Cienfuegos noted that the European conquest and settlement of America was led by British corporations like the Massachusetts Bay Company. Those corporations had the power to tell colonialists what they could grow and to whom they could sell, the power to tax them and to throw them in jail. The American Revolution was in part to free New World residents from such corporate tyranny. The new republic born out of that struggle made it clear that the Citizens were the new sovereigns, with the British crown dispatched and the corporations subservient and strictly controlled by the people through their state legislatures.
A corporation couldn't even exist unless a state legislature granted it a charter specifying the corporation's purpose (e.g., to build a toll road), its life span (ten years), the rates it could charge, and fiscal liability of the officers and directors. State regulations also mandated that corporations' books be open to the public, and that they not be allowed to buy other corporations, lobby legislatures or make contributions to candidates, etc. Citizens of the new United States made it very clear that they were sovereignÑin the driver's seatÑand that corporations were subservient, created "to serve the common good and cause no harm."
My, how things have changed! Our own revolution has been subverted, and the big mega-corporations of today have taken back their "sovereignty from the people who originally chartered them. How did this power reversal, this counter-revolution come about?
The 11-hour workshop allowed time for Cienfuegos to present a largely hidden history which all people confronting corporate power need to know. In summary, the industrial boom stimulated by the Civil War and the following westward expansion (railroads, cattle, mining) produced great wealth for corporations. They felt shackled by the strict charter restrictions and used their money and influence to manipulate legislatures and courts to repeal restrictions. A turning point was reached in 1886 when the Supreme Court gave corporations "personhood," the rights of citizens. After that, they were no longer tools under the control of the people but had equal status. As a result, today we cannot ban corporate funding of candidates because that infringes on corporations' "free-speech rights!"
At the time, the people didn't take this corporate ascendancy lying down. In fact, they created the largest mass movement in American history, the Populist Movement of the 1880s and 1890s, directed specifically at rolling back corporate power. Paul Cienfuegos encouraged workshop participants not to accept corporate ascendancy either, but to remember that "We the People" govern in our country and that corporate entities are subservient to the Peoples' will. This is the way America was founded, the way it should be and the way we will make it once again. This is a patriotic American common sense conceptualization that appeals to average citizens, and only by spreading this history and mind set widely throughout the population will we be able to reassert citizen sovereignty and corporate subservience.
Corporations used their money and influence in the late 1800s to steal power from the people, just as they buy elections and legislatures today. We cannot concede to them the illegitimate powers they claim today. We must think and act like sovereign citizens of a democracy, where we are in charge and where we are going to roll back this anti-democratic power grab and put corporations back in their proper place, subservient to the people's will.
If someone stole your car, you wouldn't say "Well, they have it now, I guess I just have to accept that." Instead you would gather support and act to get your car back. Our task today is to gather together, educate ourselves and our communities and act to get our country back.
The workshop in January ended by discussing such actions as starting study groups and exploring possible ballot initiatives for 2000, such as instituting publicly funded elections (to ban corporate donations/bribes), and kicking corporations out of the county when they repeatedly violate laws (like a recent law in Wayne Township, Penn.). The Alliance for Democracy chapters in Sonoma county (527-7191), on the Mendocino coast (937-1113) and the Ukiah-Willits area (743-1726), welcome citizens who want to help select and work on ballot initiatives; they will meet again in early April in a three-county summit to consider possible joint initiative campaigns.
People interested in more information should call Tom Wodetzki at 937-1113 for coast activities. Inland contact is Richard Leamon at 743-1726 or the MEC at 468-1660.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1999
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited