By SAM HOLLEMAN
During the middle ages, there was virtually no separation between the Roman Catholic Church and the government that ruled over Europe.
The people of this time period were always told the only way to enter heaven (virtually every person in medieval Europe believed in heaven and hell and all that good stuff) was through the church, so not only were peasants working for free on church land, but the church also charged the people for religious services such as indulgences (where people paid to have their sins forgiven.) The church’s wealth soon surpassed the wealth of the government because the government did not force the church to pay taxes. The church, with its surplus of power became corrupt. When the citizens of medieval Europe realized this, the Roman Catholic Church lost its influence and the enlightenment period came along.
The point of this Reader’s Digest-type European history lesson is because America is in a very similar predicament right now; except multinational corporations have filled the spot that was once occupied by the Roman Catholic Church.
In the late 1800’s, the Supreme Court gave corporations what is referred to as “personhood,” which means corporations are given all the legal rights an American citizen has according to the constitution (so if AT&T wants to walk down the street with a desert eagle in one hand and a sign that reads “WOMEN BELONG IN THE KITCHEN” in the other, he can do so without objection from any legal system), except for the right to vote. But that has not stopped corporations from getting their way in the White House.
A Political Action Committee is a public committee that collects and spends money in the name of helping or hurting a political candidate. However, there are limits; a person can donate no more than $2,500 to any given PAC. A SuperPAC on the other hand is an “independent expenditure-only committee” that allows anybody to give any amount of money to it. This is a common way for big corporations to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to a candidate indirectly and legally. And when someone donates six figures to help a candidate get into office, that “person” is going to expect his voice to be heard and his interests to be met because he helped the person get into office. Corporations have found loop holes in the system to give themselves the ability to vote, except they do not use a ballot and voting booth; they use millions upon millions of dollars.
In continuation, republicans argue that corporations are the “job creators;” America should give tax breaks to corporations so they can use the money they saved from paying taxes to create jobs. This concept is somewhat true. Corporations do create jobs, but the jobs are being created in countries other than America.
Imagine our economy is a treadmill; there are two cylinders, one on either end of the machine, and a rough mat moving as the cylinders spin. One of the cylinders represents the American people (actual human beings, not people that are only people by law) while the other represents corporations (the non-people people) and the rough mat is money. The money goes from the American people who just purchased a Shake Weight to the corporation that produces said Shake Weight. Then the money people gave the corporations, would, in theory, arrive back in the people’s wallets through jobs at factories (which the corporations would create.) The money would move at a steady pace and America, running on the treadmill that represents America’s economy, is all well and good.
However, corporations have realized if they take the factories overseas, they could pay the same amount of workers pennies on the dollar compared to American workers. This is called outsourcing and corporations are infamous for doing it. Because of outsourcing, the rough mat (money) that used to go back to the American people is going to an entirely new treadmill representing China’s economy because corporations are now paying workers in a different country, and the money these foreign workers make will go into purchasing products made in their country. This creates holes in the mat. If America’s economy is running on a treadmill with holes in the mat, it is only a matter of time before it gets its foot caught in the hole, and ends up with scrapes and bruises all over its body. Corporations should not hold this amount of power in their hands(metaphorically speaking of course, given corporations are not people).
Moreover, because of the lack of control over corporations, they have become corrupt. American International Group was one of the leading international insurance organizations in the world. But when the stock market collapsed in December 2007, AIG quickly found itself falling with it. The government realized if AIG was to collapse, it would only worsen the economic situation, so they decided to bailout the corporation.
Basically, the government gave AIG American taxpayer money to keep them and the economy afloat. But this was by no means a normal bailout; this was the largest private company bailout in the history of the United States of America: $85 billion.
Soon after this historical bailout, AIG gave out $450 million in bonuses to the same executives that led the American International Group into a loss of $99 billion dollars in 2008. To put that into perspective, each person in the United states could receive $1.40 of the $450 million, and AIG would still have almost $12 million left over to purchase a submarine, a few dozen Maseratis and maybe a small island or two.
Corporations have gained too much power in our economy and our electoral process. And much like the Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, corporations have become corrupt. What we, as Americans, need to do now is to separate corporation and state.
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