We the Corporations chronicles the astonishing story of one of the
most successful yet least well-known "civil rights movements" in
American history. Hardly oppressed like women and minorities,
business corporations, too, have fought since the nation's earliest
days to gain equal rights under the Constitution-and today have
nearly all the same rights as ordinary people. Exposing the
historical origins of Citizens United and Hobby Lobby, Adam Winkler
explains how those controversial Supreme Court decisions extending
free speech and religious liberty to corporations were the capstone
of a centuries-long struggle over corporate personhood and
constitutional protections for business. Beginning his account in
the colonial era, Winkler reveals the profound influence
corporations had on the birth of democracy and on the shape of the
Constitution itself. Once the Constitution was ratified,
corporations quickly sought to gain the rights it guaranteed. The
first Supreme Court case on the rights of corporations was decided
in 1809, a half-century before the first comparable cases on the
rights of African Americans or women. Ever since, corporations have
waged a persistent and remarkably fruitful campaign to win an
ever-greater share of individual rights. Although corporations
never marched on Washington, they employed many of the same
strategies of more familiar civil rights struggles: civil
disobedience, test cases, and novel legal claims made in a
purposeful effort to reshape the law. Indeed, corporations have
often been unheralded innovators in constitutional law, and several
of the individual rights Americans hold most dear were first
secured in lawsuits brought by businesses. Winkler enlivens his
narrative with a flair for storytelling and a colorful cast of
characters: among others, Daniel Webster, America's greatest
advocate, who argued some of the earliest corporate rights cases on
behalf of his business clients; Roger Taney, the reviled Chief
Justice, who surprisingly fought to limit protections for
corporations-in part to protect slavery; and Roscoe Conkling, a
renowned politician who deceived the Supreme Court in a brazen
effort to win for corporations the rights added to the Constitution
for the freed slaves. Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, Huey
Long, Ralph Nader, Louis Brandeis, and even Thurgood Marshall all
played starring roles in the story of the corporate rights
movement. In this heated political age, nothing can be timelier
than Winkler's tour de force, which shows how America's most
powerful corporations won our most fundamental rights and turned
the Constitution into a weapon to impede the regulation of big
business.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
