Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy

Front Cover
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2005 M09 11 - 312 pages
The corporation has become the core institution of the modern world. Designed to seek profit and power, it has pursued both with endless tenacity, steadily bending the framework of law and even challenging the sovereign status of the state.

After selling his successful computer book publishing business to a large corporation, Ted Nace felt increasingly driven to find answers to questions about where the corporation came from, how it got so much power, and where it is going. In Gangs of America he details the rise of corporate power in America through a series of fascinating stories, each organized around a different facet of the central question: “How did corporations get more rights than people?” Nace traces the events and people that have shaped the modern corporation to give us a fascinating look into the rise of corporate power.
 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
1
How Did Corporations Get So Much Power? In which the author reads a poll feels provoked and befuddled and organizes his investigation
11
From Street Fights to Empire The British roots of the American corporation 12671773
19
The Ultimate Reality Show The brutal history of the Virginia Company 16071624
30
Why the Colonists Feared Corporations In which the citizens of Boston demonstrate the use of the hatchet as an antimonopoly device 17701773
38
And What They Did About It How the framers of the American system restrained corporate power 17871850
46
The Genius The man who reinvented the corporation 18501880
56
Superpowers The corporation acquires nine powerful attributes 18601900
70
Judicial Yoga The tangled logic of corporate rights
161
Crime Wave The roots of the scandals of 2002
178
Global Rule How international trade agreements are creating new corporate rights
187
Fighting Back A movement emerges to challenge corporate hegemony
197
Intelligent Amoral Evolving The hazards of persistent dynamic entities
219
So Whats the Alternative? The vision of economic democracy
230
Supreme Court Decisions
243
The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment
251

The Judge Stephen Field and the politics of personhood 18681885
87
The Court Reporter Who really decided the Supreme Courts most important corporate case? 1886
102
The LavenderVested Turkey Gobbler How a majestic supereminent lawyer deceived the Supreme Court 1883
110
Survival of the Fittest People power versus a social Darwinist agenda 18861937
118
The Revolt of the Bosses The new mobilization of corporate political power 19712002
137
Speech Money Using the First Amendment to block campaign finance reform
152
NOTES
253
REFERENCES
276
INDEX
282
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
298
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2005)

While working for the u.s. forest service during high school, Ted Nace learned about the plans of several major corporations to develop coal strip mines and other energy projects near his hometown of Dickinson, North Dakota. During graduate school, Nace worked for the Environmental Defense Fund, where he helped develop computerized simulations that demonstrated the investor and ratepayer benefits of re- placing coal-fired power plants with alternative energy programs. The EDF simulations led to the cancellation of a multi-billion-dollar coal- based power complex proposed by two California utilities. After completing his graduate studies, Nace worked for the Dakota Resource Council, a citizens’ group concerned about the impacts of energy development on agriculture and rural communities.

Bibliographic information