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Another Inconvenient Truth
Sunday May 13, 2007
Government in the liberal democracies of the developed world is based on an experiment undertaken in the last half of the 18th century. That experiment theorized that the public interest could be protected under a system of laws enacted by the vote of the people’s elected representatives. Under this system, people are free to do as they please as long as no law has been passed restricting their freedom. Laws are not passed restricting freedom until legal behavior damages the public interest to the point where it makes another law necessary. This system relies on the assumption that extensive harm cannot be done to the public interest before a law can be passed prohibiting the offensive behavior. In the late 1700s this assumption may have been true. Today it is not. The modern corporation can legally do more damage to the public interest in one afternoon than a human being can do in a lifetime. Problems such as global warming, third world sweatshops, big companies walking out on small towns for greener pastures elsewhere and nearly five million deaths each year from tobacco, are attacks on the public interest that show government does not always have the will to make corporations stop. Indeed, by granting corporate charters, governments in some sense authorize these attacks rather than making them cease. If big corporations can keep government from fulfilling its purpose, we should understand why and then change one or the other–either give government more power to deal with corporations than it needs to deal with people or make the corporation more respectful of the public interest. Changing the corporation is the better choice. The liberal democracy was designed more than 100 years before the creation of the modern corporation. It was not designed to govern large institutions dedicated to the pursuit of self-interest. This is why government has so much trouble governing corporations today. Although the U.S. companies only act through their people–directors, officers and employees–these people must obey a rule which government sets down for all corporations. That rule makes profit the corporation‘s only goal. Many say this causes companies to put greed above the public interest, but this analysis only polarizes. What really happens is really more subtle than that. A company goes into a particular business and finds itself successful. Eventually, a huge amount of shareholders’ money is invested in the business–sometimes billions of dollars. Then, a hidden adverse side effect of the company’s products or operations is discovered. The law provides that corporate personnel must react to this discovery in a way that protects the financial interests of the company. To do this, a number of strategies are employed to frustrate calls to make their behaviour illegal. The first of these strategies is usually denial. Eventually, however, the truth comes out and corporate personnel must employ other measures to protect their company’s assets. Usually these measures include trying to keep government from passing laws that would restrict the company’s ability to carry on business as usual. It should come as no surprise that modern corporations are highly successful at this. The environment, human rights, the public health and safety and the welfare of the communities are all elements of the public interest that government should be able protect. Today, liberal democracies in all parts of the world are continually frustrated in fulfilling this purpose by a small minority of large corporations which make money through means that harm the public interest. It is no secret how this happens. Companies use their right to free speech to lobby and finance the election campaigns of politicians. They threaten job loss and economic ruin if they are forced by new laws to change their ways. They crank up their public relations machines to entice people to vote against each other and the public interest. Their task is made easier in today’s globalized world where jobs in one state or country often create damage in another. The inconvenient truth is that a system of government of the people, by the people and for the people is well down the road to becoming a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. Ask yourself these question “do you believe governments can protect the public interest from today’s big corporations or not? Do governments control companies or do companies control government?” A system of government designed to protect both the public interest and freedom cannot cope with powerful institutions dedicated to the furtherance of their own interests. We shouldn’t expect it to do what it was never designed to. However, rather than deny or despair, we should recognize another not so inconvenient truth–profits and protection of the public interest need not be mutually exclusive. The rules establishing corporations can be changed. Profit should remain the goal, but its pursuit should not come at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public health and safety or the welfare of American communities. Making this change will give the U.S. people at work the flexibility to respect the public interest that today is missing. When it is made, the modern corporation will be more compatible with the U.S. system of government and the public interest under a lot less threat. Impeachment, All Down The Line
Sunday April 29, 2007
Few of the U.S. protesters suggest that Bush is guilty of disloyalty, nor is there evidence of bribery. Bush is guilty of this — a “crime against peace” in the language of the Nuremberg Principles — not once but twice, first in Afghanistan and next in Iraq. That seems simple enough, but it also seems a bit unfair to pick on Bush alone. After all, no single person — not even the president of the United States — can undertake such massive crimes alone. Remember that the U.S. constitution also includes in the category of impeachable persons the “Vice President and all civil officers of the United States.” How deep the bench of the Bush administration might go? Cheney and Rice seem like obvious choices; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Armitage would have been on the list before they left their posts. You all may have specific favorites you would want to add. But Americans have not stopped with Bush and his friends. If Americans want to truly change the direction of the U.S. Americans should widen the discussion. Who else might deserve to be impeached? Let’s start with the elected leadership of the Democratic Party, which aided and helped the high crimes of Bush by jumping on the “war on terror” slogan and authorizing those illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. That makes the Democratic Party leadership participation not only a clear violations of international law but also morally responsible for the death and destruction that has followed. Now, even with a congressional majority, the Democratic Party leadership refuses to take responsibility for its part in this debacle and is timid in proposing meaningful solutions. “High crimes” seems like the appropriate phrase for Bush's regime. Could there be some kind of retroactive impeachment? As along as Americans have moved outside the strict constitutional framework, let’s imagine who else they might put on the list. Perhaps it shouldn’t stop with the U.S. government officials. Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who served as a willing instrument for some of the most fraudulent claims the Bush administration used to build support for the Iraq war, offered this pathetic defense of her failures. Karen DeYoung, senior diplomatic correspondent and associate editor of the Washington Post, was unusually honest in describing the process: So journalists are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power. If the president stands up and says something, they report what the president said. When journalists from two of the most authoritative newspapers in the United States concede that in the course of doing their jobs — playing by the commonly understood rules of the game — they will be little more than delivery systems for the propaganda of the powerful, it seems that contemporary corporate commercial journalism should be impeached for its failure to fulfill its role as a check on concentrated power. From corporate journalism Americans might look at the corporate sector more broadly — the corporations that profit from building the weapons of war, the corporations that profit from the contracts to rebuild after a war, those that provide private security, and those that win the right to exploit the resources of the subordinated societies. Lockheed Martin, Haliburton, Blackwater, ExxonMobil. Perhaps there should be corporate impeachment hearings proceedings. Follow the logic and it’s clear that no matter how much this president might deserve impeachment, he is only one person in a system that is fundamentally indefensible and unsustainable. People at many levels are guilty; there is plenty of responsibility to go around, evaluated with an eye toward people’s power and place in the decision-making structure, of course. But American citizens all have some role in this. That extends not only to the powerful but to all of Americans who are citizens of the United States, citizens of the empire. Many of them work hard in progressive political groups to try to make the world a more just place. But the reality is that those of Americans living in the empire do — at least in the short term — get some material benefits from that empire, from that system that gives to the First World (especially the United States) a disproportionate share of the world’s resources. No matter how much Americans struggle, the fact is that the vast majority of people in the United States live at a level of consumption that is unsustainable. They indulge too often in their lust for the cheap toys of empire. Have American citizens done enough, as citizens who live in a relatively open democratic system, to change that? Have Americans struggled enough? Have they been self-critical enough? It’s easy to target the most manifestly evil among Americans, those whose moral and political judgments cannot be justified by any theological or philosophical system. American people should critique those people in power and hold them accountable. They should use the political tools available to them to try to create a better world. But Americans also might pause and hold themselves to the exact standards that are going to be necessary if they are to create a world that is consistent with principles of justice, a world beyond empire.
'War Privatization is Public Scandal'
Sunday April 15, 2007
They guard U.S. officials. They patrol the Green Zone, the U.S. headquarters in Iraq. They supply the food, the oil, clean the barracks and fix the machines. They aren't U.S. soldiers; they are private contractors. The Bush administration has privatized war. The second-biggest army in Iraq consists of armed security forces supplied by private contractors. They act above the law -- and with unclear lines of authority. They work abroad, so they are largely beyond the reach of U.S. law. On contract from the U.S. government, they are beyond the reach of Iraqi law, as established in an order issued by the U.S. Authority there before turning power over to the Iraqi government. When the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandals were revealed, private security forces and interrogators were at the center of it. But none was held accountable. The British charity, War on Want, reported that there are three British private security guards to every British soldier in Iraq. Congressional investigators are about to unearth massive abuses and corruption in Iraq, but the mercenaries operate across the world. In 1998, for example, DynCorp security agents in Bosnia were implicated in a sex-slave scandal. The firm quickly recalled at least 13 agents; none faced criminal trial. The modern-day mercenaries also operate largely free of government scrutiny or oversight. Companies, unlike government agencies, are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act and often stonewall congressional inquiry. Under President Bush, the use of private contractors generally has doubled to about 400 billion dollars a year in 2006, as the administration is driven by a philosophy to privatize everything it can. Contractors claim to provide savings and efficiency because of the benefits of competition. In fact, in most areas, the contractors have little competition. Sole-source, no-bid contracts are the rule, not the exception. The contractors spend millions wining, dining and rewarding the legislators who provide them with their immensely profitable contracts. According to the New York Times, the top 20 service contractors, have spent nearly 300 million dollars since 2000 on lobbying and have donated some 23 million dollars to political campaigns. If privatization doesn't produce savings and offers such scope for abuse, why has it continued to grow? Part of the reason is simply the animus for government by modern day conservatives. Part of it is political grandstanding. President Clinton, for example, boasted that he had cut the size of the federal bureaucracy -- even as those cuts were feeding a cancerous growth of contracting out vital services. The problem now is that the government lacks the capacity to control its contractors -- and has begun contracting out that oversight. The U.S Congress has begun a great debate about the U.S policy in Iraq. But it is vital that they investigate the privatization of war. This must be brought under control before the Congress finds itself faced with mercenary and corporate armies that are out of control.
How Will the Democrats Control Congress?
Sunday April 8, 2007
Now that the Democrats, after twelve long years, control the Congress, what are they going to do with it? Quite clearly, in their first months in the House of Representatives, they have to increase the long-frozen minimum wage, give the federal government authority to negotiate price cuts with the drug companies for the medicines that Uncle Sam is the purchasing agent, reduce interest rates on student loans, and roll back subsidies for oil and gas companies. All these are called reforms. But most are catch-ups or rollbacks of mostly corporate-lobbied policies that pushed the U.S. back. Not exactly breaking new ground. But then, the Democrats chose them for their relative ease of passage. If, however, they are blocked by the Republicans, Democrats want to make them issues that could cost the Republican Party votes in the coming 2008 election. It is the U.S. 2008 election that looms over this new Congress. For the Democrats in office, with few exceptions, extreme caution is the mode. This means that all the outrages Democrats attributed to the Bush regime since 2001 - many of which could have been stopped by the large Democratic minority then in the Congress- are not on the agenda today. Early and troubling signals indicate that the Democrats are not going to move to remove the shameless Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, are not going to go after the huge waste and redundancy in military weapons contracts rendered obsolete with the demise of the Soviet Union, are not going to end massive corporate welfare, and are not going to propose a serious crackdown on widespread corporate crime, fraud and abuse. Granted, the Democrats are making big noises about ethics reform, moving to ban a variety of corporate free samples from corporate jet travel to gifts and dinners. But the 800 pound gorilla is big business money in political campaigns. The gorilla seems not to worry. Fund-raising dinners are already starting up and the corporates are readjusting their attentions to the receptive majority Democrats. Of all the reasons why the Democrats won in 2006, most of them agree that the foremost one was the public's expanding revulsion against Bush over the Iraq war-quagmire. To move to end that disaster for the United States, for Iraq and for the U.S. status in the world, the Democrats possess a number of assets. American Public opinion is nearing 70 percent against Bush and the war. Bush's approval rating is in the low 30s. Only 17 percent of the U.S. public supports his increasing the number of soldiers in Iraq. The situation in Iraq is worsening including U.S. casualties and expenditures. Finally, dozens of ex-generals, admirals, top national security advisors, diplomats and a growing number of former high Bush Administration officials are pressing for various withdrawal strategies. What more does an opposition Party in control of the legislative branch need? Battlefield veteran, John Murtha has been out in front for over a year demanding an 'out of Iraq' policy. Later this month, about 1000 active duty soldiers will petition their Congress to get out of this war. Still, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Reid, themselves critical of Bush's criminal war, show ambiguities and avoid a decisive alternative pathway to peace. It is as if they are on the sidelines watching Bush-Cheney self-destruct politically for the Republicans in 2008. If you are looking to test these early signs in the coming months, consider what kind of investigations the Senate and House Committees launch. Consider whether the few Democrats demanding an impeachment process for the accountability of Messrs. Bush and Cheney are silenced by their leaders. About two years ago, a poll showed 52 percent of Americans would favor impeachment if they learned the President was lying about the reasons for invading Iraq. That number is probably larger today, given all the disclosures that confirm the multiple lies, fabrications and cover-ups leading to and during the Iraq military occupation. Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World Sunday March 18, 2007
There is a “mystery” we must explain: that is how is it that as corporate investments and foreign aid and international loans to poor countries have increased dramatically throughout the world over the last half century, so has poverty? The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. Over the last half century, U.S. corporations and banks and other western corporations have invested heavily in those poorer regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America known as the “Third World.” The transnational are attracted by the rich natural resources, the high return that comes from low-paid labor, and the nearly complete absence of taxes, environmental regulations, worker benefits, and occupational safety costs. The U.S. government has subsidized this flight of capital by granting corporations tax concessions on their overseas investments, and even paying some of their relocation expenses---much to the outrage of labor unions here at home who see their jobs evaporating. The international companies push out local businesses in the Third World and preempt their markets. American agribusiness cartels, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, dump surplus products in other countries at below cost and undersell local farmers. By displacing local populations from their lands and robbing them of their self-sufficiency, Western corporations create overcrowded labor markets of desperate people who are forced into shanty towns to toil for poverty wages, often in violation of the countries’ own minimum wage laws. This position stems from the child labor practices of U.S. corporations throughout the Third World and within the United States itself, where children as young as 12 suffer high rates of injuries and fatalities, and are often paid less than the minimum wage. The savings that big business reaps from cheap labor abroad are not passed on in lower prices to their customers elsewhere. Corporations do not outsource to far-off regions so that U.S. consumers can save money. They outsource in order to increase their margin of profit. U.S. foreign aid usually works hand in hand with transnational investment. It subsidizes construction of the infrastructure needed by corporations in the Third World: ports, highways, and refineries. The aid given to Third World governments comes with strings attached. It often must be spent on U.S. products, and the recipient nation is required to give investment preferences to U.S. companies, shifting consumption away from home produced commodities and foods in favor of imported ones, creating more dependency, hunger, and debt. A good chunk of the aid money never sees the light of day, going directly into the personal coffers of sticky-fingered officials in the recipient countries. Isn’t it time that liberal critics stop thinking that the people who own so much of the world are “incompetent” or “misguided” or “failing to see the unintended consequences of their policies”? They know where their interests lie, and so should the poor people of the World.
Populism's Revival Sunday March 11, 2007 The following article is by Jim Lardner a senior fellow at a national, nonpartisan public policy and research center. After a quarter-century of growing economic inequality, America decided to talk about it. In the late 1970s and early '80s, when the inequality trend first surfaced, the most conspicuous victims were workers in industries shaken by competition from Asia. From then on, highly regarded authorities have continued to present the problem as a matter of technology and trade creating a "rising skill premium." Americans have clearly taken that analysis to heart. By and large, according to a recent Wall Street Journal and NBC News poll (in which the widening pay gap was rated the U.S. No. 1 economic problem by 24 percent of those surveyed), people don't hold Republicans responsible. They're more inclined to blame corporate greed or the global economy; for their calamitous economy and either way, they don't think there's much that mere humans, regardless of party, can do about it. But that fatalistic outlook is not supported by the facts. If cheap imports (or, for that matter, low-wage immigrants) could explain a long, sharp increase in inequality, France, the Netherlands and much of Europe would be going through the same experience; but they're not. If skill was the crucial factor, the long-term winners would be the top 20 or 30 percent of Americans. Instead, they've been the top 5, 2, or 1 percent -- the 1 percent who now pocket almost a fifth of all personal income, roughly twice what their share was during the 1960s and '70s. The data suggests a story of power rather than skill -- rule-making power. The trail of evidence leads into the secrete world of economic policy; and if one looks back over the past few decades, he or she will find a pattern of government action -- on taxes, trade and the minimum wage, among other things -- favoring corporate insiders and financial manipulators over the rest of Americans. There is bipartisan complicity at many points along the way in the U.S. waxing especially on Corporate America's behalf, shot down a proposal to clean up the accounting rules for stock options, thus setting the stage for the backdated-options scandal that has so far implicated the directors and executives of more than 120 companies. Many of the Democrats who raised the issue on the 2006 campaign trail are now members of the new Congress. Their presence could finally mean an increase in the minimum wage and some desperately needed relief for the U.S. middle-class families struggling with the life expenses. But what then? Soon thoughts will turn to 2008 and re-election, and the newcomers will be listening to old Washington hands giving them a host of reasons to lay off the subject. Some will follow that advice, some will resist. Maybe a few will make it their business not only to keep the discussion going, but to move beyond easy sound bites and calculations of what the issue can do for them, to a serious conversation about what it is doing to the U.S. and what American people can do in response. Those who take that plunge could help bring two badly needed qualities back to American politics: That is credibility and hope. If Tesco and Wal-Mart are Friends of the Earth, Are There Any Enemies Left? Sunday February 18, 2007 The following article is by George Monbiot the daily Britain's Guardian. If Tesco and Wal-Mart have become friends of the earth, are there any enemies left? They have trampled their suppliers, their competitors and even their regulators. They have smashed local economies, broken the backs of the farmers, and forced their contractors to drive down wages. For them, it seemed, there was no law beyond the market, no place too precious to be destroyed, no cost they could not pass on to someone else. The environmentalists developed a picture of the world that seemed to be repeatedly confirmed by experience. American Big corporations destroy the environment. They are the enemies of society. The bigger they become, the less they can be constrained by democracy or consumer power. The U.S. politics of scale permit them to bully governments, tear up standards, and reshape the world to suit them. It is also recognizable that this was a dialectical process. As businesses began to operate globally, so could the campaigns against them. By improving global communications and ensuring that we could all speak their language, they helped us to confront them more effectively. But hardly anyone believed that change could happen so fast. Through the 80s and 90s, they brushed the world off like dust. Then, as a result of powerful campaigns against sweatshops in the US and Europe, some of the big clothing and sports retailers broke ranks. Soon after that, the energy companies started announcing big investments in renewable technologies (though not, unfortunately, any corresponding disinvestments in fossil fuel). But the supermarkets have shifted faster than anyone else. Embarrassingly, for those who have scorned the idea of corporate social responsibility, some of these companies now claim to be setting higher standards than any government would dare to impose on them. Marks and Spencer, for example, has promised to become carbon neutral, to cease sending waste to landfill by 2012, and to stop stocking any fish, wood or paper that has not been sustainably sourced. Tesco promises to attach a carbon label to all its goods. Wal-Mart now says it will run its US stores entirely on renewable energy. The fact is that politicians have failed to confront the environmental crisis, just as they have failed to tackle inequality, or to challenge the power of the White House, the media barons, the corporations and the banks. It is also true to say that The Wal-Mart Effect is a real one. When a huge company changes course, the impact is felt all over the world. One positive decision by the leviathan rumbles more widely than a thousand decisions by its smaller competitors. But those environmentalist who have fought for the environment and against big corporations have not yet become redundant. There is plenty to celebrate in the recent announcements and plenty to suspect. Wal-Mart and Tesco can change the world at the stroke of a pen, but one decision they will not make voluntarily is to relax their grip on local economies. It will always be harder for small businesses to work with a global behemoth than with the local baker or butcher; Tesco's economy will continue to favor the big, distant supplier over the man down the road. And what of the sense of community that independent small shops help to foster, which encourages people to make their friends close to home? If love miles are the most intractable cause of climate change, we need to start cultivating as much community spirit as we can. But there is a bigger contradiction than this, which has been overlooked by the supermarkets and by many of their critics. "The green movement must become a mass movement in green consumption." What about consuming less? Less is the one thing the superstores cannot sell us. As further efficiencies become harder to extract, their growth will eventually surpass all their reductions in the use of energy. This is not Tesco's problem alone: the green movement's alternatives still lack force. Robin Hood in Reverse: Corporate and Government Looting of the Gulf of Mexico Coast Sunday January 14, 2007 The following article is by Bill Quigley a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Of Mexico Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local governments are teaming up with American corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves. Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina's. The need is still great. Over three hundred thousand people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Of Mexico Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in trailers. Texas people say they have 250,000 displaced people and Georgia reports another 100,000. Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and American corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes. Louisiana governors cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF company International, 756 million dollars over the next three years. This is very big for ICF company whose total revenue in 2005 was 177 million dollars. While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent Entergy Inc. which reported a net cash flow of 777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006. Another example of the US corporate scandals is that: U.S. Housing and Urban Development, which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans, is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, American corporations have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African American, most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. After taking millions in hurricane relief money will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 Hurricane victim families? Absolutely not. American governors say that everyone who lived in their apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished. American Public housing residents remember a 1600 apartment development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families have been allowed to live in the new place. A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing allies. Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf of Mexico Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by the US Congress to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private corporate projects. This corporate plundering follows the path taken in the immediate days after Katrina when politically connected corporations were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts with US profiteer companies. Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds - of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being diverted without a peep from the government. The people of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico coast are fighting against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief funds, by the US corporations. Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity of those who contributed to help those harmed by the U.S. Katrina's will be snugly in the pockets of the U.S. corporations. Affordable housing will remain scarce. The U.S. working poor, the elderly and the Hurricane victims will remain homeless.
A Contract with Corporate America Sunday January 7, 2007
The following article is by Philip Mattera the heads of the Corporate Research Project and Charlie Cray, director of the Center for Corporate Policy. In this disclosing article Philip Mattera and Charlie Cray, have shed more light on the facts of the Western Corporate Crimes, and say: "Despite the frequent claim that “government is the problem,” large Western corporations have more impact on the life of most of the world people. To an extraordinary degree, they control how the people earn a living, what they consume and even how they think. The world large corporations have enormous influence over the public life. For too long, the world governments have been acting as a virtual captive of big business interests. It is time to start shifting power back to the rest of people." The midterm election demonstrated a deep dissatisfaction with the Bush administration’s handling of the war and with the large amount of corruption that infected the Republican-controlled Congress. Yet it was more than a partisan victory for the Democrats. It also represented a popular backlash against business-friendly policies that have left many Americans behind. The new Congress faces a shocking list of corporate abuses that have been ignored by lawmakers for years—including executive pay levels that remain out of control, uncontrolled contract deception and war profiteering in Iraq and at home, widespread corporate tax avoidance, the offshoring of well-paying jobs, and the shredding of health, safety and environmental standards. It’s enough to keep many congressional committees working overtime for years. But the election must be seen as much more than a rejection of government of the Halliburtons, by the Enrons and for the Pfizers. It was also a sign that the myth of the good corporate citizen providing for broad prosperity has been penetrated, providing an opportunity for deep change in the entire relationship between government and big business. Some of the initial measures planned by Democrats, such as a minimum wage increase and a rollback of oil industry tax breaks, will begin to repair the situation. But much more needs to be done. Twelve years ago, when the Republicans won control of Congress, they proposed a Contract with America. Now is the time for what might be called a Contract with Corporate America—an effort to put limits on the power of big business. Business apologists want us to believe corporate fraud is a thing of the past, yet now a day's business corruption is continuing in activities like the widespread backdating of stock options. Rather than tightening controls, the Bush administration and business groups have been seeking to relax the rules. The U.S. Justice Department announced it was putting new restrictions on the ability of federal prosecutors to use methods such as pressuring companies to waive the confidentiality of their legal communications—a common technique in developing evidence against an executive suspected of fraud. The claim is that these changes restore “balance” to the process; in truth, Justice is caving in to demands from right-wing academics and former prosecutors who have moved to lucrative careers in the leading white-collar criminal defense firms. It should go without saying that Big Business has not earned the right to lax enforcement. Serious regulation—on the environment, product safety, occupational safety & health, etc.—is also being eviscerated as top positions have been filled with industry lobbyists who pass through the spinning door from the private sector and later return to the corporate world. Restoring reasonable oversight is possible only if those making regulatory policy are truly independent of the companies they are supposed to be regulating, which means tightening restrictions on the revolving door, encouraging the appointment of career public servants and providing strong protections for whistleblowers. Today more than half of the top 100 economies of the world are corporations. Mammoth companies dominate sectors such as energy, food processing and media. The consequences of this concentration are many. While a few start-ups strike it rich, the barriers to entrepreneurial success are formidable. In industries such as oil, a handful of major players can gouge consumers by colluding to keep prices high. In other cases, such as Wal-Mart’s growing domination of retailing, prices are kept low, but workers and suppliers are squeezed. Media concentration has impoverished journalistic standards and threatened free speech. At a minimum, antitrust enforcement must be reinvigorated and updated for the 21st century economy. American Congress could take the lead by creating a subcommittee tasked to investigate the extent of the U.S. corporate consolidation and control, and the consequences for small businesses, consumers, communities, and the culture.
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