Two weeks ago Greenpeace launched their “Caught Red-Handed” campaign with a report of the same name. The issuance of the report was supported by a simultaneous social media campaign against Nestlé. These events were well-documented in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. I summarized the situation in my blog post titled “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” and you may go to that article for a synopsis if you are unfamiliar with this incident.
The subject of today’s post is the report itself, “Caught Red-Handed,” or rather the research integrity thereof. If you go to the report, which you may do by clicking here, and turn to page 13 (page 8 on the PDF version) you will see Greenpeace’s “Sources of Evidence” page. Or, as it would be more commonly called, the Bibliography. On this page of listed sources, Greenpeace shows a total of 73 sources. If you read through those sources, you will find that fully 22 of those sources are from Greenpeace documents or files. This means that 30% of the total sources used in this report were internal, and not of a diversified and external nature.
When I attended graduate school, I was instructed that, in performing research, a researcher should not use their own work as references in a research paper. And if doing so was absolutely, positively necessary, then reference to that researcher’s own work should be employed very, very sparingly. The reason against a researcher not using their own research in subsequent papers is obvious. The more diversified research sourcing is, the stronger is the research argument. “In-bred” references only weaken a case.
Is 30% a “sparing” employment of internal sourcing? Does 30% internal sourcing in “Caught Red-Handed” weaken the study’s argument? I suppose that depends on your point of view. My view is that 30% internal sourcing is highly excessive, and seeing that high of a percentage in this Greenpeace report makes me call into question the integrity of their research and, consequently, the validity of the Greenpeace argument presented in “Caught Red-Handed.”
Is this a case of being “caught red-handed” in an issue of reliable and fair research?
You know my opinion; you’re certainly entitled to yours.
A few weeks ago, I was attracted to an article turned up by one of my Google Alerts. This article link has been sitting in my “Things to Write About” folder. That is until today.
On March 8, 2010, the San Francisco Chronicle posted an article titled “Anti-corporate vs. Anti-government Anger: Who to Trust?,” written by Dr. Jim Taylor, a psychologist and author. The first line of this article reads: “This post is not a partisan polemic intended to attack those who hold different views than I.” I smiled when I read that line because when someone prefaces an article in this manner, a polemic is often what that article turns out to be. Polemic it is. And Dr. Jim puts forth his opinion. That’s fine. I don’t happen to agree with his opinion, to which he is most certainly entitled. But his opinion is not to what I object. What I object to in this particular article is the way he constructs the argument and presents the information that expresses his opinion. He constructs his argument and presents information in a way that not only contradicts his own views, but also in a way that generates and propagates unsupported meme, which can damage the “reality” that we must all share. Let me explain.
Here is another thought regarding The Kit Kat Incident, about which I blogged earlier today. So far in the blogosphere, or in the mainstream media, I haven’t seen this concern raised as yet.
Greenpeace’s argument over palm oil and image attack on Nestlé has been tactically oriented toward the Kit Kat bar. (Please see my previous post, “The Kit Kat Incident and an Abuse of Power,” for a synopsis of this direct action/PR event.) Nestlé produces the Kit Kat bar internationally, but Nestlé does not produce the Kit Kat bar in the United States. In America, the Kit Kat bar is produced by Hershey who, at least at the time of this writing, is not being targeted by Greenpeace.
Greenpeace has not made this distinction abundantly clear. Yes, they did note this difference on their initial call-to-action page. But their notation was extremely tiny, brief, and at the bottom of the page. And in subsequent Greenpeace Web sites posts and actions in social media, I am hard-pressed to find further references to this distinction between Nestlé and Hershey as it relates to the production of the Kit Kat bar. Clearly, this situation represents a business threat to Hershey.
So, this situation begs four questions:
Concerning Hershey, is this a responsible way to conduct an anti-corporate direct action?
In the form of lost sales, will there be “collateral damage” against Hershey, who at this point in the protest appears to be an innocent by-stander?
If there is collateral damage, will it form a basis of legal action against Greenpeace?
And if a legal basis is formed, will Hershey pursue it?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
In a recent Guardian article entitled “The Trouble with Trusting Complex Science,” an apparently self-avowed anti-corporatist writer (“despite my iconoclastic, anti-corporate instincts . . .” (a quote from the 10th paragraph of the article cited)) George Monbiot, discusses the frustration of dealing in facts when debating the climate change controversy. He describes how efforts to convince climate change disbelievers are often frustrated in spite of the facts presented. As a fan of facts, I can feel George’s frustration, although he and I may be on opposite sides of the climate change issue.
But the issue of climate change aside, what I want to comment on is his belief in truth and facts to make an argument. He and I are in sync on that and if you read this blog regularly you will understand what I mean.
From the theme of his article, it appears that George is very interested in the proper portrayal of reality, but yet he lets that reality take a bit of a walk in the third paragraph of an article that discusses journalistic integrity. In referring to journalistic castigations of climate scientists as an “attack on climate scientists” and as a “widening to an all-out war on science,” George makes a bit of an attack himself. Not on climate scientists, mind you, but he makes an attack on reality. He says in the third paragraph:
Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company – and precious few journalists – with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world.
Just so you know and I understand, I had to look up “anoraks.” We here in the U.S. would call that a parka. But that, of course, isn’t what troubles me.
What troubles me is that for an apparent champion of the truth, George makes a blanket, unsupported statement about the paucity of science degrees held by journalists and does so without reference to a source. He pins his argument, that climate change science is being “poo-pooed” by unqualified persons, on a statement that is itself unqualified, and without demonstrating that those opponents themselves are unqualified. And this is a key point in his overall argument. Sure, if it was just a passing comment, I would understand the passage not being sourced. But it’s not a passing comment. His article turns on this passage.
How do I know? How do I know if there is or isn’t a paucity of science degrees in major media companies and/or in their news rooms? Is the reader to take as true, and on trust, what George says about the lack of science degrees in the news room?
The proliferation of science degrees in the news room isn’t what’s important here in this post. What’s important is the proper representation of reality and the integrity of a valid argument. As a reader, if
Continue reading How About Some Facts to Support Some Facts?
Yesterday I posted about David Korten’s book, When Corporations Rule the World. This author is one of the leading thinkers in the area of anti-corporatism, and has published extensively on the subject. Although I don’t agree with much of what he writes, I do like reading him and others to keep abreast of anti-corporate thinking, both current and historic.
When I read much of the anti-corporate literature, I keep coming back to the thought of “who is really responsible for the corporate power” that we see today? Of course, “corporate power,” and its degrees, is a relatively defined term and is the subject for many, many other posts. But for today and the purposes of this discussion, let’s just go with the overarching theme of “corporate power” as it is often referred to in anti-corporate literature.
Throughout When Corporations Rule the World, David “points the finger” of the genesis of corporate power at the corporations themselves. I suppose that would seem logical, but to me it seems logical only in a superficial way. For example, on page 64 of my edition, David talks about how corporate power in America coalesced after the Civil War.
The huge profits pouring in from military procurement contracts allowed industrial interests to take advantage of the disorder and rampant political corruption to virtually buy legislation that gave them massive grants of money and land to expand the Western railway system. The greater its profits, the tighter the emergent industrial class was able to solidify its hold on government to obtain further benefits.
Let’s look more deeply at the logic. (Perhaps you already realize where I’m going with this.)
I didn’t check David’s reference for this statement, but, for the sake of this discussion, let’s just assume that he is reporting accurately. I’ll repeat the question which is the title of this post.
Who is Really Responsible for Corporate Power?
In the quoted example David gave, how about placing at least some of the blame on the folks in government? Talk about personal responsibility.
One of the themes of anti-corporate thinkers is that they maintain that the corporate form, and the legal protections it affords, abdicates the personal responsibility of the people that run the corporation. From my readings of anti-corporate thinkers and writers, this neglect of personal responsibility appears to be anathema and is one of their “pet peeves.” So, then, in anti-corporate thinking, why isn’t the idea of personal responsibility applied back against government? In my readings of anti-corporate literature, I rarely see the idea of lack of personal responsibility thrown back into the face of politicians.
Corruption is a two-way street. The corruption to which David alludes in the quote above could not have taken place had the government officials had a sufficient level of personal responsibility and integrity.
So, again, who is really responsible for corporate power?
It takes two to tango.
A quick idea for today.
Currently I am reading When Corporations Rule the World by David Korten. Among anti-corporate thinkers, this book is touted as one of the leading works in modern anti-corporate theory. I’m only up to page 65 so far, but I must say that, although overall I don’t agree with David’s point of view, in this book David has raised some interesting issues. A few of his arguments have been well-made and well-sourced, while some others . . . well . . . not so much. Today’s idea concerns one of those arguments that could have been made more soundly.
On page 59 of the paperback edition, near the beginning of Chapter Four – Rise of Corporate Power in America, when discussing the significance of the corporation as an institution, David states:
On the negative side, it (the corporation) allows one or more individuals to leverage massive economic and political resources behind narrowly focused private agendas while protecting themselves from legal liability for the public consequences.
Yes. This is true. Business corporations do do this.
And the corporation, at least the type to which he refers, pays taxes in return.
Yet, there is a type of corporation which fits David’s description and that does not pay taxes. Not one cent. In fact, the type of corporation of which I am thinking, in essence, does its business at the expense of taxpayers. Let’s consider David’s description from the perspective of the modern non-governmental organization (NGO).
Modern NGOs are corporate entities which permit one or more individuals to leverage and apply their economic and political resources on narrowly focused privately-defined agendas while they and their employees enjoy the liability protection of the corporate form. And let’s add to this description of NGOs that they do so while receiving a tax-exempt status, so that, in essence, taxpayers are implicitly paying for the actions of the NGOs and the common resources that those NGOs consume at taxpayer expense.
This corporate format has worked out very well for businesses, yes. But it has also worked out well for NGOs. Remember. There are always two sides to every coin. Were it not for the corporate form, NGOs would probably not enjoy much of the power that they currently exercise.
The coin of corporate power cuts both ways, but when making an argument it should be incumbent upon the advocate to consider both sides of any coin.
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About  Here at " Richard Telofski on The War on Capitalism," I discuss and analyze the individuals and groups conducting campaigns against capitalism. In the articles on this site, I provide analysis on lesser known facts about this movement. More . . .
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