Mitt Romney got a lot of press for telling a heckler at the Iowa State Fair that "corporations are people." He did not go on to sing that Patti Smith song, "People Have the Power."
But corporate "people" certainly do. Their power was on display this week, both in Washington and among the Republicans campaigning for the nomination.
Ordinary People
Here's Romney's quote in context:
"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings my friend."
There's an interesting parsing of language going on here. Corporate money does eventually go into some people's pockets, of course, but Romney said "everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people." "The people" is a phrase that refers to everyone -- the citizenry, the polis, the masses... Romney's implying that corporate earnings go to all of us. The truth is that executive compensation has never been greater when it's compared to worker pay or average family incomes. That's one reason why we've been experiencing a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent of Americans to the top 1 percent.
But that's not the sort of thing you want to say at a state fair, is it? In that setting it's better to speak of corporations as "people" -- or, if you prefer, as "jes' folks."
But if they're people, why don't you ever see them at state fairs? After all, people love fairs, so why don't they ever go? And when they do go to the fair, shouldn't they be allowed to participate in fun events along with all us other people? Halliburton should be able to swing that big mallet and make the bell ring. Exxon Mobil should be able to enter the 4H drawing and win a side of beef. And Blackwater should be able to shoot the popup prairie dog and win a stuffed animal for its date.
And if you don't feel that way, Mitt Romney's implying you're a bigot. You think some people are better than others. You don't want to be a bigot, do you?
Power to the People
Funny thing is, Romney's questioner wasn't asking him about corporate personhood. He was asking why Romney wants to cut Social Security while preserving corporate tax breaks. It seemed as if Romney had already memorized this little speech and was looking for a chance to trot it out. He probably had.
Here's the paradox in this whole concept of "corporate personhood." When it comes to rights, Republicans say corporations are people. But when it comes to the responsibilities of personhood -- like paying taxes, being sued for negligence or criminal manslaughter, that sort of thing -- their response is "Are you crazy? We're talking about corporations here, not people."
The right-wing radicals on the Supreme Court demonstrated this definitional two-step beautifully at the end of the Court's last term. In a pair of decisions that received very little attention, they managed to allow pharmaceutical companies the rights of personhood without the responsibilities. In Sorrell vs. IMS Health, the Court ruled that states couldn't stop drug companies from collecting prescription patterns for individual physicians and then using that data to encourage them to use more expensive drugs. Corporations are people, after all, and that's infringing on their freedom of speech.
But in a second decision, Pliva v. Mensing, the Court ruled that manufacturers of generic drugs had no obligation to tell people about the adverse reactions other people have had to the drug they're selling. If the brand-name manufacturers didn't tell people about those reactions, then the Court said the generic manufacturers don't have to either -- even if they know those reactions could lead to death, or to terrible reactions like tardive dyskinesia.
Corporations are the kind of people who get to say whatever they want to whomever they want -- unless they don't want to say anything. People like you and me might not be allowed to collect data on our neighbors and then use it to sell them stuff. And people like you and me would get our butts sued if we sold you something we knew could hurt or kill you. But apparently some people are more equal than others.
Adverse drug reactions cost an estimated $177 billion per year in 2000, according to a well-researched study. Because of medical inflation, that figure is much higher now. It's higher, in fact, than the total cost of cardiac care or diabetic care. Drug reactions also cause one out of every five injuries or deaths to patients who are in the hospital. You'd think there would be an obligation to disclose any information that could reduce those figures and save lives.
But those injuries and deaths happen to the wrong kind of people -- the human kind.
Our Kind of People
Romney made his comments in the run-up to Thursday's Republican debate. How did that go? Michele Bachmann channeled her inner Freddie Mercury songbook with a "We Are the Champions" monologue in which she said that "I have a very consistent record of fighting very hard against Barack Obama and his unconstitutional measures in Congress... People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting."
Tim Pawlenty responded by channeling his inner Tina Turner, laying down a "We Don't Need Another Hero" diatribe that concluded, "leading and failing is not the objective." He may be the only Republican politician in America who feels that way right now -- and he's probably wrong, at least politically.
Romney, like any frontrunner, wants to be as vague and amorphous as possible. His strategy has been to be an empty suit -- unless he's conducting an outdoor photo op, in which case his goal is to be an empty ensemble from the 'rugged' pages of the Land's End catalog. That's smart for someone in his position, and it's why he's polling even with Obama and even leading in some polls.
(The president's strategy is similar to Romney's, but with a twist. He wants to be a liberal and a conservative who share the same suit. That's a risky approach. Elections are a referendum on the incumbent and we're in a terrible economy, so being all things to all people isn't likely to work well.)
People Will Talk
Romney also said he's "actually worked in the real economy." Where's the unreal economy? Second Life, or some other digital environment? Wait, we know. The unreal economy is the one where corporations are people -- and where their money all goes to "the people." The real economy is the one we all live in, but there's no record Romney ever worked there. (Running Bain, the consulting company, doesn't count.)
"People, people, throw your love around. Take it into town. Put it into the ground where the flowers grow ..." R.E.M, "Shiny Happy People."
If corporations are people, they're very special people. They're people who, thanks to the Supreme Court and Citizens United, have the unlimited ability to express their "free speech" with billions of dollars in campaign cash and lobbying loot. Pharmaceutical companies alone have spent more than $2 billion in lobbying since 1998, while insurance companies spent $1.5 billion. When it comes to free speech, these "people" are real chatterboxes.
When it comes to corporate rights, Citizens United is your Supreme Court. Those two pharmaceutical company rulings are your Supreme Court on drugs.
All this corporate cash is creating a wave of deregulation, tax cuts and other laws that benefit the corporate "people" and are ruining life for the flesh-and-blood kind. They're hijacking democracy. As one of Sartre's characters said in No Exit, "Hell is other people."
They can't do it alone, of course. Our corporate personages need help. And they get it -- from their servants in the Republican Party, and from the many Democrats who are also eager to pitch in. It's a good thing for the corporations they have so many friends in Washington. In fact, it's just like that Barbra Streisand song, isn't it? People who need people really are the luckiest people in the world.
Follow Richard (RJ) Eskow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rjeskow
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Mr. Escow:
You state, ‘The truth is that executive compensation has never been greater when it's compared to worker pay or average family incomes. That's one reason why we've been experiencing a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent of Americans to the top 1 percent.’
Actually CEO pay has little to do with it. The CEO’s pay is set by markets, more specifically the shareholders (pension funds that represent old ladies, police officers, savers, you know…people) must pay market wages to get qualified ‘people’ to work for the company & improve the value of the company for all stakeholders, which include ‘people’, such as clients (value proposition products & services), workers (pay & pension), suppliers (payment, rent, etc), the government (tax & the multiplier effect from autonomous private sector growth), & what is left over goes to the shareholders, the owners. One thing that all these stakeholders have in common is that they are…wait for it…all people.
Additionally, no matter what the CEO makes, it has nothing to do with the worker makes. The workers share of national income is the same as it was in 1950. Real wages for like-for-like work has increased over the last several decades. What has changed is that the type of work & the type of worker have changed over time; this has resulted in skewed data that makes it look like one group is taking from the other.
There is no transfer from the worker to the CEO
Kai
Another is example is people who are working in car manufacturing. The published hourly pay scale for new UAW workers is $14. The legacy rate, which has been frozen for several years, is double that. The pay disparity between workers in car manufacturing extends down the chain to parts makers as well. The legacy workers in the parts business also suffered significant pay cuts when the parts makers filed or threatened to file for bankruptcy.
There are two and three classes of employee compensation in government and media employment as well. New workers in New York's newspaper industry, for example, are often earning the same pay that that the legacy employees earned in the 1980's. The percentage of the economic pie allocated for employee compensation has been shrinking for almost 30 years.
You state, ‘I know of several industries where long term employees have taken pay cuts and new employees are hired at pay rates with ceilings that amount to a lower percentage of the what the long term employees make.’
And I know several technology industries that did not exist two decades ago and that even new people in those industries, some without high school or college degrees become billionaires in that time. I know other industries where differentiated skill, finance, legal, medical is highly remunerated. Markets determine the competitive rates for these skills (risk in the example of an IT company). Just like competitive forces and markets determine the rates of the people that have frozen wages. If it was so bad and they were being underpaid for those skills, they would have left and gone elsewhere to where their skills and experience would be paid more. Yet they did not leave, why? Because they are being paid more or equal to their market worth, even with the pay freezes. This is industry specific, I am discussing labor strata in general.
Also, thanks for pointing out how the unions have killed the auto company through a lack of wage flexibility and onerous inefficiencies.
Also, thanks for pointing out how unions are partially responsible for the death of newspapers.
In sum, thanks for writing a response that did not challenge my statement that CEO pay is not responsible for lower wages.
Kai
Excellent post! thanks for pointing out that capital is the fruit of labor. Someone slaved away, sacrificed, saved, and worked to the bone to make that capital. Any attempt to tax or expropriate capital and transfer it to someone who did not work for it is really just taking someone’s labor and making them work for someone they do not know, like a serf. It is, in effect, stealing from them. And it is the worst kind of theft. It is the stealing of their hard work to fund someone else’s leisure.
Capital is really a store of labor. Every time you save you are storing your labor for investment in some there else. That capital is your labor and you should have the right to it.
Kai
Just vote an when election time comes up we will look at how you voted.
I cannot listen to them anymore.
Gotta love Mitt Romney he's like the actor you would hire to play the role of president in a Lifetime made for TV movie.
now that said...
Corporations are not people, corporations are contracts between government and business entities, contracts are changed all the time and it is past time we change our corporate contract...
Republican candidates describe themselves as "fighters". Bachmann:
"I have a very consistent record of fighting very hard against Barack Obama and his unconstitutional measures in Congress... People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting."
Don't the Dems listen to the gopers?
#1. Know your enemy. The gopers are not your partners. If someone calls you their enemy, believe it.
#2. "People are looking for a champion. They want someone who has been fighting." In a time of crisis, when there are elements undermining not only the nation but our lives and livelihoods, she has a point.
"We cannot let the conservative failure that brought us to this precarious moment tip America into another Gilded Age and leave the world at the mercy of unaccountable multinationals, oil-drenched autocrats and merchants of terrorism."
Now, the IRS says in 2000 we had 5,045,274 active corporations. I'm less inclined to think all five million have close ties to representatives in Congress than I am to think this article was written to push an agenda.
Yeah, The agenda is that the American people are being sold down the river by Republicorp, but continue shilling see where that get's ya.
Your visceral dislike of corporations is akin to hating your arms and legs. Corporations are not inherently evil nor exploitative anymore than the Government is or Religious institutions are. They are all made up of people who sometimes make self-serving decisions and sometimes act in a selfless manner. The major difference is that corporations must compete for their ongoing existence and therefore must strive to balance their output, costs and workforce with sustainability, something that government does not have to do.
Like children allowed free reign to follow their own whims without learning the lessons of responsibility, companies allowed unfettered romping rights through society will produce, not peace and plenty, but chaos.
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Some think Goldman-Sachs is President, and Obama is just their designated human being.
Coke-Cola for President. It's the Real Thing!"
Oh by the way corporations are make up by stock holders who are people and who have the right to vote in the management of corporations.
I can't believe we as a nation are even having th conversation.
Reviewing the last century's presidencies it's clear that despite being a minority party they win. Exceptions were idiosyncratic: the Bull Moose split in 1912, the Great Depression, Chicago's dead electing JFK, and the Ross Perot split. GW Bush is an exemplar of Republican appreciation of the incredible value of the presidency. After his selection he immediately loaded Clinton's surplus on a truck and delivered it to his base; he invaded a non-belligerent state and spread the wealth with no bid contracts and mercenary troops. He borrowed and spent like a madman.
Democrats have deluded themselves that presidential politics are about ideas. Nope. It's about finding the right interest groups and delivering the pork. They make the same mistake over and over, assuming that the bottom 99% of Americans understand the process and appreciate how Democrats have looked out for them. How else can the majority party's incumbents manage to lose elections? And now Obama is being groomed for an encore of the one term Carter presidency despite his accomplishments.
The people who matter are worth 10 million or more.The Shrub's base in other words.
Wash, rinse and repeat.