The 30th Amendment (Reconstitution Amendment 3)
A first draft of a proposal for the 30th Amendment to the United States Constitution (Reconstitution Amendment 3) for your feedback.
Included in this email is a link to the Reconstitution’s Amendment 3. In the comment section of this post, we invite you to critique it with your whole heart, getting deep into the nitty-gritty if you so desire. As always, you may also set up a voice or video call if you wish to speak with us directly about the piece.
Remember that we want to cultivate coherent, deliberative multilogues that emphasize curiosity, empathy, and humility. Your input will inform and transform our framing. What you comment here might have a significant impact on the final version of Amendment 3.
The guiding question for Amendment 3 is this: What is the role of the corporation with respect to the rights of human beings and the natural world?
Included in the Framers’ deliberations were these sub-questions:
How do we transform corporations from unencumbered sociopathic beings empowered with human rights into artifacts of a human-centered economy that can achieve all of their creative competitive potentials while still serving the best interests of The People they cater to and exist for?
What are the duties of corporations to their members and related parties — founders, shareholders, workers, and customers?
How do we hold corporations accountable to the externalities they export to The People, the economy, and the environment of the natural world?
Here’s what we’ve come up with. Since “corporate personhood” is acknowledged as an important legal construct with great power, we should therefore check corporate people by standards of accountability and balance them by responsibilities of conscience.
A big part of this Amendment is granting Congress the ability to declare businesses of a specific size and/or significance as “Corporate Citizens.” Corporate Citizens would be held to higher standards than would smaller and/or less significant businesses. Please take a look at the document to see exactly what standards we have in mind. The rationale here is to protect “mom-and-pop” shops from unbearable regulation while holding big businesses to account. If large corporations wish to enjoy the legal rights of personhood, they should have civic responsibilities like natural persons do, too.
What do you think of this framing? Do you think the specific proposals sound reasonable? Are there any ways they could backfire?
If you think we missed any big and important aspects, please tell us! If you have quibbles about the wording, let it be known! As history shows, precedent-setting Constitutional interpretations can hinge on the most unassuming of phrases or even the placement of a comma. Every little detail matters.
Without further ado: here is the link to Amendment 3.
Thank you for your co-creation. We can’t wait to hear what you think.
In general, I believe that this amendment is well-crafted. It facilitates the creation of a network of punishments and rewards that actively incentivize corporations to do better. It also disincentivizes corporations from moving overseas through tariffs.
I might, however, recommend that certain actions within the amendment be linked together. For example, if congress imposes a carbon tax on corporations but then fails to follow through on imposing the corresponding tariffs that protect from overseas competition. So any imposition of a tax in section 3 must be accompanied by the simultaneous imposition of a tariff. Otherwise, I fear the whole thing would fall apart into a hopeless mess.
There's no shade of lipstick that's going to make this pig presentable. Corporations usually wield resources and influence people at scales that far exceed the capabilities of individuals. They also outlive people. Making corporations equivalent to people degrades humanity. If you don't understand that fundamental fact, I shudder to think what sort of misshapen creature you are constructing here.