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PARADIGM SHIFT:

Dozens of New Strategies are Sprouting Up Across the US and Canada--Some of Them Dating Back to Previous Centuries--That Challenge Illegitimate Corporate Authority and Privilege

by Paul Cienfuegos

For most of the 20th century, American citizens have become accustomed to challenging corporate harms and corporate abuses of authority one harm at a time--one clearcut Timber Harvest Plan at a time, one toxic spill at a time, one plant closure at a time.

It wasn't always like this. From the American Revolution to the end of the 19th century, in the words of Richard Grossman,

"Earlier generations of Americans were quite clear that a corporation was an artificial, subordinate entity with no inherent rights of its own, and that incorporation was a privilege bestowed by the sovereign people. For example, in 1834 the Pennsylvania Legislature declared: 'A corporation in law is just what the incorporation act makes it. It is the creature of the law and may be molded to any shape or for any purpose that the Legislature may deem most conducive to the common good.'

"People understood that they had a civic responsibility not to create artificial entities which could harm the body politic, interfere with the mechanisms of self-governance, and assault their sovereignty. They also understood that they did not elect their agents to positions in government to sell off the sovereignty of the people."

Here are a few examples of how different the rules were in the US until the late 1800's. In many states, corporations were prohibited from owning other corporations, prohibited from donating to political candidates or charitable organizations, and prohibited from owning any land beyond what was necessary for the carrying out of their chartered duties. Boards of directors and stockholders were held personally liable for all harms and debts. The "limited liability corporation," as we know it today, did not exist.

Sadly, as we enter the 21st century, few Americans have any idea that such a history even existed in this country. This is starting to change. Beginning in the early 1990s--thanks to the seminal work of Richard Grossman and his colleagues at the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD)--Americans started to rethink how we go about challenging the harms that corporations get away with day in and day out in every city and town in America. We began to rediscover what an appropriate relationship looks like in a democracy between we the people and the fictitious subordinate creation we call the "corporation." And we began to learn how to reframe our analysis of what the problem is.

Yes, of course, clearcut logging and sweatshop labor and genetically engineered "food" are a big problem. But the much bigger problem is that we've allowed fictitious corporate "persons" to usurp our authority as citizens to make these and other critical societal decisions which affect all of us and the natural world. If we no longer pleaded with corporate leaders to cause a little less harm, what would we do? If we no longer celebrated as victories every brief delay in the corporate devastation of our world, what would we celebrate?

By the mid-1990s, new groups were sprouting up across the US and Canada, and asking themselves these questions. Each was beginning to experiment with a different set of tools than those anyone had used for a century. Groups like Democracy Unlimited in California, Reclaim Democracy! in Colorado, 180/Movement for Democracy and Education in Wisconsin, Friends of the Constitution in Nebraska, and Citizens Council on Corporate Issues in British Columbia, are all examples of this fledgling new movement.

Clearly, to ask people of every ideology to rethink how they respond to corporate harm is a very big task, so a number of groups are beginning with public education strategies. For example, in my community, 600 local residents came together for nine hours of Town Hall meetings last year to discuss the question, "Can we have democracy when large corporations wield so much power and wealth under law?" (Videotapes are available.)

I am going to share with you dozens of stories of American and Canadian citizens educating and organizing themselves and others--no longer simply challenging individual corporate harms, but going after corporate privilege and illegitimate corporate authority. There is tremendous diversity in our goals and strategies-just what one would expect in a fledgling new social movement.

Yes, it's still a small number of groups, but the number is beginning to grow rapidly, and this growth represents a profound shift beginning to take place in the consciousness of citizens.

Our world is in terrible crisis. We need to focus on what strategies have the best chance of success, rather than those which simply postpone the destruction. Consider these dozens of projects as a guide for you and your community. Contact the organizers. Learn from their mistakes. Replicate the projects that seem to work. There is no time to lose.


1. Bold Responses to Corporations Which Chronically Break the Law

·The Wayne Township Ordinance (Mifflin County, PA) was enacted into law in 1998 by a 3-0 vote, and has since also passed in Thompson Township. It prohibits any corporation from doing business in the township (even those that are already located there) if it has a history of consistently violating any regulatory laws (environmental, labor, etc.), and further prohibits any corporation from doing business there if any of its current directors sit on other corporate boards which consistently violate regulatory law. Contact: Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), (717)530-0931, <www.celdf.org>.

·Residents of Shasta County, CA, are circulating a "10 Strikes and You're Out" ballot initiative in the town of Shasta Lake City near Redding in order to try to stop a large German corporation (Knauf) from building a fiberglass manufacturing plant there (and other toxic industry which may follow). Contact: Protectors of Community Health, POB 1053, Shasta Lake City, CA 96019, or phone Heidi Silva at (530) 472-1355.

·The Clinton administration is proposing an Anti-Scofflaw regulation which would prevent the federal government from entering into contracts with companies that chronically violate regulatory law. Contact: Robert Weissman, <rob@essential.org>.


2. Challenging Public/ Corporate Partnerships

·The Berkeley and San Francisco School Districts are effectively challenging corporate advertising in school buildings and working to get tobacco corporation food out of school cafeterias. Contact: "Center for Commercial-Free Public Education" ("UNPLUG") at (800)867-5841, <unplug@igc.org>, <www.commercialfree.org>.


3. Local Communities, Locally Owned Businesses and Entire States Organizing to Defend Themselves Against Corporate Power

·In November 1998, hundreds of campus organizers from across North America met at the Campus Democracy Convention and formed the "180/Movement for Democracy and Education," a chapter-based organization that stands in opposition to the corporatization of education as well as other forms of institutionalized hierarchy and oppression, and calls for a 180-degree turn towards democracy. Since then, Democracy Teach-Ins have been organized on hundreds of college campuses, many of them with their own active chapters. They strive to unite students, campus workers, and the working public in asserting democratic authority over our schools. Ongoing projects include: challenging the authority of corporate-controlled boards of regents, mobilizing opposition to the WTO, forcing administrators to stop purchasing from sweatshops, and exposing corporate-controlled research programs. Contact: (608) 262-9036, <clearinghouse@tao.ca> <http://corporations.org/democracy>.

·The Boulder Independent Business Alliance (BIBA) unites independent businesses to compete effectively against corporate chain stores. Recent work includes the "Community Vitality Act" currently under consideration by the Boulder City Council. This legislation helps demolish the myth of the "business interest" by supporting alliances among small businesses that are victims of the chain stores. BIBA is also facilitating the creation of IBA's in other cities (two to date). Contact: (303) 402-1575 <info@boulder-iba.org>, <www.boulder-iba.org>.

·A new ballot initiative campaign in Oregon was launched in winter/spring 2000-the "Oregon Human Rights Initiative"--which attempts to statutorily codify the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (signed into law 51 years ago by virtually every nation in the world), making adherence to these principles a requirement to do civic or commercial business in Oregon. Non-compliance can result in charter revocation. Contact: chief co-petitioner Paul Van DeVelder, (541) 752-8450, <oneworld@peak.org>, <www.oregonrights.com>.

·A number of years ago, the town of Jay, Maine, passed an ordinance which gave the town the power to license, monitor, and enforce the same environmental regulations that the state Dept. of Environmental Protection and the federal EPA do. In the town is a pulp and paper mill owned by International Paper company. Contact: Peter Kellman, <pkellman@cybertours.com>, (207) 676-3356.

·The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors has passed a law requiring all corporations doing business in the county to offer full benefits for same-sex partners. It has already withstood a court challenge. Contact: City of SF at (415) 554-6141. Read the full text at <www.cisf.ca.us/infoleg.html>.

·The Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) in Minnesota launched the "New Rules Project," which helps local communities to organize against the ravages of absentee corporate decision making by "identifying the rules that could close the gap between those who make the decisions and those who feel the impacts--new rules that could bring both authority and responsibility to the local level." Contact: (612) 379-3815, <www.newrules.org>.


4. Prohibiting (or Defining) Corporate Involvement in Particular Industries
·New farming laws in Nebraska ('Initiative 300"--1982), South Dakota ("Amendment E"--1998), and Pennsylvania (1999) ban non-family-owned corporations from engaging in farming or ranching, or owning farmland. Nebraska and South Dakota achieved their success through ballot initiatives which amended their state constitutions. "Friends of the Constitution" is a Nebraska coalition of 18 farm, church, and environmental groups which joined together to defend and enforce "Initiative 300." A similar measure was achieved by two Pennsylvania townships (Wells and Thompson) through ordinances passed by their respective township governments. There are also a number of PA townships discussing similar legislation which would ban corporate logging or forest land ownership. Contacts: South Dakota--Dakota Rural Action, (605) 697-5204, <www.worc.org/member.html#draNebraska>, <drural@brookings.net>--Nancy Thompson at FoC, (402) 494-9117, <nanthomp@pionet.net>, <www.i300.org Pennsylvania>--Tom Linzey at Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), <www.celdf.org>, (717) 530-0931.

·In Sonoma County, CA, the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center's "Food Systems, Corporations and Democracy Program" has two local projects aimed at shifting local decision making from the realm of private, property-based, corporate, "market" decisions to the realm of public, democratic decisions focused on the "commonwealth":

(1) Sonoma County Green Genes is organizing to pass resolutions at city councils and school boards calling for a moratorium on the release of all genetically engineered crops and foods, and for full corporate liability for harms resulting from any releases of GMO's. (The city of Sebastopol has already passed the resolution.)

(2) The Occidental Town Hall Coalition has organized a dozen town hall meetings around the county--each attended by 250 to 500 people--to discuss the problem of and strategize solutions to the expansion of corporate-owned industrial vineyards, and the resulting loss of diverse small and family farms and local agrarian culture. They are writing ordinances that redefine "farming" and county land use policies away from corporate interests, and toward the interest of the people and wild nature. Contact: Dave Henson, (707) 874-1557, ext 4, <dhenson@oaec.org>.


5. Suing Governments for Violating the Federal Constitution

·A British Columbia-based organization-Defense of Canadian Liberty Committee--is suing the Canadian government alleging that Canada's participation in the MAI/WTO process of global corporatization is unconstitutional. Contact: Connie Fogal, (604) 687-0588, <cfogal@netcom.ca>, <www.canadianliberty.bc.ca>.

Winter 2000 -- North Coast Xpress -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor