“Ben Cohen is a person. Jerry Greenfield is a person. Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Inc? Not a person. Why can’t the Supreme Court keep this straight? In Corporations Are Not People, Jeff Clements tells the story of how some of the biggest corporations in the world took over our Constitution, our democracy, and our economy that used to work for everyone. Best of all, Corporations Are Not People shows how we can get them back. Read this book, and let’s get to work.”
–Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream, and co-founders, Business for Democracy
“In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, excessive corporate influence is one of the greatest threats to our democracy. Corporations Are Not People will help ordinary citizens, academics, and lawmakers make real progress in freeing our political system from this manipulation, while informing our country’s debate on the best path forward to achieve meaningful reform. As someone who cares deeply about these issues, I want to thank Jeff Clements for this seminal book.”
–Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (MD-4)
“A clarion call to action in defense of democracy, Corporations Are Not People is arguably the most important book on corporations ever written. Essential reading for every citizen, and especially for every judge and politician.”
—David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World and Agenda for a New Economy
“Question for the Supreme Court: If a corporation is a person, where’s its navel? In their infamous edict Citizens United, five Supremes obviously went bull goose bonkers, perverting the Constitution, America’s democratic ideals, and nature itself. But as Jeff Clements makes clear, We the People can overrule them. Corporations Are Not People is more than a book – it’s a democracy manual. Let’s put it to work.”
–Jim Hightower, bestselling author, national radio commentator, and editor of the Hightower Lowdown
“In our new gilded age, in which corporations have amassed debilitating power over our government and therefore over our freedoms, Jeff Clements has produced a critically important and highly readable work. Corporations Are Not People will inform you, outrage you, and, ultimately, inspire you, to stand up to the multinationals that hoard their profits and externalize their problems; to support an amendment that will enshrine in the Constitution the commonsense dictate of the book’s title; and to return corporations to their proper position as tools of public policy rather than masters of it.”
–Barry Eisler, author of best-selling thrillers including The Last Assassin and Inside Out and winner of a Barry Award and Gumshoe Award for “Best Thriller of the Year”
“The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case attacks the underpinnings and values of our democracy. In Corporations Are Not People, Jeff Clements traces the evolution of the concept of corporate personhood that led to the Court’s egregious decision and offers a tangible solution for Americans who want to reclaim our democracy.”
–Bob Edgar, President & CEO, Common Cause; former Congressman, 7th D. PA, 1974-1986; Former General Secretary, National Council Churches of Christ USA, 2000-2007
“Jeff Clements has a rare mastery of Citizens United and its profound implications for all of us, and when the moment arose to tell the nation that ‘the corporations are coming! the corporations are coming!,’ Clements joined the few midnight riders who set out to sound the alarm.”
–Ben Manski, Executive Director of Liberty Tree and co-founder of the Move to Amend campaign
“Whether conservative, progressive, or independent, every American will find that Corporations Are Not People challenges all of us to learn more—and do more—about the role of corporations in American life. As a conservative I support property rights, rule of law, freer markets, maximization of political liberty and the restraints on man by a virtuous culture, but have to question the notion that corporations which are artificial entities created by the State deserve the same Constitutional protections as We the People. Our rights are God given or, if you prefer, in our nature as human beings, and they precede the formation of the State. Corporations, whether unions or for profit entities, are not We the People. I say three cheers for the People and only two cheers for corporations.”
–Michael D. Ostrolenk, cofounder and National Director, The Liberty Coalition; President, American Conservative Defense Alliance; Executive Director, The Transpartisan Center
“Jeff Clements courageously articulates the problems created by the rise of unfettered corporate power and creatively posits an agenda to return to the tenants held dear by our nation’s founders. There is no better primer to describe how we arrived where we are today, its impact on citizens and their democracy, and opportunities to change the direction of our nation.”
–Peg A. Lautenschlager, former Attorney General, Wisconsin, and former United States Attorney, Western District, Wisconsin
“For most of America’s 230+ years, an assertion that corporations enjoy Constitutional rights would have been scoffed at—laughed, as it were, out of court. But not now. Not with this Court. In Corporations Are Not People Jeff Clements shows us how the Supreme Court’s doctrine of “corporate speech” is making a joke of government by the people, how we’ve come to the crazy place where corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money meddling in elections, and – most important – how we, the people, can put ourselves back in charge.”
–Jay Harris, former publisher of Mother Jones (1991 to 2009); former general manager of Newsweek’s Pacific edition, based in Hong Kong; publisher of Travel & Leisure/Asia; and director of international special projects for Newsweek International
“Jeff Clements is the Tom Paine of our time. Corporations Are Not People sounds the alarm for all of us to rise up and reclaim our democracy and the promise of American self-government. In clear and compelling language, Mr. Clements documents the threat we face today with corporations claiming the rights of people under the US Constitution and then using those fabricated rights to subvert our democratic process. And he presents a strategy for how we fight back at this critical moment in our history. This book restores our commitment to that basic and powerful idea: that we the people shall govern.”
–John Bonifaz, founder, National Voting Rights Institute; cofounder, Free Speech for People; and author, Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush
“Clements has packed a rich civic education into this book, in which we learn the legal ins and outs and the history of corporate personhood; the specific and detailed damage it is doing to the environment, the economy, civil liberties, public health, and representative government; and what we must do to put ‘we the people’ in charge of our own out-of-control creations.”
–David Swanson, author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union
“Clements makes a powerful case against the doctrine that corporations enjoy the same free speech protections as individual Americans and lays out in chilling detail the dangerous implications of this doctrine for our democracy. Fortunately, Clements doesn’t leave his readers feeling powerless and instead charts a course to rein in excessive corporate power and reclaim American democracy for we the people.”
–Caroline Fredrickson, Executive Director, American Constitution Society
“Jeff Clements has made an important contribution to the growing democracy movement in the United States. This book helps explain how a small ruling elite have hijacked our social, political and economic institutions—and how they have used our legal system to ‘legalize’ it. If you are ready to fight back against corporate rule in the US, this book gives you valuable tools to do so.”
–David Cobb, 2004 Green Party Presidential Nominee and cofounder, Move To Amend
“Corporations Are Not People is a powerful indictment of transnational corporations and the system that enables them. It takes focused aim at these huge conglomerations of money that wield the power of life and death over mere human beings, that curtail individual liberty by turning mountains into valleys, plains into deserts, and rivers into sewers, and that transform the pursuit of happiness into a run for your life. Seasoned attorney Jeff Clements’ book sets off a national, indeed global, debate over how best to control the massively destructive power that these legally fictitious ‘persons’ use to deal death and disability to themselves and all the real human beings—men, women and children—whose lives they dominate. Any living, breathing person interested in building on the promise of America’s past to create a bright American and world future would do well to read and weigh carefully the core message of this book—‘corporations are not now and never have been people; let’s keep it that way.’”
–James S. Turner, author (with Lawrence Chickering), Voice of the People, The Transpartisan Imperative in American Life; Chair, Citizens for Health; and Partner, Swankin & Turner
“Corporations Are Not People may not be a parenting book, yet I can think of no more important book for every American parent to read. Liberal or conservative, we need to understand what kind of government, and what kind of broken political system, we are handing down to our children. Jeff Clements’ readable, eye-opening, and deeply disturbing examination of the way large, multinational corporations are infiltrating all corners of our public and private lives is a wake-up call for every parent, for every citizen, for everyone concerned about our collective future.”
–Katrina Kenison, author, The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother’s Memoir
I just completed the book “Corporations are NOT people” and now know that Republicans, Democrats. Independents and Tea-Party folks really have an issue worth uniting and rallying around — and that is — The People’s Amendment to the Constitution. From now on, we should think of ourselves either as “people striving to maintain the Republic of the United States of America” — or “corporatists.” All other issues will fall into place, if we can unite around this one.