MB Civic

Nader in this excellent article in Common Dreams gives a history lesson on how corporations evolved. In the early 19th century.. “since corporations were artificial legal entities and not human, [early state] lawmakers feared that without some strong leashes, they could be creating Frankensteins” – these early entities ended up “[raising] capital in part because their investors had limited liability – that meant they could not lose any more than their investment if things went wrong”. BUT! soon .. “corporations and their attorneys [erected] systems of privileges and immunities [that] gave the corporations themselves limited liability” .. and that culminated “with the Santa Clara case in 1886 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed its summary headnotes to declare that the railroad in the case was a ‘person’ for purposes of the 14th amendment” .. read more