unchecked. Corporations can now contribute to political races, whether directly or through a third party. Owners of corporations, CEO's, and others are rarely every prosecuted for crimes of their corporation unless they were direct participants and were knowledgeable about the illegal act being committed.

States also limited corporate charters to a set number of years. Unless a legislature renewed an expiring charter, the corporation was dissolved and its assets were divided among shareholders. Citizen authority clauses limited capitalization, debts, land holdings, and sometimes, even profits. They required a company's accounting books to be turned over to a legislature upon request. The power of large shareholders was limited by scaled voting, so that large and small investors had equal voting rights. Interlocking directorates were outlawed. Shareholders had the right to remove directors at will.

Today, we have a system which allows those with the most influence to gather even more power and influence. The 14th Amendment, originally designed to free the slaves, has often been cited in legal cases giving corporations power to act as individuals. So the slavery Amendment was used as a cover to expand acceptance of corporate power and "personhood" of a corporation.

What we are experiencing in America and abroad in the corruption and influence large corporate powers can have on the rights of human beings. It has corrupted our political process, as well as divided society in general. It is not to say that corporations are inherently evil, as they are no more evil then the people who desire profits from them. However, these corporations act without feelings and compassion for others. This is unnatural and not human at all. A human that acted to kick a person out of their home is at least answerable for their actions in their own conscious, and to which over time they may change. A corporation can kick people out of their homes without any emotional consideration whatsoever and rarely will reflect on the impact they have created for an individual. I personally believe corporate power needs to be reigned in. That many of our government problems are influenced by corporate power. Our spending is dictated by corporate interests. Where to cut from the budget is designed by corporate interests. Who to bail out, is a corporate influenced decision.

I would like to know your thoughts on corporations, and whether we should take a trip back in time to reinstitute some of the restrictions we once had on groups of people who could by virtue of their combined power influence your life.

References:

reclaimdemocracy.org...

Correct, corporations used to be limited and their power was finite.

You are on the right track here, keep digging!

People need to research this stuff, it's mind-blowing for sure.

Although this isn't about America, I want to link this wiki article that will give people a good lead into even further back into history so that they can see a glimpse into how this all started.

British East India Company
Dutch East India Company


Also this is required reading as well:

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

You will have to be a bit more specific, there are MANY corporations and they are not the only ones that contribute money to influence politics. What about unions that give money to political causes? That is completely ignored ESPECIALLY when unions join the likes of OWS to protest corporations doing the same thing they are protesting against.
So while using terms like "big corporations" and "big oil" and "1%" may gather support from those that are easily swayed by rhetoric it does not necessarily represent reality.

www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...

Both of those gave more than Goldman Sachs

www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...
www.opensecrets.org...

Keep telling yourself it is all the evil corporations, the left LOVES it because you end up ignoring where their money comes from

Let's bring back the 'corporate death penalty'.

CorpWatch

''We're letting the people of California in on a well-kept secret,'' said Benson. ''The people mistakenly assume that we have to try to control these giant corporate repeat offenders one toxic spill at a time, one layoff at a time, one human rights violation at a time. But the law has always allowed the attorney general to go to court to simply dissolve a corporation for wrongdoing and sell its assets to others who will operate in the public interest.''

reply to post by PrimalRed


I believe that many unions are mad that their own little powerhouse is being sidestepped by the corporate interests. I think the power of unions can be just as much as a threat to individual freedoms. I think they are probably the same thing. Where I do agree with unions is in the people they supposedly represent. The people are being screwed, but the unions have only served to slow down that process. In good times many of these unions were bending over backwards for corporations. None were trying to inform the public or change laws to protect individuals. The unions necessarily need an unbridled corporate power in order to exist.

In other words, what union would ask that corporate powers are limited. If they were there would be no need for unions. So unions are a result of the dysfunctional structure. A bandaid applied to a problem created by relaxing restrictions on corporate powers.

Originally posted by PrimalRed

Keep telling yourself it is all the evil corporations, the left LOVES it because you end up ignoring where their money comes from

edit on 18-11-2011 by PrimalRed because: (no reason given)

We haven't ignored any of that. (At least I haven't).

All over ATS are in depth discussions and research-fests about entire myriads of topics, such as the Royal Families, Rome, the history of Banking, military history, politics, secret societies, etc etc etc.

Each thread is about a topic, just because the thread isn't about every single topic all at once doesn't mean it's ignoring the other 100,000 threads on ATS or the topics they discuss.

reply to post by muzzleflash


My point is MANY groups make contributions to political parties and candidates. To single out just "corporations" comes off like the typical rhetorical propaganda.

reply to post by Leo Strauss


This would be a novel idea, if we had prosecutors and Attorney Generals willing to do this. Of course most will not.

reply to post by PrimalRed


Well for the record, I think any group giving money for political influence should not be allowed. The only exception to this that I can think of is if the group is designed specifically for that purpose and publicly discloses those individuals contributing to that. I see no problem in a person giving money to a group to give to someone.

Originally posted by PrimalRed
reply to post by muzzleflash

 

My point is MANY groups make contributions to political parties and candidates. To single out just "corporations" comes off like the typical rhetorical propaganda.

Well, "corporation" is quite the umbrella term so it's hard to say.

For instance, many organizations affiliated with the AFL-CIO are actually incorporated as well, with charters, etc.

Also, if we get into the debate of "legal persons" or "legal fictions", the waters are muddied even further and the terminology covers a vast swath of subjects.

Complex indeed. Corporations are almost a necessary evil as is proven in some cases. Other cases it's not so good. Generally speaking though from my experience, when one corporation makes many corporations to support itself they become corrupt, it should be generally outlawed. Governments should give grants to people using the corporations paid tax dollars to encourage growth of a new corporation created for the public interest to help the other corporation manage it's assets or whatever. This does not allow for one corporation to become a monopoly in many areas.

A lot of times you see these things like a giant octopus. They got one shell company after another, one doing something dirtier then another, seemingly laundering the companies money or assets somehow. It exists for no other reason then to keep the eyes off the main corporation.

Seems a lot of the issues that can regulate any corporation just either needs to be enforced better, or the laws written more clear. However, due to their ability to influence politics now, changing that is like winning a lottery.
The only way to get rid of these big guys is to make them fold by not participating with them.

If everyone knows their dirty or that their wrong, making them irrelevant is equal to enforcing their destruction. To me it's much more satisfying making them irrelevant.

If corporatons are people, perhaps keeping a memory of what these "people" do is most appropriate. If someone told me Bill Gates started tribal wars for an oil rig then accidentily dumped a bunch of oil in Africa then "got-the-hell-out" would we be buying anything Microsoft?

People have power, we just don't collectively think properly and use it. We have had the veil over our eyes for many decades now drowned with information and excitment of the age. Now it's time to wake up and do something about the mess we/they made.

reply to post by EspyderMan


I agree that when a corporation gets into the business of owning other corporations this is where corporations turn corrupt. This is where they also become too influential. I look at small and medium size corporations that focus on one thing and usually see the American dream coming to life. It is when, like you said, these corporations have so much money they branch out and gobble up whole sectors of the economy. They do it in disguise hiding their interests behind the name of another corporation. In a way it is like a secret society where one corporation does the will of another, without the public having that information. One corporation might own a good section of the cow farming industry, and own a national hamburger joint, who owns a real estate investment company who develops land and petitions government for building permits, who owns shares in the local utility companies. In this manner wealth is not created once for these individuals, but several times pyramiding on top of themselves. They buy products from themselves to support their other businesses, and the consumers partake in those businesses without knowledge they are funding one single group of people.

I say split them up too. Make them smaller. Make them not able to corner the market. Allow individuals to compete. If anything this could be accomplished by limiting corporate control over any type of business which is necessary to support human functioning. Mainly, food production, water, electricity, other energy, mining and other natural resources. If these types of corporations were more heavily regulated the playing field would be more fair and less corruption might occur.

reply to post by ExPostFacto


Dumbing it down more, saying only a Live Human Being can own a corporation is quite enough I would think. Maybe I am too simplistic. If it don't breath and cannot speak/understand words/sentences it cannot own another company. A single person owning many companies should also be outlawed. If a business intent is to better the public, then why should Joe Smith own ten corporations and golf 8 months of the year with a big bonus at the end due to the works of the lower echelon? Smacks of greed.

Greed can easily be curbed if it's confronted by the government, however, it never really is. You see people getting a bonus still to this day in these hard times. It's insanity. Government pretty much is a big supporter of greed, hence why the battle seems so difficult but not impossible if everyone just decided to buy from a mom and pop store instead of walmart.

There are many towns in the U.S that are Incorporated.

Corporations are made up of people so as a blanket statement to say they are bad\evil would be imbecilic. Sure things should be more fair but where are they more fair?

reply to post by EspyderMan


Yes government supports the greed, as those policy makers are often put into office by those who want policy to be made which allows them to make more money.

reply to post by ExPostFacto

In fact, our founding fathers were against such grouped power as a corporation.

Well maybe so, at least until the the Act of 1871 created corporate government.

Monopolies are mentioned nowhere in the constitution.

John Jacob Astor
Astor founded the American Fur Company in 1808 and used two company subsidiaries – Pacific Fur Company and Southwest Fur Company – to control the trade on the Columbia River and the Great Lakes area. Since this was newly acquired territory for the United States, Astor wrote to then President Thomas Jefferson about his intended venture in February 1808. Jefferson seems to have been enthusiastic and responded by saying: “I learn with great satisfaction the disposition of our merchants to form into companies for understanding the Indian trade within our own territories.”
blogs.loc.gov...

reply to post by frazzle


Companies were allowed for specific purposes. The example you cited was to control fur trading in a very specific area and for a very specific purpose. It was also limited because the Fur trading company couldn't control other aspects of the economy or branch out into other ventures. Its rights were granted for only a specific purpose to conduct fur trading in a specific area. Today our corporations are global and there is no limit on where they can operate or what other sectors of the economy it can dabble it.

It is my opinion, that when groups of people begin to have their hands in every section of the economy, it limits the ability of individuals without a group to profit from ventures of their own. We have seen this with Walmart putting local hardware shop owners out of business. It becomes an economy that an individual by himself cannot live the American dream without joining with others.

Like my signature says Government was instituted for the protection and enjoyment of individuals, not for groups of individuals. Shouldn't we refocus our government policy on business to promote individual ownership over that of group ownership?

reply to post by ExPostFacto

Today our corporations are global and there is no limit on where they can operate or what other sectors of the economy it can dabble it.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Please realize that global corporatism didn't spring from the ground fully formed last week or last year or even in the last hundred years. It was carefully formed, guided and nurtured by financiers, wealthy merchants and their powerful friends in high places from the very beginning to become what it is today. No one in positions of authority stopped the growth of corporations when it could have been stopped because that is what they desired.

reply to post by frazzle


So true indeed. Piece by piece this system was erected and implemented.

Originally posted by ExPostFacto
reply to post by frazzle

 

So true indeed. Piece by piece this system was erected and implemented.

It was erected to do what exactly what has been done and all of it was predicted by the anti-federalists. But like you and I, they had no standing against the overwhelming forces of wealth.

www.barefootsworld.net...

Incidentally, on your sig ~ John Adams had Benjamin Franklin's grandson (Benjamin Franklin Bache), who was the editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican, thrown into prison on the charge of libeling President Adams.

The Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of this legislation twenty-five men, most of them editors of Republican newspapers, were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down. www.earlyamerica.com...

Apparently the first amendment wasn't part of Adam's philosophy on what constitutes free speech.

Sorry, my intent is not to be rude, its just hard to accept old lies any more than it is the new lies.