Corporations have become the dominant public institutions, controlling critical goods and services and about everything else. Yet the public has no hand in their doings, little knowledge of their inner workings and little inkling of their enormous power.
Faceless managers preside high up in glassed-in offices. CEOs are remote figures who shun publicity. Shareholders themselves might be hard put to explain fully the companies they invest in. As for the government, whose job it is to regulate commerce for the benefit of all, regulatory agencies actually share personnel with the industries they regulate. Corporate television acts as a buffer, disseminating information along narrow lines of understanding. The news offers highlights, never a deeper picture, and the ability to connect the dots is up to the viewer. Oceans of PR keep the public at bay, unaware and ultimately eased out of their role as voters in a representative democracy.
The status quo forbids the slightest criticism of our system. It is quickly met with great ire and gadflies promptly are marginalized as socialists or communists. Blind allegiance to the free market system (even run amok) is demanded. The unimaginable hobgoblins of Europe’s socialized democracies may be mentioned, or even communism (communist China is OK) to silence opposition.
During Clinton’s heyday traditional democratic ideals segued into the mantras of unbridled capitalism, more so with Bush. But an uncomfortable question emerges: Which is subservient to which? And where does the government’s constitutional obligation to promote the common good arise? “A rising tide lifts all boats” has proved no more than a gimmicky slogan to be taken seriously only by the most naive.
The Founding Fathers were well aware how amassed private wealth might potentially threaten democracy as they had just fought a war over commercial dominance. Hence corporate status was granted meagerly and charters reviewed regularly. Ever since, safeguards have been slowly dismantled, though, by a Congress compliant with the wishes of eager businessmen.
Now a capitalistic Wild West pervades and greed still reigns. Tobacco companies sell a deadly product. TV suggests your next illness. Oil companies hike prices on a whim. Mortgages that spike drown hapless consumers.
One absurdity cannot be overlooked: When the snake begins to swallow its own tail, the public is forced (not asked) to bail out gigantic corporate losses, without so much as a hearing. Citizens succumb to fears of catastrophic collapse drummed up by TV “experts.”
But the malaise is quite real: stagnant wages, 401(k) losses, record unemployment, massive foreclosures. Meanwhile, Wall Street hands out huge bonuses, the stock market rallies, and executives scoot off early for Christmas. Something is deeply wrong.
Globalization began in the 1960s when a few big corporations declared themselves “multinationals,” making plain their indifference to the fate of their fellow Americans, while still demanding all the protections the United States affords. To help them, politicians on short leash have bent to massive deregulation, blind to the results.
Covert attempts overseas are made to privatize anything possible (Google “Bolivia and Bechtel” for an example). The most self-destructive corporate change, however, has been the abandonment of our manufacturing platform, cast aside for easy rules elsewhere, cheap labor and offshoring of profit. We used to make the finest things in the world. Now there’s a plethora of low-quality Chinese merchandise people buy with money they don’t have as Washington borrows from China to keep the ball rolling. That we’d become a debtor nation to a communist monolith is hard to believe.
There is nothing wrong with capitalism — until it becomes predatory or dishonest: price collusion, monopolies and control of supply. Soon new laws will actually force us to buy defective products (such as health insurance).
Corporations tap the public treasury for financing, contracts, subsidies and now bailouts that spell staggering profits when nothing else will. Risk itself is outsourced. The result? Nest eggs gone and a declining standard of living for almost everyone. This is not good. On a grander scale the planet is being stripped of its resources and the atmosphere fouled, perhaps irreparably, by the greed of the few, to the detriment of most.
Quality products, good service, real price competition and honest reputation, the hallmarks of good business, has been let go.
It has become clear that unless the corporate giants are reined in America faces decline. The public must be reintroduced to the decision making process. With health care and climate change, our most critical issues, the very best solutions are being thwarted by corporate self-interest. Proof enough we need to take a long hard look at who is running the country and what we hold more dear, our democracy or our economy.
Dennis Lopez is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, 1973. He is a residential builder and freelance writer and lives in Rockport. He may be reached at beachglas@myfairpoint.net.