Corporate Behavior

As I continue to write blogs, it occurs to me that it might be in order to review my credentials. I've been a student of economics and politics since 1946, in seven institutions of higher education, and have an MA with a minor in political science from the University of Denver and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder, with an emphasis in macroeconomic theory. I'll mention two handicaps: I have no staff, and I'm visually impaired.

Today I'm focusing on the corporation and its role in the modern world. This is so important I don't know why I haven't tackled it sooner. I'll just barely scratch the surface today--no, even that is an overstatement. I'll just barely start, and hope to continue as time permits. Notable scholars have written about the corporation before. I'll just comment on a few examples of corporate misbehavior today.

At times in history, tyrannical governments have been the chief offenders in human affairs; at other times it has been the church. I submit that today it is the corporation that most of all needs to be watched. And checked. Following are some noteworthy items, some small, some major.

• Corruption in Congress. This issue is huge. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that corruption is so great that we scarcely have a democracy. The administration of George W. Bush has governed by accepting large political contributions from corporations and then inviting those corporations to craft legislation in Congress. A well-known example is Vice President Cheney closeting himself with Halliburton to write legislation on energy. Notable also is similar behavior on the part of other corporations in the oil and gas industry.

• Corporations controlling the media. Another issue of huge importance. For a democracy to function, there has to be access to information. (I think Jefferson said something to this effect.) Networks in TV newscasting are owned by large corporations. Radio is also controlled by corporations. The same is true of newspapers. And only last night--somehow this seems the saddes story of all--Bill Moyers reported on the Net Neutrality issue: the fight over whether ordinary individuals will continue to have as much access to the Internet as corporations have. Already the US is way behind on this. Residents of Japan and countries in Europe have better access than we have. Ironically, those in charge of this country have perpetrated the myth--actually, the BIG LIE--that in America the media are largely liberal. Exactly the opposite is the truth. What is especially outrageous is that even in public TV and public radio the great majority of those interviewed and covered come from the right--in government, in industry, in academia, and so on. No matter what the category--men versus women, minorities, corporations, whatever--those who appear on the news represent the right far more than the left. This was true even in 1993, although less so, when both the presidency and the Congress were in the control of the Democrats. It does indeed seem to be the case, as has been noted, that if you keep telling the BIG LIE long enough, people will begin to believe it. Clearly that has happened in the liberal-media question. Also on the question of fiscal responsibility. And not to mention weapons of mass destruction. And--they're working on this--the prevalence of fraud in voting.
  
• The war in Iraq. Obviously here is another phenomenon of overriding importance. Here, however, I'll only point out that corporations have been reaping egregious profits. Many of what in the past have been considered government responsibilities have been privatized, allowing outrageous war profiteering by corporations such as Halliburton and Bechtel, and, what is more important, with unfortunate consequences for the troops and for the country. And the mess in Baghdad scarcely needs comment. It has been reported (I read this in Antonia Juhasz) that Paul Bremer privatized 192 services, by fiat, before the present government was in place, and virtually no useful oversight exists. After all, aren't governments supposed to be incompetent anyway?
• Globalization. Yes, although globalization is in many ways, and could be enormously so, a beneficent development, multinational corporations have assumed enough control to see that treaties and whatever are written as they wish rather than for the benefit of workers and poor countries, as well as with insufficient regard for the environment. The world lacks institutions with sufficient power to exert control over multinationals. But also, even where remedies could be undertaken with present institutional arrangements, corporations have managed to see that things go pretty much their way.
• Global warming. I just can't take time, yours and mine, to go into this. I hope you've seen Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. I'll only say that, as usual, the Bush administration has seemed more heedful of the counsel of his corporate friends than the fate of the planet.
  
• Health care in US. The US spends about twice as much per capita on health care as do other industrialized nations, with less desirable health outcomes. But when somebody brings it up as a problem, corporations in the insurance industry and in pharmaceuticals jump in and see that anything like a plan for universal health coverage is nipped in the bud.
• Prescription drugs for the elderly. The same corporate powers from insurance and pharmaceuticals inserted the famous "donut hole" to require citizens to pay them for coverage at cerrtain levels.
• The labor force. Through several decades, real wages for the American worker have been stagnant while corporate profits have ballooned. The minimum wage, already unconscionably low, has not been increased since 1997. But never mind that, why are workers not receiving a so-called "living wage"? Quite a number of lower-level governments, especially states and municipalities, have enacted such measures. And another thing, the workweek has become unconscionably long. One institution that has worked in the past to raise wages and lower the workweek, the labor union, has been rendered largely nonexistent or impotent. The corporation is at work again. Need I mention a corporation called Wal-Mart? The largest retail corporation in the world has initiated processes of great efficiency, with very handsome profits: members of the family are listed among the ten richest billionaires in the world. Yet Wal-Mart refuses to pay a living wage and denies health care and other benefits to a large portion of its workers. Not to mention gaining tax benefits and other favors from local governments where it locates.

I end here, obviously far short of decent coverage of the corporate phenomenon in the 21st century. I hope to do more later.