"Corporate Personhood" has hit the big screen and bookstores at once, with Joel Bakan's book, The Corporation, and film by the same name.

Bakan's research offers extensive support for returning corporations to a "business only" role, exercising state's rights to revoke corporate charters and involving ourselves in removing corporations' claims to our Bill of Rights. Bakan does this without blaming "bad" or "greedy" individuals, but instead focuses our attention on the corporation as an institution.

Bakan argues that if the corporation is to be considered a person under the law, it truly is a psychopathic "person" (literally, by the World Health Organization's standard). He builds a case that this psychopathic "person," driven by need to pursue money, growth and power (in the form of legal imperatives outlined in their charters) is tramping over democracy on a global scale. This process is effectively creating two world orders, neatly summarized by two chapter titles: Democracy, Ltd. and Corporations Unlimited.

Bakan's closing chapter offers hopeful ideas on multiple and convergent methods to reestablish citizen authority over corporations, while making a strong case that such measures are imperatives. He theorizes that due to their legal construct, corporations necessarily will compete with humans for resources and power and therefore must be subordinated to human interests for democracy to survive.

With the combined insight of a parent, teacher, and legal scholar, Joel Bakan presents the interests of both Property and Persons, covering a complex issue in 217 pages. In this case, less is more.

ReclaimDemocracy.org volunteer Elsa Higby is organizing local efforts in the New York City area. To get involved, e-mail: Elsa"at"ReclaimDemocracy.org.

See also a review of the documentary film, The Corporation

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