The Fourteenth Ammendment

Do you remember the 14th Ammendment? It was passed in the wake of the Civil War to declare African-Americans Citizens. Let's look at the first section of the Ammendment. (For those interested in a more complete version, here it is)

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

However, this law has also been used to protect coorporate interests. In particular, the part which states, "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . ." has been useful. You see, if a State passes a law saying corporation X has to improve worker's safety conditions, than, the argument goes, that State has violated the Corporations power over its property.

So, to make a long story short, Corporations are people, and thus the government cannot place any restrictions on their behaivior that they would not place on an individual. At least that's the argument.

This argument reached a certain level of absurdity lately, when Nike claimed the right to lie to its customers. The issue was reported on at Commondreams.org. "While Nike was conducting a huge and expensive PR blitz to tell people that it had cleaned up its subcontractors' sweatshop labor practices, an alert consumer advocate and activist in California named Marc Kasky caught them in what he alleges are a number of specific deceptions. Citing a California law that forbids corporations from intentionally deceiving people in their commercial statements, Kasky sued the multi-billion-dollar corporation.

"Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same "free speech" right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives. If people have the constitutionally protected right to say, "The check is in the mail," or, "That looks great on you," then, Nike's reasoning goes, a corporation should have the same right to say whatever they want in their corporate PR campaigns."

Well, today Doug Bandow writes about World Com's current problems. Apparently, they are in danger of losing lucrative government contracts, because of their previous dishonesty. "Obviously, WorldCom is culpable for gross misconduct in overstating its earnings. The market rightly judged the company harshly. Credit dried up and suppliers cut shipments. So WorldCom went into Chapter 11.

However, today's WorldCom is not yesterday's WorldCom. CEO Bernie Ebbers, CFO Scott Sullivan and four others were immediately dismissed; inquiries by the Justice Department, the SEC and the media have identified no other miscreants. . . .

Corporate misbehavior needs to be punished and it has been in the case of WorldCom. The market forced the firm into bankruptcy; corrupt executives lost their jobs and have been prosecuted.

The company still might not survive. But government shouldn't make that decision. WorldCom's future should be left up to the marketplace."

As they say, you can't blame them for trying. If an individual in the United States is convicted of committing a felony, he loses the right to vote forever. He doesn't get to come back a year or two later and say to the judge, "Your Honor, I've been really good for the last couple of months, and I'd like my right to vote back." Why should WorldCom get that privilege?

More to the point, how do we, as Americans, know that World Com has changed?

Good news. I was just informed that the Supreme Court, in Marc Kasky v. Nike Inc., ruled against Nike, stating, "Our holding, based on decisions of the United States Supreme Court, in no way prohibits any business enterprise from speaking out on issues of public importance or from vigorously defending its own labor practices. It means only that when a business enterprise, to promote and defend its sales and profits, makes factual representations about its own products or its own operations, it must speak truthfully. Unlike our dissenting colleagues, we do not consider this a remarkable or intolerable burden to impose on the business community. We emphasize that this lawsuit is still at a preliminary stage, and that whether any false representations were made is a disputed issue that has yet to be resolved."