Power of corporations eroding democracy

There appears much consternation in EU and US government circles at present in relation to corporate tax avoidance, but no sense of the irony of the situation.

Since the granting of “corporate personhood”, through various legal interpretations of the 14th amendment to the US constitution, there has been a gradual but recently more insidious erosion of economic and political sovereignty, through the interference of faceless corporations in western politics.

The gains of the New Deal and post-war prosperity were swept away by an aggressive corporatism, championed by Freidman, which lead to the dismantling of Bretton Woods. This was followed by the repeal of the Glass-Stegeall Act and the continued corrupting of democracy was ensured with the citizens united US Supreme court ruling. Corporations now have governments bickering amongst themselves on levels of corporate tax being levied whilst trillions of dollars are sequestered away in off-shore accounts.

Even the concepts of freedom and democracy have been commandeered by the corporate media, such that any questioning of economic liberalism is denounced as a threat to freedom.

It seems to take a recession to have politicians ask any questions of corporations but not enough for them to take a serious look at how the fundamentals of democracy be eroded by them.

Barry Walsh

Beaumont

Blackrock

Cork