Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights by Thom Hartmann

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(Paperback - REV)

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  • Publisher: St. Martin's Press
  • Pub. Date: March 2004
  • ISBN-13: 9781579549558
  • Sales Rank: 101,955
  • 360pp
  • Edition Description: REV
 
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Synopsis

Unequal taxes, unequal accountability for crime, unequal influence, unequal privacy, and unequal access to natural resources and our commons--these inequalities and more are the effects of corporations winning the rights of persons while simultaneously being given the legal protections to avoid the responsibilities that come with these rights. Hartmann tells the intriguing story of how it got this way--from the colonists' rebellion against the commercial interests of the British elite to the distorted application of the Fourteenth Amendment--and how to get back to a government of, by, and for the people.

Booknews

Hartmann is not trained as a historian, economist, or political scientist, but then he does not expect his readers to be either. He presents general readers an alternative story to the one they received growing up. To that end, he writes in the style of high school textbooks<-->difficult terms explained in parentheses, end notes not referenced from the text, and some simplification of historical and economic details. His fundamental message is that Americans have been fighting corporate power since the Boston Tea Party, and that even in these dark times it is possible to wrest rights back. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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Biography

Thom Hartmann is an award-winning author of more than a dozen books, an international relief worker and psychotherapist, a former business and marketing consultant, and the founder and former CEO of seven corporations that have generated over a quarter-billion dollars in revenue. The father of three grown children, he lives in central Vermont with his wife, Louise.

Customer Reviews

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rightsby Anonymous

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August 09, 2003: The previous two reviewers have already done such a wonderful job that one doesn`t need to elaborate much. Though I would like to say 'I agree', and to add what wasn`t previously mentioned. That being about Hartmann extensively siting an original copy of a book recording the only first hand account of the Boston Tea Party I`ve ever heard about. Assuring the reader that the view point presented isn`t merely opinion but represents the voice of the founders of this country. With the ideas conveyed within this book we can begin to grow and change, together as country, as people, in a better and more complete direction. One in which there is room for every man to have his share, one in which there is room for the environmenet as well. Where America isn`t viewed with hesitance and hatred by the rest of the world, because it`s not American people that are causing this but rather our creations that have grown a little excessive.

Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rightsby Anonymous

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July 27, 2003: This absorbing, provocative, and thoughtful book by author Thom Hartmann is an extremely well?documented exploration of a plethora of ways in which corporate entities have assumed special rights and privileges in the last century through the slow and systematic abrogation of constitutional protections of private individuals from such impersonal business enterprises. By employing what is essentially a sidestepping of the clear intent and letter of constitutional law, corporations have gained the functional equivalence of the rights of individuals to protection under the law, foisting what is no more than a legal fiction in order to successfully pursue what now constitutes special, preferential treatment from both federal and state governments. In fact, the various governmental agencies and representatives now seem to be acting more in concert and collusion with the corporations as enthusiastic cheerleaders of corporate progress in the public domain rather than serving in their intended function as overseers and protectors of the common weal by restraining and limiting the rights and prerogatives of such global corporations. Under Jeffersonian law as encoded in the U.S. Constitution carefully limited and restricted such access to the rights of individuals by large organizations, and was especially concerned about such organizations usurping the powers and privileges of the government itself. Yet as the society progressed, the corporate entities such as the railroads became more influential, gradually gaining sufficient access to policy makers as to begin to gain rights heretofore restricted to private individuals. Considered as a person, a corporation could seek legal protection from oversight through such devices as the Fourteenth Amendment, which was originally intended to redress grievances associated with the vestiges of slavery for recently emancipated African?American slaves. The virtual tripwire that unfortunately opened the proverbial barn door to corporations parading as private individuals was a Supreme Court decision, which in essence created a ?legal fiction? by portraying the corporation (a railroad firm) to be a ?corporate person?. This unfortunate precedent is father to all of the many subsequent decisions, which over time, have gradually extended this notion of corporate entities as having so-called individual rights which according to the author the Constitution had not only never intended, and in fact specifically used language to constrain and prevent. The author?s argument complements the arguments and perspectives legal scholar and author Charles Reich ?Opposing The System?. Hartmann uses a writing style which is quite straightforward and therefore makes it eminently readable, not at all written in ?legalese?, which makes the book more approachable and better suited for a lay audience that it would be otherwise. The research and scholarship he has invested in this work is obvious, and the text has many anecdotes illustrating the various ways in which the legal fiction perpetuated by the collusion between the corporations on the one hand, and the federal and state governmental agencies in lock-step with them on the other, works in insidious ways to undermine and diminish the constitutional rights and protections of the population at large. Hartmann also provides a virtual roadmap to the methods and arguments that the public can use to mollify this untoward encroachment on our rights, most specifically through...


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