Comments on: Proposal For A New Constitutional Amendment: A Separation of Corporation and State

By: SeparationOfCorpandState

SeparationOfCorpandState — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 06:19:00 +0000

I find these truths to be self evident and agree with your main premise that
Corporation have to much control of our government and create a conflict of
interest. I suggest that the reverse is also true.
The award
winning documentary film ” Inside Job” sheds light on the financial meltdown and
why it happened (Greed). The main point is that Government has no business being
involved in Corporations and Corporations have no business being involved in
Government.
Our government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth (Not a government of corporations, by
corporation, for corporations). Just as we found there was no place for
Government involvement with Religion and visa versa, we have the 1st Amendment
“Separation of Church and State”. Therefore we should move for another
Amendment of “SEPARATION OF CORPORATIONS AND STATE”! There is no room for one
meddling in the other. The governments role is to create laws to protect the
people from Greedy Corporations that steal our money and livelihood.

By: Scott McCarthy

Scott McCarthy — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 00:09:00 +0000

I have proposed just such an amendment:

Amendment XXVIII

Reformation of Campaign Finance and Elected Office.

Section 1

Corporations, business, unions and other equivalent organizations are not people. As such, they do not enjoy the rigthts, freedoms and protections enumerated in the Constitution of the United States of America as they are reserved solely for the people.

Section 2

Any person seeking elected office shall only receive financing, either direct or indirect, from a person. Any contribution to a campaign shall not exceed the equivalent of ten thousand dollars per person per election cycle.

Section 3

Any person duly elected to federal, state or municipal office is required to take an oath of office. Said oath much include: “I will properly execute the duties and responsibilities vested in me as …” and “I do solemnly affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Section 4

Violations of Section 2 shall be removed from consideration for office and make the candidate ineligible to hold elected office for a period of ten years from the date of violation.
Violations of Section 3 shall require a minimum prison sentence of 7 years and makes the individual ineligible to hold elected office for the remainder of their life.

By: “YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT???” VALIENT THORR’S VALIENT HIMSELF ON THE OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTESTS | MetalSucks

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:25:18 +0000

[...] corporations and state just like the separation of church and state. Very interesting read: http://www.novaspivack.com/best-articles/proposal-for-a-new-constitutional-amendment-a-separation-of… See? One guy can make a [...]

By: CopyOwner

CopyOwner — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:25:00 +0000

If we followed the separation of church and state formulation, the amendment would say that the government cannot establish corporations. But since corporations are fictional legal entities, they cannot exist without state establishment (unlike churches).

I suggest a different approach: (1) Declare that corporations are not people, and do not enjoy any of the protections of the Bill of Rights. This provision might still allow, say, the corporate bookstore to have standing to sue against a prohibition on selling certain books, but that standing would be derived from the interest of its human patrons, and not the corporation itself.

(2) Declare that no corporation may be given any treatment more favorable to that given a human. In practice, that means legislatures cannot continue the practice of allowing corporations to testify first at hearings, or of allowing only corporate entities into certain negotiating sessions. It also means that “5% corporate discounts” would be treated like “5% discounts for white males”, except that corporations could be given less favorable treatment (e.g., “5% human discount”).

(3) Invigorate criminal punishment for corporations akin to what humans might suffer. Corporations tend to get away with mere fines (plus the rare personal prosecution of some managers). Fines are the cost of doing business for corporations, who owe a duty to maximize profit for their shareholders. If shareholder profit is greater under “bad act + fine” than under “no bad act”, they will choose the bad act. When the family’s breadwinner is incarcerated for 6 months, no salary is earned, the family suffers, and the mortgage holder might not get paid. The same should happen to a corporation: Get a 6-month sentence in which the shareholders get nothing and all profit goes to the public.

By: Nova Spivack

Nova Spivack — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Thanks for your feedback, I’ve incorporated a few thoughts into the article.

By: Rich Gibson

Rich Gibson — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:02:00 +0000

Awesome sound bite with ’separation of corporation and state’ - truly, I hate the corporate domination of politics – but what does the statement actually mean?

Separation of Church and State is a limit on the government, not on Churches. It means government allows Churches to do more or less what they want, even when Churches do fairly f’d up things. And while Churches are not allowed to campaign against individuals they are allowed to support political issues – see the Mormons and California Prop 8.

I am sure that isn’t what you mean about corporations and state, but what do you mean?

Clearly as a start we need to limit the legal personhood of corporations, but what else?

Cheers,
Rich

By: Nova Spivack

Nova Spivack — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:43:00 +0000

I’ve updated it with some proposals, albeit only initial ideas. This is a hard problem and will require input from Constitutional lawyers and policy makers, neither of which I am.

By: GCsaMan

GCsaMan — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 01:07:00 +0000

“this is a question for people far more qualified and knowledgeable than
myself to address – a question for our political leaders, our business
leaders, our political scientists and Constitutional scholars, our
community leaders.”

Lost me here. I was reading along waiting for the proposal that never came. Leaving it up to these so-called “leaders” is exactly how we arrived here. The entrenched elites of the state support the status quo. Leaving it up to those who are most wedded to corporatism to solve it? Good luck. I really doubt even 1% of those “leaders” are more knowledgeable than the author in any way. The author is an intelligent guy with ideas and a better track record of actually doing something than anyone in government. We don’t get anywhere when those with ideas defer to those who create and nurture the problems.

By: The Lone Deranger

The Lone Deranger — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:47:00 +0000

I vote YES!

By: Some Busy Student

Some Busy Student — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:38:06 +0000

Greed is Myopic

An interesting description of the core problem facing US, but short on solutions.
I think one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in our country will be the legal precedents set in misguided judicial rulings that appear to favor the stockholder on th…

By: IvanT

IvanT — Fri, 06 May 2005 13:40:18 +0000

In regard to the case of separation of the Church and the State: an individual can retain religiousness without actively serving the religious organisation. What is the equivalent of individual religiousness in the case of separation of Corporation and the State?
I guess we have to a) answer this question very well, and b) address the eventual practical problems that will become clear in the light of the answer.
This might be the main obstacle to the actual separation.
I guess that social solutions are never really accomplished by the acts of prohibition and their enforcements. They are rather about making people aware of ways of doing things superior to the undesirable ways.
I’m from non-EU Europe.

By: Michel Ickx

Michel Ickx — Tue, 03 May 2005 18:24:14 +0000

Brilliant post. You certainly present and analyse the issue very well. However the solution seems difficult and some of your readers doubt the possibility to solve it through a constitutional amendment. Possibly your metadata and mirror approach (memes) will do more to change the paradigm and correct the actual situation. Let us hope so…

By: BJ Peters

BJ Peters — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 01:12:50 +0000

About thirty years ago, I was sipping Bloody Marys with friends on a Sunday afternoon talking politics when a light bulb moment hit. I shared with my friends what has turned out to be a prophetic statement: Our forefathers were very intelligent and created three powerfully balanced branches of government, ensuring that the previous powerful institution of religion would not ever be able to share any of that power with the US government. What our founders could not forsee, however, was the power that would be yielded by corporations.
Today, corporations do, indeed, rule the world. They have taken over the fourth estate and have major influence on American policy both domestic and foreign. They have shifted our national values from compassion to greed, from spiritual to material.
Someone earlier suggested that it is individuals making corporate decisions. While this is of course true, corporate policy is what dictates profits are the only bottom line that matters. So our planet is dying, the gap between rich and poor (and middle class) is widening, science is being obscured, truth and integrity are lost, citizens are working longer hours for less pay and benefits, personal freedoms are being eroded, the American Dream is a fiction.
I don’t know if a Constitutional Amendment is in order or a grass roots National Dialogue is what’s needed. But something is…

By: viral-meme.info

viral-meme.info — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 17:45:49 +0000

Media Mammon - A Stock Market for Ideas

While browsing around Google for additional resources on memes I stumbled upon
Minding the Planet (Nova
Spivack’s journal of unusual news and ideas).
I was

By: Pierre Wolff

Pierre Wolff — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 17:58:14 +0000

Good question Nova, let me give it some more thought, but one difference I could point to off-hand is that religious organizations are tax exempt whereas corporations are not. Hence, there’s an inherent interest here that any constituent (tax paying) needs to have. Given that corporations are treated as “artificial persons” then they are afforded all of the rights that “natural persons” are, and this includes influencing gov’t.

By: Nova Spivack

Nova Spivack — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 07:27:28 +0000

Pierre, I like your suggestion of changing the liability structure of corporations. But that would not really help to stop undue corporate influence on the political process. Again, I think the situation is identical to that of the separation of church and state. Why should corporations be treated differently than the church with regard to how they relate to government?

By: Pierre Wolff

Pierre Wolff — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 19:08:30 +0000

Nova, a friend and I have been exchanging e-mails re: this topic since I forwarded him a copy.
At the end of the day, I believe we both agree that in all parts of corporate abuse you have people involved in the process and they are the ones abusing the system, especially since corporations are only “artificial persons” as defined by law. Hence, it’s the people that run these, own these, and influence these that are to be held accountable and that can be done w/o a Constitutional amendment.
If you consider an area that corporations have gotten a lot of slack for being the outsourcing of jobs, then the point becomes clearer. A corporation’s mission and purpose is not be charitable nor to make the lives of people better (though hopefully if its products do the corporation will be more likely to succeed). It’s mission pure and simple is to generate a ROI for its investors/shareholders/owners. How it does this is its business. Hence, if one way of enhancing its bottom line is by farming out jobs to reduce costs, then that’s exactly what the corporation should do. If that makes people mad, then it’s the corporation’s owners that are to blame since that’s the directive of their company. Why aren’t shareholders being hounded about the “Oursourcing of America”?
Now, shareholders can come in all diff sizes and shapes. For example, there are many shareholders which are themselves corporations (ie. Pension Funds, Mutual Funds, etc.). This obviously complicates matters in terms of who you go after, but at the end of the day, somewhere in this pipe there are people making these decisions and that’s where the issue needs to be focused. We do have laws in place to address people doing the wrong thing or being negligent, we just need others w/the resources to begin going after these people. As well, pension funds are closely tied to labor unions, and that s/b another target since they are indeed investors.
What you’ll see happen however is that when taken fm this perspective, and w/everyone seeing themselves as a shareholder that wants to make a ROI, the noise will abate and all of these probs will continue. Why? Because no one wants to be the one to give up making money in our society Cynical, but true.
I bet you if you changed the liability structure of corporations so that such liability flowed down to the shareholders, you’d see very different behaviors and attitudes. Again, not something that would require a Constitutional amendment.

By: Pierre Wolff

Pierre Wolff — Mon, 06 Sep 2004 07:53:54 +0000

There’s a book written by Thom Hartmann called “Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights”, that could add much to your thoughts here Nova. He goes over the history and the specific judgment made by the Supreme Court case (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad) that resulted, erroneously, in corporations being granted equal rights to human beings. What’s most fascinating is that the Supreme Court actually didn’t rule this at all, as usual they avoided the tough question, but because the court reporter wrote up the headnotes as such, and no one read the full decision, the precendent was set and our destinies forever changed as a result. Sad but true
Now if we could only turn back to the law that s/b because it was never really changed, perhaps all would be better today

By: Patrick Meuser

Patrick Meuser — Thu, 02 Sep 2004 16:12:45 +0000

What concerns me about a state in which seperation must be explicitly defined is that in order to enforce such an ammendment, it would now likely create a ‘super-nation’ in which the freedoms of the individual are evaluated even more or less in terms of the state, as opposed to a state in which its ideals can be freely asserted; in other words are we at a stage where such ideals can be assumed without consequence? The question is, if such is constitutional, how should such an ammendment be implemented without affecting the freedoms of the state within the corporation, and how could the state be free to make future ammendments regarding the coroporation?
Although, at first glance the idea seems a logical extension of the basic freedoms that we know, it can confuse the corporation for religion in favour of what could be allowed instead of afforded.
However, much can be argued in favour of such an ammendment, mainly that the corporation shall satisfy certain individual guidelines where the state should not be concerned. Also, that the individual should remain free to set such guidelines without confliction. This would seem to reinforce the concept of a free society independent of a corporate identity, which may not neccesarily be inevitable. Whenever this is or is not implemented, such would not compromise the proprietorship and franchise at the same time.

By: you've been HAACKED

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By: Nova Spivack

Nova Spivack — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 17:36:48 +0000

Interesting point Tom, however, if that is the case then an incorporated nonprofit Church would have the same rights — would that then contradict the separation of Church and State? The concept of Constitutional rights and the separation of Church and State are two different things. Similarly I think the same is true for the proposed Separation of Corporation and State. A Corporation cannot be elected President for example — a Corporation cannot vote, etc. The rights of Corporations are not exactly the same as those for human legal Persons.

By: Tom Vilot

Tom Vilot — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 16:38:53 +0000

Fundamental problem: The corporation in the U.S. has rights, much like an individual citizen has rights. This was formalized in the notion of Corporate personhood which allows corporations to have “inalienable rights” (sometimes called constitutional rights) just like (human) persons.
As flawed as I believe this “corporate personhood” concept is, it is formally enshrined in our laws. You are proposing stripping a “citizen” of certain “inalienable” rights. That’s quite a fundamental change …

By: Dewayne and Shadow his Webdog

Dewayne and Shadow his Webdog — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 23:26:53 +0000

Proposal For A New Constitutional Amendment: A Separation of Corporation and State

I am not sure how I missed this one by Nova Spivak. It is a great idea and I would go even one further The Separation of Government and ALL Lobbyists in the same Amendment! Source: Minding the Planet Should

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By: Nova Spivack

Nova Spivack — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 16:32:37 +0000

Hey let’s not forget that the Church is one of the wealthiest organizations on the planet, and at one time (if not currently) the Church used that financial might to wield tremendous political influence. It wasn’t really that different from corporations today in that sense. Governments certainly did have a stake in what the Church thought of them (and many would say that is still the case). This is one of the reasons for the separation of Church and State, besides just the freedom of religion issue. As for a specific proposal for how to separate Corporations and State, I think for one thing high elected officials need to agree to never go back into corporate life after they serve. Another thing we could propose: No-bid contracts cannot be awarded to corporations, by government officials under any circumstances. Furthermore, we could propose that high elected officials must not have worked in any officer role for any corporation within 5 years prior to being elected.

By: Blue

Blue — Wed, 11 Aug 2004 09:04:56 +0000

It’s a good idea, but there are a lot of questions to answer before proposing something like this.
1. Calcification. Governments and beauracracies have an inherent tendency to create more laws and rules, bloat the laws they have, and divide the laws further from the reason that they were made in the first place. Corporate lobbyists add an element of dynamism, sometimes acting like an acid on the laws, dissolving ones that are vulnerable. For example, President Nixon proposed the nationwide 55 mph. speed limit in reaction to high gas prices, but the law stayed on the books because of false ideas about safety and because speeding fines became a revenue generator. However, trucking lobbyists in cooperation with groups like the National Motorists’ Association pushed Congress into finally getting rid of that harmful law. However, the NMA isn’t able to get enough money to support its own lobbyist anymore. So the question is: will private efforts, less organized and funded, be able to fill the gap if corporate lobbying is made illegal?
2. End-runs. How will we prevent the Government from regulating corporations through government contracts, underwriting (such as FMNA), taxes, the FED, or other indirect means?
3. Limits. How much interaction between gov. and co. is too much? How much is not enough?
The separation betwee church and state is simpler: the government has no direct stake in what afterlife people believe in. (indirectly, it has huge impact–the Christian Coalition, one of the most powerful lobbyist groups out there, is a testament to that.) Capitalism is a horse of another color: money is both directly and indirectly one of the primary concerns of government, and corporations are its stewards. How would you go about separating it from government?

By: CenterFeud

CenterFeud — Sat, 07 Aug 2004 18:12:10 +0000

The Constitutional amendment they’re not debating, but perhaps should be

Spivak’s proposal is predicated on the separation of Church and State, arguably the most important feature of American democracy.

By: The Ladder

The Ladder — Tue, 03 Aug 2004 10:56:29 +0000

Un nouveau type de laïcité ?

Dans sa proposition d’amendement, Nova Spivack nous suggère qu’une nouvelle séparation des pouvoirs est nécessaire. Après la séparation des pouvoirs de l’Etat et de l’Eglise, c’est maintenant le Marché qui menace l’exercice du pouvoir politique. …

By: moska

moska — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 23:26:18 +0000

a very simple & great idea!
i’ll read you more often!
hello from russia =)