Those Who Benefit from Corporations Should Still Criticize Them
If you spend much time in these here interweb parts, you’ve probably come across this photograph of Occupy Wall Street protesters that’s been cleverly illustrated to highlight their supposed hypocrisy in speaking out against the very corporations that make their protestations possible. Hey, look, that one’s talking on a cell phone made by Samsung! And that other one—why now, he’s wearing a shirt he got at Gap! These silly protesters—don’t they realize all the benefits and necessities brought to them by evil, greedy corporations?
I’m willing to bet my Samsung flip-phone they do. More to the point, there’s nothing hypocritical about directing ire towards corporations while also benefiting from those corporations. Simple reason, really. Our economic landscape has a predominantly corporatist makeup and power structure. For better and for worse, we cannot meet our vital needs and wants without corporations. Corporations provide us with food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication, healthcare, tools of education, etc. Unless the Occupy Wall Street folks can as individuals produce clothing fabric and make their own shirts, shoes, pants, and underwear, they’d have to show up on the streets in their birthday suits (and without having cleaned and groomed themselves) if they were to protest corporations while not simultaneously benefiting from them. Sure, they’d get more coverage on Fox News for such displays, but exposing themselves to the elements wouldn’t much benefit their cause.
Because corporations provide us with our needs and wants, and because we pretty much have no choice but to rely on them, they have power over us, and when that power is exercised with minute or egregious injustice, we suffer no hypocrisy for criticizing them as particular entities or as a whole.
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At the same time, to the extent that some associated with the OWS movement have expressed a desire to do away entirely with the “corporatocracy”, it seems reasonable to wonder if they’ve given any real thought to whether the lifestyles to which they are accustomed can be maintained in a world without corporations. Or whether they are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to return to a world without global trade.
This is certainly something that can be done. Countercultural groups such as the Amish do it as a matter of religious principle. It’s rather less clear whether the occupiers are ready for any such trade offs, or if they’re like people occupying a restaurant and insisting that they want everything to remain the same except for the wages to be higher and the food to be free.
Certainly, the picture is not a deep or serious critique — pretty much along the same lines at the similar pictures pointing out that Tea Party protests routinely take place on public property (Get it? Public property is paid for by taxes!) or the travel advert for Somalia as a libertarian vacation spot that gained a lot of play a while back. Those both made a successful point, though a fairly trivial one, and I think the shown picture does to roughly the same extent.
Fair enough. For my part, I favor sticking with corporations, even long term, as the corporate model has serves us well and perhaps better than alternatives. However, as the corporate model brings with it a structure of power, I also favor effective checks and balances.
Darwin, in returning to a world without global trade, can you touch on the sacrifices? Many of these kids out there protesting have no clue what a world without global trade would be like. So would that world mean that jobs for the majority of people, and citizens making their own goods. Maybe items wouldnt be a cheap as they are right now, but maybe the trade of would be better.
Eliminating ‘corporatocracy’ doesn’t mean living without corporations. It means living without a government that is a wholly owned subsidiary of and courtier to the corporations. The problem isn’t corporations per se. The problem is the size and power of corporations, especially multinationals.
Mark writes, “The problem isn’t corporations per se. The problem is the size and power of corporations, …”
Which is another thing that a conservative might say about government. : )
Yes.
The size and power of corporations is disordered, out of proper scale.
I put “corporatocracy” in quotes, because generally it seems to mean “I don’t like corporations”, or perhaps, some policy provisions which the supporters totally fail to understand. (Repeal corporate personhood!)
I the message is basically “we like capitalism, we just wish that people who run corporations were nicer”, I guess I’m really pretty unclear why one needs to “occupy” anything. Heck, I always wish everyone was nicer! It doesn’t cause me to sit around in parks or wipe my rear on police cars, though.
If the issue is the people think that the government is a wholly owned subsidiary and courtier to corporations — I guess I really don’t see how one can help them. Yes, it’s true that when the government puts together hugely powerful task forces or regulatory bodies, those power centers tend to be captured by interested parties, in part because it’s often only interested parties who know much about what it is they’re trying to regulate. But the idea that “corporations” are some sort of unified lobby and that they control the government is ludicrous. And, of course, there’s the uncomfortable fact that most of these people protesting are progressives — the side that pretty invariably has the money advantage in modern national politics.
Cindy,
Describing how the world would be without global trade is probably kind of tyring trying to describe how yoru body would work without a circulatory system — trade has been so embedded in how modern society has worked for so long that imagining anything other than collapse as a result of ripping it out is difficult. One thing people often don’t realize is how far back many of these things go. For instance, one of the very first uses of the worldwide telegraph network in the mid 1800s was to transmit prices of grain and other staples around the world. Suddenly it became possible to make up for a bad grain harvest in England by buying up a bumper crop that was selling cheap in Argentina — something that information travelled to slowly for in the past.
I suppose you could make the same argument that cafeteria Catholics should be able to pick and choose what they want from the Church, because “Catholicism provide us with our needs and wants, and because we pretty much have no choice but to rely on It, It has power over us, and when that power is exercised with minute or egregious injustice, we suffer no hypocrisy for criticizing them as particular entities or as a whole.”
Don’t act like these folks had no choice but to wear J Crew and the like…they do have alternatives. The problem is 99% of America doesn’t want to revert to pre-Corparations.
Do we have alternatives? I get most of my clothing second-hand, but it’s all still made by corporations. Maybe in the distant future we could move away from a corporatist model for providing for goods and services, but that couldn’t happen in the short term even if there was popular will to support it.
I’m neither a lawyer nor an economist, but. . .
Are you conflating “corporations” with “capitalism” or “global trade?” Capitalism is good, as is global trade. But are the legal entities known as “corporations” the only, or the best way, of exercising capitalism?
It seems to me that corporations diffuse any personal responsibility (something conservatives insist upon in every other context) while insuring that CEO’s get lavishly compensated regardless of performance.
Capitalism? Yes! Corporations? Maybe. . .
Not that I’m aware of.
But it seems to me that capitalism could survive the abolishment of corporations.
Perhaps I’m wrong.
It’s not “picking and choosing” it’s offering legitimate criticism. Corporations have behaved badly, in ways that even conservatives should recognize. . . nless conservatives are in favor of spending taxpayer money to bailout wall street?
The better analogy is this: Because the Church is the only legitimate provider of the sacraments, and since Catholics avail themselves of those sacraments. . . they should look the other way with the sex abuse scandal. If you benefit from the Church, then you can’t criticize the Church?
Nonsense.
As a people when we think of ‘the law’ we as people hope that the laws we have are good. Laws are not necessarily meant for people that do good, they are enacted to prevent or deter people from doing bad. This is what I think people need to consider. Why did we allow the deregulation of the banking industry? We gave them no restraints and so what transpired is giant monopolies and those monopolies dominate our financial system and then they take our country down. As Bernie Sanders said. If a bank is too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist.
For many people, we just want everyone to take a hard look at how we need to continue if we are going to have a future. The kicker is, those bankers broke no laws, so they were not even investigated. Yet you have protesters being hauled off to jail, while they got a bail out, and they get all the tax breaks to boot! Who could actually look at that picture and say it’s justice or it’s fair?
I read a report the other day that stated 3 out of the 6 biggest banks in our country, are even bigger than they were before our financial crisis. So they caused the problem, they were faced with no prosecution, because our laws allow for this, and half of them are bigger than before. So what’s stopping this from happening again? We all should be behind this effort. People on all sides of the political spectra should want to reign this kind of stuff in. We have to. It’s only right.
One of the reasons those banks are bigger is because the government helped push through some “forced marriages” of banks in order to stablizing failing banks (for example: Washington Mutual) by marrying them to stable ones (example: JP Morgan Chase).
All the more reason to regulate them, and for the protesters to be out there telling the world how government has failed them. If we dont push them to do what is right, the ‘right’ thing will never get done.
Kyle,
I agree with your post, and I’m sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street side that has concerns about the evils of Big Business. (Full disclosure: I’m also sympathetic with the Tea Party side that has concerns about Big Government. So I tend to find myself with Chesterton and his worries about Hudge and Gudge.)
What I found interesting about your post is that I think it could apply as a legitimate Tea Party response when it was accused of hypocrisy (eg., Medicare), if “corporations” is substituted for “government/gov’t programs”. For example: “there’s nothing hypocritical about directing ire towards government programs while also benefiting from those programs… For better and for worse, we cannot meet our vital needs and wants without government and its programs…. government has power over us, and when that power is exercised with minute or egregious injustice, we suffer no hypocrisy for criticizing it.”
Anyways, as I’ve been contemplating the Occupy Wall Street protests, I’ve been thinking about its similarities and differences with the Tea Party protests. And I’m most curious about the similarities. I wonder: are the similarities superficial (e.g., 2 groups of people with signs upset at something), or is there perhaps at least one common substantial thread underying both protests? One curious thing I’ve noticed that may indicate a commonality is that at least some members of OWS and TP protests seem to take issue with same corporate bailouts. Is there a possibility that the OWS and TP could recognize their commonalities, their common desire to have a more free and prosperous society, and work toward a common goal of a society less controlled by Big Money/Big Power/Big Greed/Big Selfishness wherever that is located?
Maybe I’m completely off and I’m deeply misunderstanding OWS or TP or both, and maybe all what I’ve said is silly. At any rate, these are just some thoughts boucing around in my head, which I thought I’d put out there.
I think many people would just like to see regulations put in place to keep something like this from happening again. I think the real issue is that our country is paid for by lobbyists which write our laws. Lobbyists hired by corporations. I think people are sick and tired of that and would like to see that stopped. I don’t think there are really people out there that want to see capitalism done away with. Also, everyone understands that corporations in fact do exist and should exist. What the fight is about is how much power do they really need? How much influence do they really need to buy. Do the people have a voice any longer? Or are we more or less bought, sold and run by corporations. Yes things are so connected that everything is inter-dependent on each other. I dont think people are against capatalism, they are against corporate greed. There is a difference, and I think most objective people can see it. When the financial sector has spent $5 billion dollars in the last decade to lobby D.C. so they can be less regulated, then people should be able to speak up about that. Being that these instituations contributed to the financial collapse, yes we can and will speak up about it. It wasnt your average person that collapsed the economy, it was the banking systems, wars while cutting taxes, along with derivative schemes. Now who is paying for it? Banks got bailed out, corporations would rather invest overseas, so there goes our jobs, and when it’s time to cut the budget, of course college kids, the poor that are asked to suck it up. So no one is saying that we need to rid the world of corporations. We would just like to see them put their money back in our country, instead of moving overseas to line their pockets deeper.
to the extent that some associated with the OWS movement have expressed a desire to do away entirely with the “corporatocracy”, it seems reasonable to wonder if they’ve given any real thought to whether the lifestyles to which they are accustomed can be maintained in a world without corporations.
Darwin I think your answer is within your own question. You slide from “corporatocracy” to a world without corporations. “-cracy” — From the ancient Greek suffix -κρατία (kratia), from κράτος (kratos, “power, rule”).
I join with OWS not in a call for a world without corporations, but the fact I am against the power they have over my life and the lives of others. To be honest, I can’t think of a single government regulation that directly and negatively impacts on me, but am cheated, swindled, lied to and ruled over by corporate actions on a regular basis.
I can’t think of a single government regulation that directly and negatively impacts on me…
How about laws or regulations created at the insistence of a corporate lobbyist, that gives an unfair tax break or a bailout or government contract or taxpayer money or other unjust advantage to the corporation, at the expense of other groups, organizations, the individual taxpayer, or the common good in general?
Thales,
That is an indirect impact. I’m really interested in what goverment regulations individual TEA Party activists feel directly impacts them.
Hhmm, then I guess I’m curious about what you think are examples of corporate actions that directly and negatively impact you on a regular basis. (For egregious actions that negatively impact someone, generally people can bring lawsuits against companies for product liability, negligence, lying/misrepresentation, swindling, etc. But I don’t think you’re talking about those instances that have legal recourse.)
1) Paid about $20 for a service. Service not provided. Lengthy waits on multiple phone calls to resolve it. Finally received my refund check minus an “administrative/service charge.”
2) Paid for a product. Non-refundable advance payment required. Contract stated all charges, taxes and fees included. Charged $10 extra when product was delivered. Company said supplier didn’t disclose to them an extra charge, so they were passing it on to me, while admitting the contract said fully paid. Company said they would change their website to alert future customers there could be extra charges.
3) Rented a car and paid with my credit card. Called by a debt collector and told I had not paid. Twice sent in a copy of my credit card statement. Debt collector kept calling and engaged in illegal threats in attempting to collect debt.
4) Closing on a re-financing a mortgage. I was given a statement disclosing that I was not required to have an escrow account for property taxes but was authorizing it. I said I’ll pay my taxes myself. COMPANY: “But Sir, we would have to re-write all of these closing documents.” ME: “Okay.” COMPANY: “But we will charge you to re-write them and re-schedule the closing. It will cost you $1,200.”
5) On a plane approaching Washington, DC already three hours late. Pilot announces we are landing at Dulles rather than National. The plane will wait at Dulles an additional time (hours was my guess) and continue to National. However, he said we could disembark at Dulles and our luggage would be delivered. While Dulles is an extra $50 by cab for me to get home, I got off while the gettin’ was good. No luggage the next day. I’m told I would have to come back out to National to get my luggage or pay for its delivery, contrary to the earlier information I made my decision on.
I could go on.
Kurt,
I’m not minimizing your stories at all, because those types of stories drive me crazy. But your stories are not too different from government incompetence stories. For example, Story #1 is not too different from the lengthy wait we’ve all had at the DMV seeking to renew license X, or the long call with an incompetent bureaucrat at the local township office seeking to clear up bogus permit fee Y. Everyone has stories of the wasted time, money, and dignity while interacting with government agencies, whether it be the TSA, the rigamarole of fighting a bogus parking ticket, or the fruitless battle to correct an administrative mistake on a over-charged monthly city services bill. Just today, this story was bouncing around the blogs, about a man wasting $3200 on a treehouse because of the lies/misstatements from the local county permit office: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=149&sid=2584585
Most of your stories sounded like incompetence, rather than willful taking advantage of customers. And we’ve all seen incompetence when dealing with various aspects of government. At least for corporations, if you complain about the incompetence to somebody higher up the food chain, sometimes you can get compensation because it’s in the corporation’s interest to satisfy the customer — in your story #5, for example, usually the airline gives a voucher for your troubles, in my experience.
But maybe the corporations in your experience were willfully taking advantage of customers. For those instances, that’s why we have consumer protection regulations, and the Better Business Bureau, and the ability to sue. And whether the company is incompetent or wiillful, there is always the ability to badmouth the company to our friends/neighbors and choosing a different competing company when we need the product or service next time.
I guess my point is that if you think corporations waste your time and money on a regular basis — I don’t disagree with you. I just don’t see that as terribly different from the government doing that too.
Thales,
There is a difference between incompetence and cheating, and business is on a wild rampage of cheating. My issue in #1 was not the wait on the phone, but that they charged me a “service fee” for refunding my own money. That’s cheating.
BTW,. I renewed my drivers license on-line in about 3 minutes of efforts sitting at my home computer in my underwear and fuzzy pink slippers. Back when I had to go downtown, the employees were dilligent, they were just understaffed (to save the taxpayers money).
At least for corporations, if you complain about the incompetence to somebody higher up the food chain, sometimes you can get compensation because it’s in the corporation’s interest to satisfy the customer — in your story #5, for example, usually the airline gives a voucher for your troubles, in my experience.
I didn’t get a nickel in #5. The alst tiem I tried to take a matter “up the food chain” I was told to call the corporate office and given the number. When I called the number, the receptionist asked who I wanted to speak to and since I didn’t have a name, I was hung up on. The corporation’s interest is to make money and my experience is that they will lie, cheat or steal to do so.
I regularly meet with my elected officials to talk about issues I care about and they are regularly in the community talking to citizens. There is no such opportunity with corporate leaders.
But maybe the corporations in your experience were willfully taking advantage of customers.
Got that right.
For those instances, that’s why we have consumer protection regulations
BINGO! Except, of course, we have the current GOP leadership doing all they can to abolish or weaken these regulations.
The regularity of business cheating would never (and should never) be tolerated in personal relationships. If a friend, colleague or neighbor treated people the way business does, they would be considered a scoundral.
In a democracy, the government is the people. We elect our leaders. Business, with their lying and cheating, are not accoutnable to an electorate. Appropriate regulation is needed. contra the GOP/Tea party claims.
Kurt,
I understand the difference between incompetence and cheating. It just sounded like some of your stories were incompetence instead of a corporate fat cat trying to steal your money. But if they were instances of cheating, I get it. I understand that there are some corporate types who do try to cheat the consumer out of their money. I understand, and I’m sorry that you’ve had bad experiences from that. I’ve had similar experiences. It’s just that I’ve also seen that in goverment too. Public servants are entrusted with my and your money, and they’ve promised us to use that money in an honest manner. But when they unreasonably hire builder A for a more expensive contract to build the local school than builder B, just because builder A did more lobbying or because they’re friends with A, they’re cheating us; or when they willingly waste my and your money by unreasonably purchasing unnecessary toilet seats or staplers or whatever, they’re cheating us.
Now I think that most elected officials are honest people who sincerely try to be trustworthy and just with people’s money. But I also think that most business people are honest people who sincerely try to be trustworthy and just with people’s money. That’s my experience. If you’ve had a different experience, that’s fine. I’ve also found bad eggs in both groups, both public servants and private sector workers: people who aren’t honest, trustworthy, and just. That’s my experience. If you’ve found a place where politicians always are trustworthy with your money, regularly listen to your concerns, and always act for the common good, congratulations! I wish I lived in such a place.
As for accountability, both the public and private sectors can be held accountable, but in several different ways. As you say, the most obvious way to keep the public sector accountable is for all of us to not support the particular elected official in the future (though I’m surprised you have such faith in elections — what about big-business politician X who is in bed with corporation Y and able to win reelection year after year, with X giving Y favorable treatment in government and Y giving X lots of campaign contributions?) The obvious way to keep the private sector accountable is actually quite similar: it’s for all of us to not support the particular company in the future. (Of course, there are plenty of other ways to keep both gropus accountable, like oversight committees, independent counsels, checks and balances, consumer protection regulations, etc. As an aside, I think most of the GOP would agree that consumer protection regulations are necessary; the dispute, instead, is what regulations are reasonable and what aren’t.)
I’m surprised you have such faith in elections
Thales,
I would never even give a pinched peck on the cheek to the most glamorous face dictatorship has to offer, yet to the warted and scarred face of democracy, I would passionately French kiss her with my tongue halfway down her throat.
The obvious way to keep the private sector accountable is actually quite similar: it’s for all of us to not support the particular company in the future.
Human experience has not shown that to be very effective. Let’s start with the airlines. Or let’s start with corporations bringing legal action against boycotters.
As an aside, I think most of the GOP would agree that consumer protection regulations are necessary;
Develop that thought for me. Some examples of GOP initiatives on this front?
Ug, I could have done without the imagery. Of course I know that we live in an imperfect world, and the best governing structure of all the terribly imperfect governing structures is our democratic system. The imperfectness of our world is also found in the private sphere, and I’m with you in looking for ways to check the imperfectness in the private sphere. It’s just interesting that you think that a highly-imperfect government controlling the private sphere would make the private sphere more accountable than it is: sure, sometimes it makes the private sphere accountable (eg., consumer protection regulations), but sometimes it has the opposite effect as politicians become more involved and more wedded to the corporations, leading to political bailouts of banks, companies, etc., — the exact type of thing that some OWS people are protesting against.
I’m not sure what you mean when you bring up airlines, since plenty of airline companies have folded over the years due to people not supporting them — contrast that with government bailouts of the banks and car companies. And I’m unfamiliar with any instance of corporations bringing legal action against boycotters — and I’ve seen plenty of instances of boycotting and public outcry having an effect on a company’s policies.
The OWS is a critique of results and not a true critique of particular policies Every movement will have its extremes. Its real message is one of general angst for economic underperformance and grave disparity of income. The concentration of wealth and power is a de facto moral failure of our economy. Whether the vast majority understand the complexities of economic theory is irrelevant. Everyone who participates in an economy has a stake in its performance for the good of all.
The economic body mirrors all bodies with it hands, feet, head; its seemly and unseemly members, but the body is connected. The pain of one is felt (or should be) felt by all. The real sadness is in the ‘tin ear’ response that’s being displayed to the pain that’s being felt.
Tausign:
If all they were doing was expressing pain, I’m sure they would get more sympathy. It’s the revolutionary overtones that I think a lot of people are rolling their eyes at.
Kyle writes, “For my part, I favor sticking with corporations, even long term, as the corporate model has serves us well and perhaps better than alternatives. However, as the corporate model brings with it a structure of power, I also favor effective checks and balances.”
Well said.
It has occurred to me recently that “corporatism” is actually very democratic. Not only because you can vote with your dollars if a corporation fails to provide adequate service or quality products. But also because practically anyone can buy shares in a corporation and profit by its success, whether through IRAs or 401Ks, or by individual stock purchases. You don’t have to be rich to do this.
I’m sure that most conservatives would agree with you that there need to be checks and balances. The question, of course, is one of degree and extent.
“I’m sure that most conservatives would agree with you that there need to be checks and balances. The question, of course, is one of degree and extent.”
If “checks and balances” on a corporation means “regulation,” then I’m pretty sure that most conservatives would be against them.
And I’m not being cute. . . I seriously can’t think of any conservative ever being in favor of any regulation. But I can think of conservatives who think, for example, that child labor laws represent government overreach.
So when conservatives favor throwing the book at people who break the law, or outlawing drugs and pornography, that’s something other than “regulation”? Or how about that recent Supreme Court case where the liberals on the court (and Kennedy) ruled in favor of allowing a city to use eminent domain to sieze land from homeowners and give to Wal Mart to be developed, while the conservatives held that a city could not do this. That’s an example of liberals holding out for government “regulatory” power in favor of corporations and against citizens.
One of the issues here is that liberals and conservatives tend to have different ideas of what works well in regards to checks and balances against corporations. While in fact both sides tend to agree on basic law enforcement issues with regards to business (I don’t think you’d find either side insisting the corporations should be able to simply flout the law in regards to basic issues like safety, property, contract, etc.) liberals tend to have much more faith in the idea of putting benevolent government agencies in charge of making sure that businesses act fairly, while conservatives tend to have more faith in presenting options so that people can refuse to do business with corporations they don’t like. Both of these form checks and balances, but the dispute is over which is more effective.
So, for instance, in provision of basic services (utilities, phone, cable, etc.) liberals seem to generally support having a single provider (public or private) and trying to force it to provide good prices and service via lots of government intervention. Conservatives tend to support letting several companies compete for the business and letting the market enforce good behavior as people leave providers they don’t like.
So when conservatives favor …outlawing drugs and pornography, that’s something other than “regulation”?
Conservatives didn’t favor outlawing drugs. When cocaine, marijuana, etc, were first made illegal, it was a liberal initiative. While there are today a few left wing and right wing libertarians who support drug legalization, most liberals do not. As for porn, remember, Mitt Romeny was once on the Board of the most profitable porn distributor in the nation.
I don’t think you’d find either side insisting the corporations should be able to simply flout the law in regards to basic issues like safety, property, contract
Conservative right now are pushing an NLRB amendment to allow businesses to violate contracts unpunished. Then there is the issue of mandatory arbitration.
conservatives tend to have more faith in presenting options so that people can refuse to do business with corporations they don’t like
conservatives have a constant record of working to obstruct consumer action. They have promoted criminal laws against boycotts, insisted on non-disclosure of company practices, are masters at hidden fees, secret charges, and confusing information making comparisons difficult. Businesses have used lawsuits to prevent consumer education.
And having been the victim of an abusive debt collecting agency (twice), please explain my options in working with a different agency?
Phosphorious writes, “I seriously can’t think of any conservative ever being in favor of any regulation.”
I’m a conservative and I favor of lots of regulations. For example anti-monopoly regulations. I got mad about 10 years ago or so, when the government allowed BP to merge with Arco. I thought that was a bad idea because it would reduce competition and therefore probably result in higher gas prices.
Kurt certainly seems bent on providing counter evidence to the claim made by several people above that people are not against corporations or business in general, but only in favor of some sort of minor tweeking or “doing better”. He seems to be arguing that businesses are, overall and inevitably, a worse form of organization than others (governments, political parties, unions, etc.) or perhaps made up a a fundamentally worse type of people.
Of course, if we’re going to exchange unsubstantiated stories of malfaesance, there was the time the state government sent a debt collection agency after me because they had lost my paperwork telling them I was no longer running a business (a one person IT contracting business) and so they wanted me to pay “back taxes” for years in which the business had not taken in any revenue. In that case, the tax bureau had no interest in cleaning the issue up, it was a nice lady at the collection agency who told me what other state office to call to get the erronius debt erased and the debt collectors called off.
But then, given some of the blatant distortions in his above comment, I don’t think we can assume that Kurt has much interest in an evenhanded discussion of these issues.
He seems to be arguing that businesses are, overall and inevitably, a worse form of organization than others (governments, political parties, unions, etc.)
Worse? Maybe but not relevant. They are fundementally different. Government, political party, labor union — all are democratic organizations (as that great conservative, Churchill said about democracy “the worst form except all the others.”). Now, I understand the virtues and shortcomings of a democracy and I am with my Tory friend, Sir Winston. But while a corporation in theory is a democracy of the shareholders (with serious flaws in the implementation of that theory), its no democracy for the consumer.
Conservatives argue there still is this natural, real and universal consumer responsiveness by business. I would just like them to elaborate on that in a convincing way.
Also, Darwin,let me express my sympathy for the plight you described. I can tell you, I have spend a major portion of my professional life opposing government contract out tax collection to private debt collectors. It is a bad idea and fortunately the Obama administration put a stop to it on the federal level.
Thales writes, “Is there a possibility that the OWS and TP could recognize their commonalities, their common desire to have a more free and prosperous society, and work toward a common goal of a society less controlled by Big Money/Big Power/Big Greed/Big Selfishness wherever that is located?”
As I see it, “bigness” is what provides the efficiency with which Americans historically have been able to make money and acquire possessions, not to mention food, clothing and shelter. It’s the pooling together of resources which is at the heart of the corporate system, and that pooling necessarily results in bigness. The bigness in turn results in cheap, readily available goods for the people, and profits for investors.
Eliminating bigness would mean everyone striving for himself without the option of pooling resources. Kind of ironic: Those who say that capitalism encourages an “every man for himself” mentality, seem to miss the point that a corporation is in fact a common enterprise in which people pool wealth for their mutual benefit. Whereas, it seems to me, eliminating corporations would show us what it’s *really* like to have every man for himself.
Agellius,
True, with “bigness” comes the ability to pool resources. But with “bigness” sometimes comes greater incompetence and less accountability, less personal service and greater facelessness. It’s always a balance.
Thales:
I agree. The problem is defining how big is too big. How would we do it? By number of employees? Amount of gross yearly income? Would we have to provide disincentives for corporations to succeed, by, for example, confiscating any amount of money they make over a certain amount? Or disincentives to hire employees, by penalizing the company when they hire their 10,001st worker?
Agellius,
Great questions. I have no idea! But there is one problem I see in your questions about determining how big is too big: “bigness” is not actually the root problem; instead, being unjust is the problem. Let me explain: a company being big doesn’t necessarily make it “evil” to its employees and customers, and a small company can very well be quite “evil” to its employees and customers. Consider a big company headed by a CST-loving CEO, with warm customer relations, great customer service, great rapport among all levels of the employees; and consider a small company with a local monopoly of a service, that is exploiting its position by overcharging and cheating customers, mistreating its employees, etc.
Now, certainly, “bigness” tends to lead to a greater potential for the CEO to lose a sense of the humanity of his employees and his customers, and thus a greater potential for greed and taking advantage of others. But the potential flaws that come from “bigness” could be held in check by other ways (like preventing it from gaining a monopoly, instilling a culture of customer appreciation, perhaps having a decentralized corporate governing structure, etc.)
So, in short, I don’t have any answers for you, except to note that the evils of “bigness” can’t be easily fixed just by making something less big. That would help, I suppose, but the better solution is to instill into the private sphere a sense of the human dignity of the worker and of the consumer. Now what are the guidelines, regulations, policies, traditions, and customs that best do that? A tough question that I don’t have the answer to.
This strikes me as a silly criticism. The problem here is that corporations over the last 30 years or so have become increasingly unmoored from their social responsibilities. The solution is to pull the back in the right direction – by protest if necessary.
But saying that this implies opposing “corporations” per se is no different from looking at flaws of the state, the UN, or unions and and therefore opposing the state, the UN, or unions.
There always seems to a be a hermeneutical misprision about corporations. They are just big ways of extracting moolah for goods, or sometimes services. They have no ontological status, no cultural purpose, no societal raison d’etre. They are not necessarily antithetical to any of the preceding, but they have no intrinsic relation either. The Supreme Court may have made them (quasi-) persons, but even with that, that confers no necessary value or worth. They deserve no consideration, or debate. If they are criminals, prosecute; if they are poor employers, dump ‘em and get others; if they are wreckers of culture (definitely! in my view) reduce them to shreds conceptually for their hubris. Just do not buy into the brain-fever which says they matter intrinsically in any way. Culture is what matters, period. And that includes matters of religion discussed on this site.
I agree with what you’re touching on, but you’re overstating it. Corporations exist because corporations were deemed necessary by society. They weren’t arbitrary constructs dreamed up over a hookah at a businessman’s convention.
That being said, I agree – treat a corporation as you would a person. If you don’t agree with what they’re doing, stop buying their products and they’ll change very quickly.
Dan,
Boy I am really marching into a field I don’t know very well at all. But I think that economic history indicates that corporations initially dreamed up not by “society”–which might be taken mistakenly to indicate some approbation by the populace–but by royal powers, eager to find a way to get in on the action of the growing tide of capitalism. Hardly organic societal needs therefore. Still, I bow to the same logic most do that some sort of quite free commerce is the only way to prosper, and thus corporations, whatever their genesis, are not a bad thing per se. Just like male aggression is not a bad thing, if it is channeled correctly. Or just as religion is not a bad thing, if the same happens to it. It is a great irony that Protestantism which gave us one of the most truly awful ideas in human history, the infamous notion of “total human depravity”, should have, by way of some paradoxical rabbit-out-of-a-hat have also bequeathed the bizarre notion of the great natural “rightness” of unfettered markets (by way of its famous “work ethic”). This is an area where the Catholic view is VASTLY preferable. Not only because it never gave into the “total human depravity” trope, but also never therefore had to cozen the trope’s benighted concomitants in business. If the Catholic church had any sense it would seize the moment, drop it losing political harangues, and go where it actually has some real mojo: economics.
Thales:
You write, “the evils of “bigness” can’t be easily fixed just by making something less big. … the better solution is to instill into the private sphere a sense of the human dignity of the worker and of the consumer. Now what are the guidelines, regulations, policies, traditions, and customs that best do that? A tough question that I don’t have the answer to.”
I agree with you that bigness per se is not the problem. I think trying to eliminate or reduce bigness for its own sake would likely cause more problems than it solves.
I would say, and I’m sure you would agree, that the Gospel contains the “policies, traditions, and customs that best do that”. Maybe it’s a pipe dream to think we can fix such problems in the secular sphere, as if it’s just a matter of making the right mechanical adjustments to business regulations, absent conversion of hearts and minds to the Gospel.
I’m not saying no adjustments to business regulations are called for. Just that no matter what economic “system” we have in place, there will always be evil and wealth (hopefully) and poverty.
Agellius,
Agreed. The Gospel has the answer.
We’re coming up onto the perpetual question: how do we create a society where people act, treat others, and are cared for in a Christian manner, whether it be in corporations, in government, in schools, in hospitals, in homes, etc.? How do we get CEOs to act with Christian virtue, and politicians, and single mothers contemplating abortion, and bankers, and union leaders, and laborers, and stock brokers, and the drug-addicted, and the homeless? The most important way is to work to convert hearts and minds to the Gospel. The second way is to create laws, policies, institutions, and customs that are conducive to people being open to the Gospel. Both ways are difficult, both are impossible to perfectly achieve in this imperfect world, but both are necessary to strive for at every moment of our lives. And determining the particular methods for achieving the second way (like what laws to create, what regulations to impose, etc.) is almost as difficult.
Italian Fascism promotes a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in a corporative associations to collectively represent the nation’s economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.[3] Italian Fascists claim that this economic system resolves and ends class conflict by creating class collaboration.[4]
Now look at our corporate structure. Do you see much difference? Could we or should we call our government now Italian Fascism? We have an absence of competition among companies. We the people are dependent on them, yet I am not convinced they are dependent on us. We have monopolies being created into huge pyramid-trust structures with one owner. Does it seem we are unaware slaves in their empire? We are dependent on them, and our laws are set up so they can rule by the few that they are? We fight around the world, and yet does it really benefit us? Or does it more benefit them?
The problem isn’t coporations, or globalization or capitalism per se; the problem isn’t even greed. Society is out of whack; the poor have no hope; the middle class keeps declining and the rich are so rich it’s obscene. The problem is a capitalist system that became unmoored from a structure (or anchor, as it were)of rules and regulations that kept society on an even keel. This didn’t just happen; it wasn’t inevitable.
It was government that cut it loose, a government too much influenced by big money from capitalists who wanted to be set free. The result has been a society thrown completely out of whack, with all power and money going in one direction — human nature being what it is, we got corporate greed gone wild. The only solution is to elect a government that has the will to reimpose a structure (old or new) of rules and regulations that will restore balance to society at large.
The only solution is to elect a government that has the will to reimpose a structure (old or new) of rules and regulations that will restore balance to society at large.
Too late. In a global economy, your government can no more legislate restraints on corporate greed than it can demand poverty from its citizens. Go ahead and put your regulations back in place, but other countries have no such limitations. See what happens to venture capital in the US when the ROI on an American company is limited but the ROI on a Chinese company knows no bounds. Think you have a bad jobs problem now?
Dan – how would that Chinese company feel if it were denied access to the American market?
You seem to believe that global capital is some sort of unstoppable leviathan. I beg to differ. It is fully stoppable. It could be utterly destroyed, changed, regulated at the international level, challenged, protested against, limited, steered, etc.
Globalization is not some law-of-physics thing beyond even questioning.
Dan – how would that Chinese company feel if it were denied access to the American market?
How would the American market feel if it were denied access to Chinese bonds?
Globalization is not some law-of-physics thing beyond even questioning.
I never said it was beyond questioning. I said it is too late to change. The global economy is a juggernaut, and it cannot be stopped without major collateral damage. If you can deal with the pain, go ahead and stand in front of the rolling boulder. But it’s going to hurt more than you think.
The world is the way it is because of greed, and because we, the people, have tolerated it and benefitted from it. This is sin, and you can’t undo the effects of sin without suffering. The greater the sin, the harder the suffering.
How would the American market feel if it were denied access to Chinese bonds?
So, there is a basis to negotiate then, isn’t there? Let’s get the best deal we can – and lets define “best deal” as “one that benefits the most people in our camp.”
I see people say the same thing about wealth concentration: “Well, it’s too late: so much money is in the hands of wealthy people that, if we try to tax or restrain it, it’ll just decamp for [China/India/assorted other places where the regulatory and tax burdens are lighter...] and we’ll all be worse off…”
Dan: in any realistic assessment, the United States is always going to be a rich country: we have an educated workforce, enormous natural resources, a relatively temperate climate, astonishingly productive farmland, and so on.
Everyone wants a piece of us.
And If taxing rich people more hurts their feelings enough to makes them emigrate, then pass a law that says no company that wants to do business in the United States can pay such a person any form of compensation whatsoever. Build and nurture institutions that build an “International Labor” to balance International Capital. And so on.
All that is required is will and imagination.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”. ~Alice Walker
Or, Heck: Matt Taibbi has some good ideas:
Those are actually all very sound. I’m impressed.
Wouldn’t the Tea Party like some of these suggestions too?
Sean writes, “The size and power of corporations is disordered, out of proper scale.”
How would you go about limiting their size? Would you penalize a company for making its one-billionth dollar? or for hiring its 10,001st employee?
Nothing is inevitable or unstoppable. Or do we give up trying to establish better food safety regulations because China doesn’t have them? Forget all those pesky regulations that once kept American standards high and wages in parity because they’ll ruin our competitive edge internationally? IOW, keep our global-hopping corporations happy. (And see how well they’ve done by the rest of us thus far!) Multi-nationals may be selling this line, but we’re fools if we buy it.
Except that it’s true. In a world where greed is king and any market is accessible, money will always take the path of least resistance. If you create domestic resistance, the money (and therefore the jobs) will migrate elsewhere. This hasn’t happened in the past because of American economic dominance, but the world is very different now.
You can absolutely change the system, but you’d better be prepared for a major lifestyle adjustment…
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/7849-focus-hit-bankers-where-it-hurts
Matt Taibbi at least tries to set some demands that maybe could do some good.
Thales writes, “Ug, I could have done without the imagery.”
Me too, brother.