Corporations and American democracy

2017 · Book · Naomi R. Lamoreaux, William J. Novak

"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"-- by Naomi R. Lamoreaux, William J. Novak