The Long Counter-Revolution

I missed the signs, going back to the Rehnquist court. Like most people left of center, I railed against the pro-business bias of many court decisions by the US Supreme Court.

But even Rehnquist held that corporations were artificial entities, not corporate "persons" with the rights and privileges of citizens. With the Roberts' Court decision, Citizens United v FEC, that personhood has now been enshrined in the supreme law of the land, no matter how flawed, transparently political and shattering of all precedent that decision was. It was authored by "Justices" who had claimed in their confirmation hearings that they would be bound by precedent, and would not "legislate from the bench." In Citizen's United, that's exactly what they did, more brazenly, more outrageously than any liberal Justices (like Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren and William O. Douglas), who were accused over the years of creating law not out of precedent, but out of their personal biases.

It was a judicial coup, and has the potential to wipe out any populist impulse or movement. It was possibly a direct response to Obama's apparently populist movement and electoral victory.

In "The Rise of The Corporate Court" by People For The American Way, the authors point out: resources available to corporations to influence elections are at a scale never before encountered by our already corrupted "democracy." Exxon collected about $1 million in its PAC for the 2008 election, abiding by campaign finance laws before the Citizen's United case. However, it amassed $85 billion in profits that year. With all limits on direct corporate spending thrown under the bus, it could now easily spend 10% of its profits--$8.5 billion--to elect the officeholders it wants. $8.5 billion is more than the 2008 campaign expenditures of Obama, McCain, plus all senate and congressional candidates and all state legislative candidates combined. Yet, Exxon is just one corporation!

Back in the 1890's, people joked about the Senator "from Standard Oil," or "JP Morgan." It won't be a joke!

What's worse, there are corporations like Goldman-Sachs, setting up some clients to fail so that Goldman--and other clients--can profit. They can use those profits to protect themselves politically! Three point three billion dollars profit just last quarter.

The real question is: how can ordinary citizens reclaim their democracy? There is a movement to ban corporate personhood by amending the Constitution, but the amendment process is much more difficult than passing healthcare in the Senate: required are two-thirds majorities in both House and Senate, and then passage by three-fourths of the states.

Citizens United is the culmination of a long-running counter-revolution. Corporations (and their principal owners) have become the Roman Senators, the honestiores, of our time. The rest of us are being reduced to humiliores.

Even before Rome's downfall, the humiliores had descended into serfdom.