Book Reviews: Unequal Protection (2002)

The rise of corporate dominance and the theft of human rights
by Thom Hartmann

2002, Mythical Research Company, 293 pages

UnequalGoing into the Freedom Portal (Free State) I had doubts about the morality, perhaps even the constitutionality, of corporations.

What, after all, is a corporation?

American Heritage says: “a) A body of  persons granted a charter legally recognizing them as a separate entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members. b) Such a body created for purposes of government.”

Now isn’t the b) part of that definition interesting?  At the very least we know corporations are creatures of the government and do not exist at common law.

Thomas Hartmann, a true modern lower-case democrat, writes that Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and several other Founders warned strenuously against monopoly corporations:

“I hope we shall… crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” –Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816 Continue reading