Corporations and American democracy

Corporations and American democracy : an introduction / by Naomi Lamoreaux & William Novak -- Early American corporations and the state / by Eric Hilt -- Corporations and organizations in the United States after 1840 / by Jessica Hennessey & John Wallis -- The dissociation of incorporation and regulation in the progressive era and the New Deal / by Daniel Crane -- The public utility idea and the origins of modern business regulation / by William Novak -- Corporate taxation and the regulation of modern American business / by Steve Bank & Ajay Mehrotra -- From fiscal triangle to passing through : rise of the nonprofit corporation / by Jonathan Levy -- The transformation of American corporations and the case for line drawing in corporate rights jurisprudence / by Margaret Blair & Elizabeth Pollman -- Corporations and the Fourteenth Amendment / by Ruth Bloch & Naomi Lamoreaux -- Two cheers for vertical integration : corporate governance in a world of global supply chains / by Nelson Lichtenstein -- Citizens United, personhood, and the corporation in politics / by Adam Winkler

"The Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has provoked passionate debate about the proper role of corporations in American democracy, among academics and also among the wider community of concerned citizens. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, there is absolutely no justification for basing present-day decisions on originalist interpretations of the Constitution. Not only did the framers themselves hold conflicting views of corporations but the relationship between corporations and American democracy has shifted and evolved over the course of American history. The changes that underpin recent debates over Citizens United and the role of corporations in American society are of relatively recent origin. This volume makes it possible to understand them in the context of the complex ways in which America's multi-layered, federated polity wrestled with the problem of corporate power and possibility in the past"