Belling the Cat

The Web is buzzing with cannon shots at the "evil corporations", fired by the twin Generals of the Generalization: Bernie Sanders and Chris Hedges.

OK, so what's the plan? Abolish corporations? Seriously?

Lets face it, we need some way to organize people and capital to get things done, even small things like building a sidewalk. It's not the "corporation" that are the issue - it's the way they are treated as people with rights. Big mistake.

Generally speaking, a "person" created by a bunch of real people results in a "person" with intelligence of the lowest common denominator and ethics of a sewer rat. This "person" is a psychopath and should not be granted any rights at all.

When we granted the "right" of free speech to corporations, we admitted a 100 ton gorilla to the legislature. That gorilla buys votes with the money taken out of the salaries of its employees, or added to the prices it charges to its customers. The political power of these gorillas has out-weighed that of the ordinary voter time and time again. We are all sick of it.

But we can't just stop at taking away human rights from "corporations". We need to look at "free speech" rights given to all other groups, such as the NRA and even trade unions. Somehow, the "rights" we take away must be handed back to the individual humans that make up these groups and it must be done to eliminate the current "one dollar one vote" system in favor of "one person one vote". One way to do this is to limit individual contributions to the group and make them both public and optional - for example, not every union member wants to support the political stance of his union.

"Corporations" should be barred from political contributions or advertising for campaigns entirely. There is no such thing as "interests" of a corporation. The "interests" belong to human beings, who should be free to donate and campaign as they wish.

If we must live with PAC's, there should be a contribution limit per person and a public list of donors, in a similar way that people now sign a petition. Corporate donations to PAC's should be banned. We all have a right to know who "Citizens for X" really are and what they really are after.

All this would drastically cut funding available for political campaigns and free our elected representatives from an endless round of boot-licking to lobby groups, who, after all, would have nothing but advice (but zero money) to offer.