Running Head: POWER FROM PEOPLE

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Corporate Personhood: Taking Power from the People Cindy Sanders Everest University

POWER FROM PEOPLE

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We the People-scratch that. We the People and Corporations of the United States. Probably more accurate would be, we the corporations and then the people. The way current laws are perceived; corporations hold the power in democracy, and they are put above the actual people of the United States. This is because current laws state that corporations are persons, also known as the doctrine of corporate personhood. Corporate personhood is the term, used to describe corporation’s rights and protections under the Constitution and Bill of Rights ( Encyclopedia of emancipation and abolition, 2011). Corporate personhood recognizes that by law, corporations are entity’s that have the rights to have a name, sue and be sued in court, be a party to contracts, have property ( Encyclopedia of emancipation and abolition, 2011) and participate in the political process without regulation. Thus, corporations are deemed a person under the law, just as individual people. It is common knowledge that the more wealth a person has, the more power they also hold. Corporate personhood takes power away from the people and gives it to buildings and ideas also known as corporations. While corporations bring muchneeded capitol to the United States as a whole, as well to individual states, granting them rights as individuals has rendered them untouchable. Ultimate power by few to control many is not democracy, which is what this nation should be founded upon. Unless the concept of corporate personhood is ratified, democracy will die, along with the American way of life. The first documented case of a corporation challenging the state under the Bill of Rights was Dartmouth College vs. Woodward. In 1769, King George III granted a charter granting