[Vision2020] The Golem, the Corporation, and Personhood

[Nicholas Gier]

Greetings Visionaries:


This was last week's column/radio commentary.  The so-called "originalists"
on the Roberts Court certainly didn't follow the Founders on Citizens
United.

The full version (attached) adds the abortion issue to the mix, because the
word Hebrew "golem" appears in a oft-cited biblical passage used by
anti-abortionists. Here is the opening paragraph of the full version.


The Hebrew word *golem* is found in Psalms 139:16, which reads: “Your eyes
have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were all written the days
that were ordained for me” (*New American Bible*).  In the Jewish tradition
this unformed substance does not have a soul, so it is really ironic that
today’s conservative Christians use this passage for their anti-abortion
campaigns.


The legendary Golem wreaked havoc against both Jews and Gentiles in the
16th Century, and the modern corporation--without proper regulation--will
do the same for America.


Please join me in the campaign for a constitutional amendment stating that
corporations are not natural persons (explained below),


Nick



*THE GOLEM, THE CORPORATION, AND PERSONHOOD*



*Incorporated companies with proper limitations and guards, may*

*in particular cases be useful; but they are at best a necessary evil only.*

—James Madison, father of the Constitution



 *Corporations are not themselves members of “We the People”*

*by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.*

—Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting opinion in *Citizens United*



            The German silent film *Der Golem* (1915)—considered the first
horror movie—was based on the legend of a monster that medieval Jews
created to protect their ghettoes from anti-Semitic attacks.

One version of the story is set in 16th Century Prague where the head rabbi
created a golem from the mud of a local river.  He brought it to life by
chanting certain sacred words over the clay body.

The golem proved to be such a threat to the gentile community that Emperor
Rudolf II begged the rabbi to restrain the monster. The emperor promised to
stop all persecution, so the rabbi deactivated the golem.  Some claim that
its lifeless body is still kept in the attic of the Prague Synagogue.

So far we can say this much about golems and corporations: they are
artificial entities that have been brought into being by either sacred or
legal incantations.  The Jews, however, were smart enough not to call their
soulless protector a person.

Unlike the life-less golem in the atttic, British Petroleum and other
companies have “perpetual existence.” Human persons can be damned to Hell
for theirs sins, but the laws of all the states grant limited liability to
all stock holders.

Even though both golems and companies are mute, the Supreme Court argued,
incredibly enough, that Citizens United is a “speaker” with the full First
Amendment rights of a natural person.

In some versions of the legend the golem runs amok and starts killings Jews
as well as Gentiles.  Initially most Republicans saw nothing wrong with a
legal decision that allowed unlimited corporate contributions. But now that
Mitt Romney’s Super PAC has destroyed conservatives more to their liking,
perhaps they are having second thoughts about the monster the good justices
have created.  Again the Jews were wise to decommission the golem when it
starting killing fellow Jews.

In the early American Republic only human beings and God were held to be
persons.  Corporations existed at that time and they were considered legal
persons, but not natural, or as I prefer to say, moral persons.  Natural
persons have inalienable rights, but corporate rights are granted and can
be taken away by legislative fiat.

Corporations were actually viewed with much suspicion by our founders.  As
Thomas Jefferson states: “We shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of
our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a
trail of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country.” The
Founders would be shocked learn that 220 years later the Supreme Court
would declare that corporate money is protected speech under the First
Amendment.

In the Gilded Age of the 1990s courts gave constitutional rights to
corporations that the framers would never have countenanced. According to
right-wing slogans today, these men were “activist” judges “legislating
from the bench” and “creating rights out of thin air.”  So were the five
justices who ruled last year that corporations would become a
“disadvantaged class” if they did not have the right to express their
political opinions with massive unregulated campaign contributions.

Philosopher Gary Gutting argues that privately own, for-profit companies “have
no core dedication to fundamental human values.  Such corporations exist as
instruments of profit for their shareholders.  This does not mean that they
do not make essential economic contributions to society.  But left to
themselves they can be serious threats to human values that conflict with
the goal of corporate profit.”

One core human value that is jeopardized is truth, because advertising
“explicitly aims at convincing us to prefer a product regardless of its
actual merit.”

Congressman Jim McGovern has introduced the People's Rights Amendment,
which is the best means to reverse *Citizens United*.  Similar measures
have already passed in California, New Mexico, Montana, Hawaii,
Massachusetts, and dozens of local jurisdictions.

A 2011 Hart Research poll found that 80 percent of those surveyed did not
approve of the Supreme Court decision.  Perhaps this overwhelming response
could turn into enough political support to overturn the greatest threat to
American democracy.

*Citizens United* has unleashed a golem that must be legally sedated and
placed in the dusty attic of history.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.
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