“Wealthy
US corporations have begun to replace powerless individuals as direct
beneficiaries of the First Amendment to the US Constitution,
obtaining economic gain from others without reciprocating, according
to a new study.”
“Nearly
half of First Amendment challenges now benefit business corporations
and trade groups, instead of powerless people like students,
prisoners, civil rights activists and antiwar protesters, says John
C. Coates, who teaches business law at Harvard University.”
“Professor
Coates found in his study that since 1976, the average number of
First Amendment cases in the Supreme Court involving businesses
started to rise to 2.2 a year from 1.5, and the number involving
individuals started to fall, to 3.6 from 4.3. Such lawsuits have a
harmful impact for both free market and the rule of law, Coates says.
Corporations are diverting resources from research and innovation to
lawsuits in order to institute new regulations in their personal
interests at the expense of shareholders, consumers, and employees,
he wrote.”
“'Concentrated,
moneyed interests, represented by those in control of the country’s
largest business corporation are increasingly able to turn law into a
lottery, reducing law’s predictability, impairing property rights,
and increasing the share of the economy devoted to rent-seeking
rather than productive activity,' he wrote.”
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