 Corporatists believe that
government, and government regulation, are inherently inefficient, and
should be minimized or even eliminated, except as a mechanism to funnel
tax dollars from consumers to corporations to 'subsidize'
activity (like agriculture and military adventure)
that is deemed necessary to grow demand and protect supply of goods and
services, but is not inherently highly profitable. As Joel Bakan
argues compellingly in both the book and the film entitled The Corporation, the
single-minded
pursuit of profit by corporations, endowed with ever-increasing rights
and powers and protected more and more from citizen and consumer action
by stifling law, has made such corporations pathological, and this
threatens our democracy to its core. As I argued in an earlier
article:
As in the Corporate Robber-Baron
era at the end of the 19th century, the only things separating us from
global corporatism today are the democratic ballot box and the
vigilance of public interest groups and non-mainstream media. The
mainstream media, owned and controlled by big corporations, already
self-censor news that is anti-corporatist. The collapse and
privatization of public education is leading to the corruption of what
our children learn -- to a corporatist-friendly message. Public health
and well-being are deteriorating because dominant private providers can
generate superior ROI by serving only the rich. The continuing
dumbing-down of the electorate, and its disillusionment due to
gerrymandering and other anti-democratic political abuses, plays right
into the hands of corporatists. And the sale of public land, forests,
resources and institutions to private interests is a sale of our
future, and the birthright of our children, to anti-democratic forces
that have no interest in the welfare or well-being of people.
Many people think the answer is political and legal reform of
corporations to make them responsible to non-shareholders, communities
and the environment. Bakan argues this is naive, and quotes the
usually-moderate Peter Drucker as saying corporations can't be all
things to all people, and should stick to doing what they do well: "If
you find an executive who wants to take on social responsibilities,
fire him". Corporatist apologists like Milton Friedman argue cynically
that public organizations don't work, because people are inherently
selfish and self-interested, and will always put their personal
interest ahead of others' well-being. Bakan reminds us, however, that "the
corporation was originally conceived as a public institution whose
purpose was to serve national interests and advance the public good",
and that state Attorneys-General do have the power (and some would say,
the responsibility) to simply dissolve a corporation for wrongdoing and
sell its assets to others who will run it in the public interest. He
lays out a discouraging case that "not only is the state playing a
diminishing role in protecting citizens from corporations, it is
playing an expanding role in protecting corporations from citizens".
But like Peter Singer, Bakan is pragmatic and warns that the job will
be difficult: Corporations cannot be relied upon to reform or restrain
themselves, but at the same time governments which are already the
handmaidens of corporatist interests are not going to be inclined to
institute new regulations and restrictions that bite the hand that
feeds them. His prescription contains a mix of regulation, vigilance
and self-education:
- Re-conceive and re-legitimize government regulation to bring
corporations under democratic control and ensure they respect the rights and welfare of citizens,
communities and the environment
- Staff the regulatory enforcement agencies at realistic levels
- Increase personal liability of corporate directors and
managers
- Bar repeat offender corporations from government contracts
- Suspend corporate charters of companies that flagrantly
violate the public interest
- Introduce the "precautionary principle" to govern corporate
responsibility for the environment and public health & safety
(i.e. prohibiting and prosecuting actions that are "reasonably likely" to cause public harm,
not just those "proven beyond doubt" to have done so)
- Make regulatory agencies more citizen-facing, responsive
and inclusive
- Protect and enhance the standing of worker associations,
environmental, consumer and human rights organizations in monitoring
and regulating companies
- Publicly finance elections, ban corporate donations and constrain
lobbying
- Introduce proportional representation and end gerrymandering
- Preserve public institutions and regimes to manage and
govern education, health, welfare, culture, law enforcement, emergency
services, parks and natural resources, public spaces and advertising to
children (all areas where profit motive should not drive decisions)
- Shift practices of the WTO, World Bank and IMF away from
privatization and market fundamentalism and towards protecting the
greater public good
- Educate and remind citizens that corporations are our
creations and we can choose to do with them whatever we want
I have no quibble with these recommendations, except that they're not
terribly novel, they mostly lay out a general strategy rather than
specific "how to" steps, and they're likely to be extremely difficult
and fiercely resisted by the powers that be. But they need to be done.
I started thinking about what we could do that might be more positive,
less confrontational, and achieve some more immediate benefits
relatively simply. I'm new to pragmatism, so cut me some slack here,
but here are some additional ideas I came up with:
- Require all government contracts to be
awarded to small, local businesses that meet specified social and
environmental standards, in order to encourage and stimulate entrepreneurship and level the business 'playing field'
- End all corporate subsidies of business, cold turkey, and make them,
and government budget deficits, illegal except during times of national emergency
- Shift taxes
from 'goods' (i.e. employment, 'clean' income) to 'bads' (i.e. waste, pollution, use
of non-renewable resources)
- Allocate 20% of major media advertising time to consumer
education and consumer advocacy spots, produced by a consortium of
labour, environmental, consumer and human rights organizations,
completely funded by a 20% surtax on corporate advertising
- Introduce substantial taxes on currency speculation, commodity and land
speculation, and on foreign investment and offshoring
- Eliminate
extraterritoriality provisions (those that allow corporations to sue
governments for restraint of trade when they enact laws protecting
their workers and the environment) from NAFTA and other so-called
'free' trade agreements
- Re-permit the use of import duties under 'free' trade
agreeements to protect domestic industry (notably, to offset the impact
of massive US and European agricultural subsidies)
I have one idea that is more radical, but still simple: A phased-in size cap for corporations. The
cap would limit the revenues, assets and number of employees of any one
corporation, and be lowered each year; and no individual or group of
individuals would be allowed to beneficially own or control more than one
corporation. The complexities
of beneficial ownership and control have already been worked out in
most Western nations' tax codes. The use of multiple corporations
serves no social or business purpose other than to evade taxes, obscure
the true ownership of 'anonymous' corporations and evade legal
responsibility and liability for corporate wrongdoing. Spinning off
businesses from those that exceed the size cap would not be hard to do,
and would democratize corporations and make them more manageable and
resilient, and redistribute wealth equitably and painlessly. I truly
believe
that most of the emergent evils of corporations are more a function of
their sheer staggering size than their profit
motivation.
And if very wealthy citizens question
what they should be doing with the money they are forced to divest from
their myriad corporations, the answer is that they should invest it in
their country -- in government bonds and T-Bills that will start to
lessen their governments' dependence on foreign debt. I know the idea
that wealth and power brings with it commensurate responsibility is
considered quaint and unfashionable these days, but it's not such a bad
idea, and if we start teaching it to children now, they might one day
tell horror stories to their children of the 'old' days when corporations were Frankenstein monsters that ruled the world.
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