Chronology, Bibliography, and Organizations
compiled by George Draffan
July 1996 edition
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Chronology of Incorporation and Monopoly
1400-1770 Era of commercial capitalism and monopolistic mercantilism,
with joint stock companies and royal charter corporations holding
trade monopolies and colonization privileges. Mercantilism was
replaced with industrial capitalism and ìfree-tradeî
imperialism in the late 1700s, which gave way to monopoly capitalism
and a revived colonial imperialism between 1870 and World War
I, and to a defensive monopoly capitalism and neo-colonialism
since then.
1600-1900 The British ìenclosureî period redefined
land as property, a transferable commodity, evicted commoners
from the ancient commons, turning them into landless laborers
which were also a commodity, creating a dispossessed proletariat
and bands of beggars, and transferred political power from the
people to a wealthy elite. In the 1649-1660 revolution the landowners
came to power and passed 4,000 Private Acts of Enclosure on seven
million acres. In 1845 a General Enclosure Act was passed which
privatized another seven million acres.
1600s American colonial settlements were often corporations with
patents from the British Crown. In 1606, James I gave a patent
to the London (South Virginia) stock company to settle the area
between Washington D.C. and New York; the Plymouth (North Virginia)
company was to settle New England. The company brought laborers
over; they turned over their harvest to the company, and typically
received 100 acres after seven years.
Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania were commercial enterprises
run by chartered trading companies. In the Caribbean and South,
sugar, tobacco, rice, indigo, produced by indentured servants,
until in the late 1600s more laborers were needed and slavery
was instituted. In New England, fishing and fur trading were the
basis, with Hudsonís Bay Company sending home 75 percent
dividends.
The middle and southern colonies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgiaa and New Jersey.
There were huge large estates of up to 840 square miles (537,600
acres) along the Hudson River in New York; in Virginia, one estate
was 800,000 acres.
1680s Beginning in the 1680s, William Penn sold 300,000 acres
to wealthy English Quakers. Half the land granted to individuals
in Massachusetts between 1630 and 1675 went to magistrates and
governors; much of the rest went to ìschoolmasters, ministers,
and military heroes.î
1756 Benjamin Franklin petitioned the British Crown for two
Ohio River colonies. In 1766, he asserted claims for the Illinois
Company, in which he held an interest, to 1.2 million acres along
the Mississippi.
1641 Massachusetts legislature declared that ìthere
shall be no monopolies granted or allowed among us but of such
new inventions as are profitable to the country, and that for
a short time.î
1805 U.S. Supreme Court rules that ownership of property implies
the right to develop it for business purposes in Palmer v. Mulligan.
1819 Dartmouth College v. Woodward.
1855 The U.S. Supreme Court declared that the people of the
states had not ìreleased their power over the artificial
bodies which originate under the legislation of their representatives...
Combinations of classes in society... united by the bond of a
corporate spirit... unquestionably desire limitations upon the
sovereignty of the people... But the framers of the Constitution
were imbued with no desire to call into existence such combinationsî
(Dodge v. Woolsey).
1873 Farmersí Anti-Monopoly Convention in Des Moines
stated that ìall corporations are subject to legislative
control; [such control] should be at all times so used as to prevent
moneyed corporations from becoming engines of oppression.î
The Grangers and the Populist Movement:
By 1875, there were 800,000 members in 20,000 local Granges.
During the 1877 depression, the first Farmers Alliance was formed
in Texas; unlike the more conservative Grangers, the Alliances
created cooperatives and other alternatives to escape crop-liens,
indebtedness, and corporate domination of their economy. By 1886,
there were 100,000 farmers in 2,000 Alliances. By 1887, 200,000
farmers had formed 3,000 Alliances; by 1889, there were 400,000
members in the National Farmers Alliance that sought political
as well as economic reforms. But by 1896, the Populists had been
ìenticedî into the Democratic party, and even though
William Jennings Bryan was being funded by Anaconda Copper, Hearst,
and other corporations, big business and the press supported McKinley,
in the first big-money election; Bryan received 6.5 million votes,
while McKinley received 7.1 million.
In 1892, with conservative Grover Clevelandís entry to
the White House, Henry Clay Frick wrote to his boss Andrew Carnegie
ìI cannot see that our interests are going to be affected
one way or the other by the change in administration.î
1876 The U.S. Supreme Court approved state regulation of corporations
(in this case, the rates grain elevators charged to farmers),
in Munn v. Illinois. ì[Property] clothed with the
public interest, when used in a manner to make it of public consequence...
must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good...î
But Justice Stephen J. Fieldís minority opinion in Munn
v. Illinois, which first enunciated the view that the 14th Amendmentís
due process clause should protect private business from state
regulation, soon prevailed in the 1886 Santa Clara case, which
actually declared that corporations were persons protected under
the Constitution, and in 1886, the state ìGrangerî
laws were struck down, in Wabash v. Illinois.
1879 The U.S. courts ìlimit[ed] the federal power of
control over the railroad land grants while also severely restricting
state remedies against the ultra vires acts of corporationsî
-- in other words corporate actions that go beyond the powers
actually granted to corporations. Orton was one of several cases
involving Ninth Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Sawyer and the Southern
Pacific Railroad (see also the 1882 San Mateo and 1886 Santa Clara
cases). Orton led to settlers on railroad grant land being evicted
by force; in the Mussel Slough battle near Visalia, California,
in May 1980, five settlers and two railroad agents were killed.
1882 Rockefeller stated that ìthe day of combinations
is here to stay. Individualism is gone, never to return.î
1882 In the San Mateo Railroad Tax Case, U.S. Ninth Circuit
Court Judge Lorenzo Sawyer declared corporations to be persons;
Judge Field was also involved. See the 1886 Santa Clara
decision.
1886 In Wabash v. Illinois, the Supreme Court struck down state
Granger laws regulating railroad rates charged to farmers, declaring
that interstate commerce could only be regulated by the federal
government. In 1886 alone, the Court struck down 230 state laws
passed to regulate corporations.
1886 The U.S. Supreme Court declared corporations to be persons
protected under the 14th Amendmentís due process clause
(Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad).
Sixty years later, Justice William O. Douglas stated that ìthere
was no history, logic or reason given to support that view.î
There were, however, the facts that U.S. Ninth Circuit Court Judge
Lorenzo Sawyer was a shareholder in the Central Pacific Railroad,
and that he and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field were
close friends of Leland Stanford and other parties involved. ìSawyer
was uniquely placed to expand the rights and prerogatives of corporations,î
that ìwhat is extraordinary is the extent to which Sawyer
used unorthodox techniques of statutory interpretation and judicial
review in granting the corporation additional powers... [Sawyerís
decisions] ìserved as an avenue for the expansion of a
corporate construction of economic life, the judicial approval
of vast aggregations of wealth and power, and the subordination
of the public trust under public utilities.î
ì... of the Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the
Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, nineteen dealt with the Negro,
288 dealt with corporations.î
1887 The first U.S. regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce
Commission, was created to regulate a ìnaturalî monopoly
-- the railroads.
1890 Bacon Committee of Congress.
1890 Sherman Antitrust Act outlawed contracts, combinations,
trusts or conspiracies which restrain or monopolize trade. Section
6 declared that any property transported across state or national
boundaries which was owned under such a contract or by such a
combination shall be forfeited to the U.S. Sections 7 and 8 defined
corporations as persons.
1895 The Supreme Court upheld a monopoly of 98 percent of the
countryís sugar production on the grounds that the Sherman
Act applied only to commerce, and not to production (U.S. v. E.C.
Knight Company). See also 1918 decision, which struck down a child-labor
prohibition for the same reason.
1895 The Supreme Court said the Sherman Antitrust Act could
be used against interstate labor strikes (in this case, the railway
strike of 1894) because they were in restraint of trade.
In the 1910s, criminal syndicalism statutes also used antitrust
laws (which were ostensibly for controlling monopolies) to control
workers who tried to protect themselves from monopolies.
1897 New York investigation.
1899 Canadian investigation.
1900-1902 U.S. Industrial Commission Trusts and Industrial Combinations.
An act of Congress on June 18, 1898, created the two-year Commission
of five Senators, five Representatives, and nine persons representing
the different industries and employments, in order to investigate
questions pertaining to immigration, labor, agriculture, manufacturing,
and business, to furnish information and suggest such laws as
may be made a basis for uniform legislation by the various states,
in order to harmonize conflicting interests and to be equitable
to the laborer, the employer, the producer, and the consumer.
Volume 2 contains Statutes and Decisions of Federal, State, and
Territorial Law; the Commission concludes that ìit is a
striking fact that not one of these statutes aims at especially
at securing publicity regarding the business of the large industrial
combinations through detailed reports, in order that the publicity
itself may prove a remedial measureî (page 7). Other volumes
deal with Prison Labor; Transportation; Labor Legislation; Distribution
of Farm Products; Capital and Labor; Chicago Labor Disputes of
1900; Transportation; Agriculture and Agricultural Labor; Agriculture
and Taxation; Capital and Labor I the Mining Industry; Trusts
and Industrial Combinations; Capital and Labor in Manufactures;
Immigration; Foreign Legislation on Labor; Labor Organizations,
Labor Disputes and Arbitration; Industrial Combinations in Europe.
1903 Antitrust Division established under the Department of
Justice.
1904 In the Northern Securities case, the U.S. Supreme Court
declared the giant merger of the robber barons J.P. Morgan and
Jim Hillís railroads to be illegal, but failed to control
the Northern Securities monopoly. The Supreme Court finally recognized
the merger, by then called the Burlington Northern, in 1970.
1905-1915 The U.S. Bureau of Corporations made annual reports
to the Secretary of Commerce on the beef industry (1905); transportation
of petroleum (1906); petroleum industry (1907-09); cotton exchanges
(1908-09, 1912); water transportation (1909-13); corporate taxation
(1909-15); tobacco industry (1909-15); steel industry (1911-13);
water power development (1912); International Harvester (1913);
lumber industry (1913-14); farm machinery trade associations (1915);
Oklahoma oil field (1915); state laws concerning foreign corporations
(1915); trust laws and unfair competition (1915).
1911 American Tobacco Company ordered dissolved.
1911 Standard Oil ordered dissolved in Standard Oil of New
Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 83 (1911). ìAll who recall
the condition of the country in 1890 will remember that there
was everywhere, among the people generally, a deep feeling of
unrest. The nation had been rid of human slavery-fortunately,
as all now feel-but the conviction was universal that the country
was in real danger from another kind of slavery sought to be fastened
on the American people: namely, the slavery that would result
from aggregations of capital in the hands of a few individuals
and corporations controlling, for their own profit ad advantage
exclusively, the entire business of the country, including the
production and sale of the necessities of life.î
1912 Pujo Committee hearings investigate the banking monopoly.
1913-1914 Louis Brandeisí ìOther Peopleís
Money and How the Bankers Use Itî first appeared in Harperís
Weekly magazine.
1913-1914 U.S. Bureau of Corporationsí The Lumber Industry
showed the extent of the concentration of corporate ownership
of the nationís forestland by Southern Pacific Railroad,
Northern Pacific Railroad, and Weyerhaeuser.
1914 The Clayton Act was passed to regulate price discrimination,
tying contracts and exclusive dealing, mergers, and interlocking
directorates.
1914 The U.S. Federal Trade Commission was established as an
independent, quasi-judicial agency empowered to prohibit unfair
methods of competition not specifically prohibited by the Sherman
and Clayton acts. FTC authority has led to the legislation directed
at the meat industry (1921), banks (1933 and 1934), utilities
(1935), Robinson-Patman (1936), and Celler-Kefauver (1950).
1916 The federal Webb-Pomerene Act allowed monopolies for exports.
1916 The Shipping Act exempted common-carrier rate agreements
from anti-trust law if they were approved by the Maritime Commission.
1917 Idaho became the first state to enact criminal syndicalism
laws; Idahoís was written by an attorney for timber and
mining corporations. Twenty-three other states followed.
The laws were used to justify suppression of labor organizers,
social and political activists, and foreigners.
1918 Supreme Court struck down the Keating-Owen Child Labor
Law of 1916, which prohibited interstate commerce of goods produced
with child labor, on the grounds that the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
applied only to commerce (the transportation of goods), and not
to the production of those goods.
1918 After simultaneous raids on 48 Wobbly halls, the government
crushed the Industrial Workers of the World in U.S. v. Haywood
et al. The five-month trial of 101 Wobblies resulted in prison
sentences of up to 20 years and fines totaling $2.5 million, and
a 44,000 page transcript.
1919-1920 U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, using the
Deportation Act of 1918, raids activists and foreigners. About
10,000 people were arrested in 70 cities (71 percent of the 1,500
deportation orders were canceled by the Dept. of Labor; even Palmerís
assistant, J. Edgar Hoover, agreed to raids were unconstitutional).
1920 U.S. Steel found to be a legal ìgood trustî
as defined by the ìrule of reasonî in the 1911 tobacco
and Standard Oil cases.
1921 Packers and Stockyards Act.
1921 Evidence of conspiracy by businessmen disallowed as evidence
in the Wobbliesí Centralia Massacre case.
1922 Agricultural seller cooperatives were exempted from anti-trust
laws. Additional legislation was passed in 1926 and 1937.
1929 ? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis condemned criminal
syndicalism laws, saying ìthe deterrents ordinarily to
be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations
of the law, not abridgements of the rights of free speech and
assembly.î
1933 Pecora hearings.
1933 Securities Act.
1934 Securities Exchange Act.
1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act.
1936 Nye ìmerchant of deathî hearings into World
War I.
1936 Robinson-Patman Act forbade price discrimination.
1936 IBM v. U.S., 298 U.S. 131. See also the 1969 suit in which
the U.S. charged IBM with monopoly of the computer market.
1937 Miller-Tydings Act legalized price-fixing between manufacturers
and dealers to protect inefficient small dealers.
1938 FDR appointed Thurman Arnold head of the Department of
Justiceís Antitrust Division and increased its budget from
$413,000 in 1938 to $2.3 million in 1942. His enthusiasm caused
the DOJ to reign in the Antitrust Division, and Arnold left in
1943.
1938 Temporary National Economic Committee was established.
TNEC reports include Congressional hearings on the concentration
of economic power (1939-41); U.S. Steel (1940); patents and industrial
progress (1942); petroleum industry (1942); and on investment
and business activity (1944).
1939-1941 TNEC monopoly hearings.
1941 Final TNEC report Investigation of Concentration of Economic
Power. ìThe principal instrument of the concentration of
economic power and wealth has been the corporate charter with
unlimited power.î
1945 Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) found to be illegal;
court ordered Alcoa to sever ties with Aluminum of Canada (Alcan)
and to license other aluminum producers under its patents. After
the war, U.S. aluminum plants were given to Kaiser and Reynolds,
and in the 1950s, other companies.
1947 U.S. v. Henry S. Morgan et al.
1948 Reed-Bulwinkle Act amended the Interstate Commerce Act
to legalize price-fixing by rail, water, or motor carrier ìrate
bureaus.î
1949 U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas stated that
ìthere was no history, logic or reason given to support
[the] viewî of the Supreme Court in the 1886 Santa Clara
decision that corporations were ìpersonsí protected
by the U.S. Constitution.
1950 Celler-Kefauver Act amended Section 7 of the Clayton Act
to prohibit the lessening of competition through the acquisition
of another companyís assets (the Clayton Act prohibited
only monopoly through acquisition of stock); like the Clayton
Act, the Celler-Kefauver attempts to prevent monopoly. In the
next 16 years, the FTC and DOJ challenged 800 mergers in 200 complaints.
By 1966, 62 percent of the manufacturing corporations with assets
exceeding $1 billion had been challenged in their acquisitions
of other companies.
1953 Baseball declared by the Supreme Court to be exempt from
anti-trust laws.
1956 AT&T consent decree.
1957 U.S. Senate hearings on Concentration in American Industry.
1960 Bank Merger Act directed regulatory agencies to consider
the competitive effects of mergers before approving them. Affected
by the Supreme Courtís 1963 Philadelphia Bank decision,
which declared that even approved bank mergers were not immune
from anti-trust prosecution.
1965 House Antitrust Subcommittee (chaired by Celler) probe
on interlocking directorates.
1966 Bank Merger Act allowed anti-competitive mergers if they
are outweighed by the convenience and needs of the community to
be served.
1969 U.S. charged IBM with monopoly of the computer market
(see also the 1936 decision IBM v. U.S., 298 U.S. 131).
1969 Newspaper Preservation Act exempts newspapers from anti-trust
law.
1960s-1970s. Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee (chaired
by Philip Hart) hearings resulted in more than 200 volumes totaling
more than 100,000 pages.
1971 U.S. House of Representatives report on corporate conglomerates.
1973 National Conference on Land Reform in San Francisco.
1977 Deregulation of airlines. 13,000 striking air traffic
controllers fired by President Reagan in 1981.
1980 Deregulation of railroads (Staggers Act); trucking (Motor
Carrier Act); and banking (Depository Institutions Deregulation
Act). Savings and loan industry bailout follows in 1989.
1982 Thirteen-year anti-trust suit against AT&T ends with
spin-off of regional Bell companies, which were merging again
by the 1990s.
1988 Pentagon military-industrial procurement scandal.
1989 Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange
indicted for fraud and racketeering.
1995 (January) Davos meeting between 800 corporate and government
leaders to push economic and political initiatives.
1996 Deregulation of communications industries.
Bibliography on Incorporation and Monopoly
Adams, Walter and James W. Brock. The Bigness Complex: Industry,
Labor, and Government in the American Economy. New York: Pantheon,
1986.
Arnold, Thurman. The Folklore of Capitalism. New York: Yale University
Press, 1937. (Social institutions; private property; personification
of corporations; how antitrust laws encourage monopoly; the ritual
of corporate reorganization; taxation by corporations. The author
was the head of the Department of Justice Antitrust Division from
1938 to 1943).
Barber, Richard J. The American Corporation: Its Power, Its Money,
Its Politics. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1970. (The author was counsel
for the Senate Anti-Trust Subcommittee).
Barnet, Richard J. and Ronald E. Muller. Global Reach: The Power
of the Multinational Corporations. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1974.
Barnet, Richard J. and John Cavanagh. Global Dreams: Imperial
Corporations and the New World Order. New York: Touchstone, 1994.
Berle, Adolph A. and Means, Gardiner C. The Modern Corporation and Private Property. New York: Macmillan, 1933; Transaction Publishers, 1995
Blair, John M. Economic Concentration, Structure, Behavior and
Public Policy. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972.
Bowles, Samuel and Herbert Gintis. Democracy & Capitalism:
Property, Community, and the Contradictions of Modern Social Thought.
New York: Basic Books, 1987. (Ties economic and political independence).
Bowman, Scott R. The Modern Corporation and American Poltiical
Thought: Law, Power and Ideology. Pennsylvania University Press,
1996.
Brandeis, Louis D. The Curse of Bigness. New York: Viking, 1934.
Brandeis, Louis D. Other Peopleís Money and How the Bankers
Use It. Published as Breaking the Money Trust, a series of articles
in Harperís magazine in 1913; published in book form in
1914. Published by Bedford Books of St. Martinís Press,
1995.
Brooks, John Graham. The Conflict Between Private Monopoly and
Good Citizenship. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1909. (The author
was president of the National Consumersí League).
Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., editor. The Railroads: the Nation's
First Big Business. NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Republished
by Arno Press, 1981.
Chandler, Alfred D., Jr. The Visible Hand: the Managerial Revolution
in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1977.
Davis, John P. Corporations: A Study of the Origin and Development
of Great Business Combinations and of their Relation to the Authority
of the State. New York: Capricorn Books, 1904, 1961. (Classic
history of corporations--church, municipal, guild, educational,
colonial, and modern--since the Middle Ages).
Dowd, Douglas. U.S. Capitalist Development Since 1776: Of, By
and For Which People? Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.
Dowell, Eldridge Foster. A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation
in the United States. 1939.
Evans, George Herberton, Jr. Business Incorporations on the United
States 1800-1943. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1948.
Ferry, W.H. The Corporation and the Economy. Santa Barbara, CA:
Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1959.
Graham, Howard J. Everymanís Constitution. 1968.
Green, Mark J., Beverly C. Moore, Jr., and Bruce Wasserstein.
The Closed Enterprise System: Ralph Naderís Study Group
on Antitrust Enforcement. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.
Green, Mark J., editor. The Big Business Reader on Corporate America.
New York: Pilgrim Press, 1983 revised edition. (Essays on the
corporation and the consumer, labor, natural resources, community,
politics, corporations and government as partners, regulation,
and alternatives to business as usual).
Grossman, Richard, and Frank T. Adams. Taking Care of Business:
Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation. Cambridge, MA: Charter,
Ink., 1993.
Handlin, Oscar, and Mary F. Handlin. Origins of the American Business
Corporation. Journal of Economic History, 1945.
Hoover's Handbook of American Business and Hoover's Handbook of
World Business. Edited by Gary Hoover and others. Austin, TX:
The Reference Press. (Published annually; profiles American, European,
Asian, Latin American, and Canadian corporations. Not as critical
as Moskowitzís Everybodyís Business).
Horwitz, Morton J. The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
Hurst, James Willard. The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation
in the Law of the United States 1780-1970. Charlottsville, 1970.
Josephson, Matthew. The Money Lords: The Great Finance Capitalists
1925-1950. New york: Weybright and Talley, 1972.
Josephson, Matthew. The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists
1861-1901. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934. (Cooke, Gould, Carnegie,
Vanderbilt, Hill, Rockefeller, Morgan).
Kefauver, Estes. In a Few Hands: Monopoly Power in America. Baltimore:
Penguin, 1965. (Head of U.S. Senate crime investigating committee
1950-51; the 1950 Celler-Kefauver Act amended the Clayton Anti-Trust
Act).
Korten, David C. When Corporations Rule the World. San Francisco:
Barrett-Koehler Publishers and Kumerian Press, 1995.
Laidler, Harry W. Concentration of Control in American Industry.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers, 1931.
Lloyd, Henry Demarest. Wealth Against Commonwealth. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1894.
Lorsch, Jay W. Pawns or Potentates: The Reality of Americaís
Corporate Boards. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1989.
Lowe, Janet. The Secret Empire: How 25 Multinationals Rule the
World. Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1992.
Mander, Jerry. (Chapter on corporations in) In the Absence of
the Sacred.
Mason, Edward S. Corporation. In: International Encyclopedia of
the Social Sciences. New York, 1968.
McConnell, Grant. Private Power and American Democracy. New York:
Random House, 1966.
Miller, Arthur Selwyn. The Supreme Court and American Capitalism.
New York: Free Press, 1968.
Mokhiber, Russell. Corporate Crime and Violence: Big Business
Power and the Abuse of the Public Trust. San Francisco: Sierra
Club Books, 1988. (36 profiles of corporate irresponsibility and
an overview that includes a 50-point law and order program to
curb corporate crime).
Moskowitz, Milton, Michael Katz, and Robert Levering. Everybody's
Business, an Almanac: the Irreverent Guide to Corporate America.
San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980. Revised edition in 1990
entitled Everybody's Business: A Field Guide to the 400 Leading
Companies in America. (Anecdotal rather than comprehensive, and
not radical, but somewhat critical, and very useful).
Moskowitz, Milton. The Global Marketplace: 102 of the Most Influential
Companies Outside America. New York: Macmillan, 1987.
Multinational Monitor. Essential Information, Inc., P.O. Box
19405, Washington DC 20036.
Mumford, Lewis. The Myth of the Machine. Volume 1: Technics and
Human Development (1967). Volume 2: The Pentagon of Power (1970).
(Classic history of the mechanization of the world and of the
totalitarian power structure that evolved along with it).
Mueller, Willard F. A Primer on Monopoly and Competition. New
York: Random House, 1970.
Myers, Gustavus. History of the Great American Fortunes. New York:
Modern Library, 1907, 1937. (Classic expose from the colonial
slaveholders and shippers to Astor, Filed, Vanderbilt, Gould,
Sage, Morgan, Elkins, Hill, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, and Du Pont).
Nader, Ralph, Mark Green, and Joel Seligman. Corporate Power in
America. New York: Norton, 1976.
Nader, Ralph, Mark Green, and Joel Seligman. Taming the Giant
Corporation. New York: Norton, 1976.
National Bureau of Economic Research. Business Incorporations
in the United States 1800-1943. NBER, 1948.
Petulla, Joseph M. American Environmental History: The Exploitation
and Conservation of Natural Resources. San Francisco: Boyd &
Fraser, 1977.
Porter, Glenn. The Rise of Big Business, 1860-1910. Arlington
Heights, IL: AHM Publishing, 1973.
Reich, Charles A. Opposing the System. New York: Crown, 1996.
Ridgeway, James. Who Owns the Earth. New York: Collier Books,
1980. (Profiles the human uses of natural resources, the history
of their exploitation, their geographic sources, and the big corporate
players in various industries).
Saari, David C. Globalizing Corporations in Democratic Nations.
(in progress).
Sklar, Holly, editor. Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission
and Elite Planning for World Management. Boston: South End Press,
1980. (26 essays).
Sklar, Martin J. The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism,
1890-1916: The Market, the Law and Politics. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988.
Sobel, Robert. The Age of Giant Corporations: A Microeconomic
History of American Business 1914-1992. Westport, CT: Praeger;
3rd edition, 1992.
Trachtenberg, Alan. The Incorporation of America: Culture and
Society in the Gilded Age. New York: Hill & Wang, 1982.
Weinstein, James. The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State 1900-1918.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1968. (The American liberal corporate political
and social ideology was formulated by corporate and financial
leaders by the end of World War I).
Wolf, Peter. Land in America: Its Value, Use, and Control. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1981.
Zinn, Howard. A Peopleís History of the United States.
Harper Perennial, 1980.
Organizations Dealing with Corporation Issues
Alliance (Citizens Alliance), PO Box 1011, North Cambridge MA 02140, 617-491-4221, fax 617-354-0176, inalliance@aol.com, http://www.igc.apc.org/alliance/
Boycott Quarterly, Box 30727, Seattle WA 98103-0727, boycottguy@aol.com, Zachary Lyons.
Cancer Prevention Coalition, 520 Michigan Ave # 410, Chicago IL 60611, 312-467-0600, fax 312-467-0599, Jill Cashen, Keith Ashdown.
Center for Investigative Reporting, 568 Howard St, 5th floor, San Francisco CA 94105, 415-543-1200, fax 415-543-8311; 312 Pennsylvania Ave SE, Washington D.C. 20003, 202-546-1880, fax 202-547-6328.
Center for Media and Democracy, 3318 Gregory St, Madison WI 53711, 608-233-3346, fax 608-238-2236, 74250.735@compuserve.com, John Stauber.
Center for Responsive Politics, 1320 19th St NW # 700, Washington D.C. 20036, 202-857-0044, fax 202-857-7809, info@crp.org.
Citizens for Tax Justice, 1311 L Street NW, Washington DC 20005, 202-626-3780.
Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, 3120 W. Ashby, San Antonia TX 78228, 210-732-8957, fax 210-732-8324.
Communities Concerned About Corporations, 5104 42nd Ave, Hyattsville MD 20781, 301-779-1000, fax 301-779-1001, Chris Bedford
Corporate Campaign, Inc., 51 East 12th Street, New York NY 10003, 212-979-8320, fax 212-979-1221, Phillip Mattera, Ray Rogers.
Corporate Crime Reporter, 1322 18th Street NW, Washington DC 20036, 202-429-6928, Russell Mokhiber.
Council on Economic Priorities, 30 Irving Place, New York NY 10003, 212-420-1133, cep@echonyc.com.
Council on International and Public Affairs, 777 United Nations Plaza # 3C, New York NY 10017, 212-972-9877, fax 212-972-9878, cipany@igc.apc.org, David Dembo, Ward Morehouse.
DataCenter and WorldViews, 464 19th Street, Oakland CA 94612, 510-835-4692, datacenter@igc.apc.org, Andy Kivel.
Democracy Unlimited, 29 E. Wilson # 201, Madison WI 53703, 608-255-6629, Jane Anne Morris, Ben Manski.
Development GAP, 927 15th St NW, 4th floor, Washington D.C. 20005, 202-898-1566, fax 202-898-1612.
Environmental Background Information Center (EBIC), PO Box 20, Pine Grove Mills PA 16868, 814-867-7341, bgi103@psuvm.psu.edu, Brian Lipsett, Chris Manthey.
Environmental Research Foundation, PO Box 5036, Annapolis MD 21403, 410-263-1584, erf@rachel.clark.net, RACHEL 410-263-8903 (8-N-1), Peter Montague, Maria Pellerano.
Essential Information, PO Box 19405, Washington DC 20036, 202-387-8030, monitor@essential.org.
EthiScan Canada, Box 54034, Toronto ON M67 3B7, Canada, 416-783-6776.
Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal, 3411 West Diversey #10, Chicago IL 60647, 312-252-7676, 312-252-8797, fax 312-278-5918.
Good Neighbor Project for Sustainable Industries, PO Box 79225, Waverly MA 02179, 617-489-3686, Sanford Lewis, sanlewis@igc.apc.
Grassroots Democacy, 2365 Emerson St, Palo Alto CA 94301, 415-325-7530, Barbara Allen.
Grassroots Policy Project, 2040 S Street NW # 203, Washington DC 20009, 202-387-2935, fax 202-234-0981, Richard Healey, Sandra Hinson.
INFACT, 256 Hanover Street, Boston MA 02113, 617-742-4583, infact@igc.apc.org.
Institute for Agricultural & Trade Poliicy, 1313 Fifth St SE # 303, Minneapolis MN 55414, 612-379-5980, fax 612-379-5982, iatp@iatp.org, http://www.iatp.org/iatp.
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), 475 Riverside Drive, Room 556, New York NY 10115, 202-870-2295.
International Forum on Globalization/Dismantling Corporate Rule, PO Box 12218, San Francsico CA 94112, 415-771-3394, vmenotti@igc.apc.org, Victor Menotti.
Investor Responsibility Research Center, 1350 Connecticut Ave NW # 700, Washington D.C. 20036, 202-833-0700, fax 202-833-3555, irrc@aol.com.
Multinationals Resource Center, PO Box 19405, Washington DC 20036, 202-387-8030, mdc@essential.org.
Pacific Studies Center, 222B View Street, Mountain View CA 94041, 415-969-1545, fax 415-968-1126, lsiegel@igc.apc.org
Political Research Associates, 120 Beacon St, 3rd floor, Somerville MA 02143, 617-661-9313, fax 617-661-0059, publiceye@igc.apc.org, Chip Berlet, Surina Khan.
Probe International, 225 Brunswick Ave, Toronto ON M5S 2M6, Canada, Patricia Adams.
Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy, 211.5 Bradford Street, Provincetown MA 02657, 508-487-3151. Richard Grossman.
Public Information Network, P.O. Box 95316, Seattle WA 98145-2316, 206-723-7417, George Draffan, itp@igc.apc.org.
Pure Food Campaign, 860 Highway 61, Little Marais MN 55614, 218-226-4164, purefood@aol.com, Ronnie Cummins.
Redefining Progress, Ted Halstead.
Share the Wealth, 37 Temple Place, 3rd floor, Boston MA 02111, 617-423-2148, fax 617-695-1295, Felice Yeskel, Chuck Connor.
Sierra Club Southeast Office, 1330 21st Way South #100, Birmingham AL 35205, 205-933-9111, jim.price@sfsierra.sierraclub.org, Jim Price.
Third World Network, 228 MacAlister Road, 10400 Penang, Malaysia, fax 011-60-4-364505, twn@igc.apc.
Transnational Resource & Action Center, Box 29344, Presidio Bldg 1016, 2nd floor, Tourney Ave, San Francisco CA 94129, 415-751-1943, Josh Karliner, jkarliner@igc.apc.org.
Transnationals Information Exchange, Paulus Potterstraat 20, Amsterdam 1071 DA, Netherlands, 020-766-724.
Western States Center. Portland OR.
L.S. Stavrianos, The Global Rift: The Third World Comes of Age. New York: William Morrow, 1981.
The Ecologist, Whose Common Future: Reclaiming the Commons. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993.
0
Petulla, p. 27-28.
Petulla, p. 29-30.
Wolf, p. 32.
Petulla, p. 29.
Petulla, p. 30.
Petulla, p. 29.
Wolf, p. 33.
Wolf, p. 35.
Cited in Mueller, 1970, p. 127.
Horwitz, 1977.
Cited in Grossman and Adams, Taking Care of Business, p. 13.
Grossman and Adams, Taking Care of Business, p. 18, citing Martin, History of the Grange Movement, p. 513.
John F. Stover, American Railroads, p. 127.
White, Itís Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A History of the American West, p. 370-377; and Zinn, A Peopleís History of the United States, p. 279-280, 288-289.
Carl Degler, The Age of the Economic Revolution 1876-1900 (Scott, Foresman, 1967, p. 129). Though earlier that summer, there had been a deadly battle between striking steel workers and Pinkerton agents hired by Frick to secure Carnegieís Homestead, Pennsylvania steel plant. See Leon Wolff, Lockout: The Story of the Homestead Strike of 1892 and U.S. House of Representatives, Employment of Pinkerton Detectives, 52d Cong., 2d Sess., Report No. 2447 (Washington, D.C., 1893).
Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 114 (1876).
Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism 1885-1914, p. 159.
Orton, 32 F. 457 (C.C.D. Cal. 1879); published in connection with Southern Pacific R.R. v. Poole, 32 F. 451 (C.C.N.D. Cal. 1887). Quote is David J. Bederman in The Imagery of Injustice at Mussel Slough: Railroad Land Grants, Corporation Law, and the ìGreat Conglomerate West,î Western Legal History, Summer/Fall 1988 1(2): 258.
John D. Rockefeller, quoted in Green, The Closed Enterprise System, p. 48.
County of San Mateo v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 13 F. 722 (C.C.D. Cal. 1882). See David J. Bederman, The Imagery of Injustice at Mussel Slough: Railroad Land Grants, Corporation Law, and the ìGreat Conglomerate West,î Western Legal History, Summer/Fall 1988 1(2): 258.
Zinn, A Peopleís History of the United States, p. 255.
Grossman and Adams, Taking Care of Business, p. 20, citing Douglas in Wheeling Steel Corporation v. Glander, 337 U.S. 562, 1949.
David J. Bederman, The Imagery of Injustice at Mussel Slough: Railroad Land Grants, Corporation Law, and the ìGreat Conglomerate West,î Western Legal History, Summer/Fall 1988 1(2): 257-269, citing Shuck, Bench and Bar in California. See also David C. Frederick, Railroads, Robber Barons, and the Saving of Stanford University, Western Legal History, Summer/Fall 1991, 4(2): p. 229, note 20, and p. 253, note 132, citing Swisher, Stephen J. Field: Craftsman of the Law, p. 265.
Zinn, A Peopleís History of the United States, p. 255.
Zinn, A Peopleís History of the United States, p. 254.
U.S. v. American Tobacco, 221 U.S. 106 (1911).
John M. Harlan, justice of the Supreme Court, cited in Mueller, 1970, p. 128.
U.S. House of Representatives Committee Appointed to Investigate the Concentration and Control of Money and Credit.
Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, p. 557.
Renshaw, The Wobblies, p. 190.
Samuel P. Hays, The Response to Industrialism 1885-1914, p. 160.
Renshaw, The Wobblies, p. 191-192.
U.S. v. U.S. Steel, 251 U.S. 417 (1920).
Tyler, Rebels of the Woods, p. 171, citing Washington State v. Smith et al., 197 Pac. 770, 774; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 3, 1920, p. 4; Oregonian, March 2, 1920, p. 1.
Green, The Closed Enterprise System, p. 51.
Renshaw, 1967, p. 192, citing Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 7927.
U.S. Congress. Special Committee Investigating the Munitions Industry. World War Financing and U.S. Industrial Expansion 1914-15. Part 25. Hearings. 74th Cong., 1936.
Green, The Closed Enterprise System, p. 52.
Green, The Closed Enterprise System, p. 67-68.
See the Final Report and Recommendations of the T.N.E.C., 77th Cong., 1st Sess., Senate Document No. 35. Washington, DC, 1943; and John W. Scovilleís review of 43 TNEC monographs.
U.S. Congress. TNEC. Investigation Of Concentration Of Economic Power: Hearings. 76th Cong., 2d Sess., Part 22, 1939-41.
used the ìheadrightî system, where land (typically
50 acres per head) was granted to those who paid their own and/or
othersí transport from the old world. This also provided
labor, a key to New World profits, so ship captains got would-be
travelers from taverns and fairs, and bribed judges and debtors
prison jailers to secure prisoners who could be indentured. The
labor was temporary, and because headright system granted land
to servants when their indenture period was over, slavery became
the system of choice.
Grants of up 30,000 acres would be given by Virginia to those
who would defend the forts on the frontier.
Another form of privatization in early America was the proprietary colony, in which the Crown granted lands to individuals. This created private estates which could be sold, leased, or mortgaged, so the grantees became land investors and speculators. Private wealth created systems of private government, with the landowners in effect taxing and legislating. Proprietary colonies included Virginia