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.
This post picks up the story of how I became an analyst of “irregular competition” which we know here on Telofski.com to be anti-corporate activists and NGOs.
In the previous post, “You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume,” I discussed my foundational experiences and knowledge that support my current expertise in the analysis of anti-corporate digital activism. If you haven’t yet read that post, you may do so by clicking here.
Now, here in Part 2, I pick up the story where I left off. Here in Part 2, I describe how The Kahuna Content Company, Inc. and I evolved from an Internet content supplier to that of anti-corporate digital activism analysis.
Web 2.0 Appears
Through 2001 I had acquired quite a bit of experience in competitive intelligence analysis as well as an expertise in online business. In Kahuna Content’s early days as an independent supplier of online content, I learned about what people wanted from their online experiences. During that period of time the web was a relatively static communicator of information; there was little “interaction” due to the technologies that existed then. However, around 2005, as the web started to evolve into the more interactive environment that I knew it could and would ultimately become, I began to learn about and experience what later became known as “Web 2.0.” At that time the Internet was truly becoming an “environment,” a social one. Because of technology shifts, it was then that people began to convert the Internet into an “environment,” one which affected them and one which they affected back in return.
It was at that time, in that “2.0″ shift in the Internet, that Kahuna Content, and I, began to change focus. As the wave of what later came to be known as “user-generated content” rose, I saw that the need for independently supplied online content would fade. So, Kahuna Content made a gradual move away from content supply. Watching the rise of the “social web,” I saw that with the tools that were starting then to become available, people could and would transfer their human “conversational jones” for interaction from the real to the virtual, taking it global and making it a 24/7 activity. I saw that people would start talking about every thing under the sun, and out in public. Going back to my roots as a competitive intelligence analyst, this shift told me that people, everyday people, could become “competitors” to the very companies from which they bought their goods and services.
The Insidious Competitor Threatens
Now, I wasn’t really the first person to realize this. The Cluetrain Manifesto had forecasted this change about a half dozen years prior. But at this point in the story, I realized that individuals could actually do what the Cluetrain had predicted. When Cluetrain was written, the “social media” tools that could enable markets to “laugh” at the companies who supplied them weren’t fully configured enough
Continue reading You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume – Part 2
Recently, I’ve received some enquiries regarding my expertise in anti-corporate activism analysis, in competitive intelligence, and in the analysis of online media. Since this is an unusual profession, I can certainly understand the curiosity. I appreciate all of your questions and hope that I have responded satisfactorily. Knowing that FAQs are popular on many sites, I am today writing an FAQ of sorts.
Today, I write this post to help future enquirers and to give you some background on my previous experiences. In this post, you will learn about my credentials and the experiences I have had which have built my expertise in anti-corporate activism analysis, in general, and in digital anti-corporate activism analysis, in particular. You could say that this post serves as my “annotated resume.”
Educational Background
My specific experience for my profession began just before I received my MBA in Marketing from Rider University. While completing that degree, I worked as a Research Assistant for the Marketing Department. In that capacity, I extended what I learned from the classroom into the real world. Having learned much about performing objective research, with special attention paid toward the reliability and integrity of sourcing, I performed many market research studies across different product and service areas. Upon completing my MBA, I served several years as a faculty member at Monmouth University and at Georgian Court University. Between both of those schools I taught international economics, finance, and marketing courses.
Out-of-the-Ivory-Tower
After several years as an educator, I received an offer from a consulting unit of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. This consulting unit was the Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (TAAC) which was a U.S. Department of Commerce program administered by the NJEDA. In my role there as a Senior Project Officer, my responsibility was to work with New Jersey manufacturers who were getting “hammered” by foreign competition. Specifically, I was tasked with the duty of analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of those manufacturers with the intention of creating strategic plans to accentuate their positives and eliminate their negatives.
It was at NJEDA that I first formally became involved with competitive intelligence. When writing the strategic plan (or the “adjustment plan” as it was called there), it was necessary for me not only to analyze my client’s strengths and weaknesses, but it was imperative for me to analyze those of the competitor, as well. Please note that those competitors were, of course, foreign. This was during the late 1980s, before the Internet became the research avenue it is today, and gaining critical, public-domain, information even on American companies was difficult. So, you can probably imagine that obtaining information on foreign companies was even more difficult. However, from my experience as an academic researcher, I knew how to dig and from my training as an MBA, I knew for what to dig. So I dug. And from my efforts I was able to uncover much information that went into my analyses and the creation of effective strategic plans
Continue reading You Could Say That This Post Serves as My Annotated Resume.
While recently reviewing the Friends of the Earth US (FOE) website, I saw that they introduced a new genetic engineering policy campaigner named Eric Hoffman. Congratulations to Mr. Hoffman. Perhaps at a future time, he and I can have some interesting discussions on issues of mutual concern. But I hope that those future discussions would be based upon better writing than that which I found in connection with Mr. Hoffman’s employment announcement.
As part of the FOE US introduction of Mr. Hoffman, FOE used the following lead-in passage:
Friends of the Earth is a fierce advocate of scientific progress, but corporations often seek profit from scientific developments with little regard for human health. We must take precaution (sic) to ensure new technologies don’t do more harm than good.
Now, I’ll put aside the minor spelling error in their second sentence. I’ll also put aside the fact that there was no date on this post, which is really just a “bush league” error when it comes to Website writing and management. Instead of those small errors, I’ll just concentrate on the meaning of the passage itself.
This approach of playing the “anti-corporate card” gets a bit wearisome, and is plainly just bad argumentation. The anti-corporate card to which I refer is the phrase, “corporations often seek profit from scientific development with little regard for human health.” Let’s take this phrase apart to see how it represents poor argumentation on the part of FOE and only weakens any argument that they are trying to make.
“Corporations often seek profit.” Yes. Okay, I can go along with that part. That is the function of a corporation, to seek a profit in its activities, many of which are directed at scientific developments. Thankfully they do that. Without profits, no one would ever get a merit raise in pay. And without scientific developments, people would be dropping dead from what are now, as compared to the past, “easily-cured” illnesses or from complications arising out of minor injuries. Now, let’s move on to the next part of the phrase and talk about “with little regard for human health.”
This part of the phrase conjures up a picture of research & development departments operated by zany, madcap scientists who indiscriminately toss new products out the door without adequately testing them, or at least without testing them to the satisfaction of government regulators within the jurisdictions in which their corporations do business. In my career, I’ve known many R&D personnel, and have found them to be painfully cautious and responsible personalities, almost to the point, perhaps, of being too cautious. I’ve yet to meet one who I would consider as either a businessperson or scientist with “little regard for human health.” If, indeed, these individuals, and the corporations for which they worked, “often” acted as portrayed by this phrase, their mad scientist-like lack of “regard for human health” would produce deadly products quickly killing thousands, drawing the ire of the marketplace, causing the corporation to lose revenue quickly, putting the
Continue reading FOE Plays Anti-Corporate Card
For those interested in learning about the anti-corporate movement, I recommend a book that I recently completed. The Rise of the Anti-Corporate Movement by Evan Osborne is a first-rate work.
Subtitled Corporations and the People Who Hate Them, in this book Evan does good work in laying out the history of the corporation, taking us back about four millennia to the origin of what evolved into today’s modern corporation. He then moves us forward in time, tracing the development of the corporation from ancient Assyria, up through 18th century Britain, and then to its current form both worldwide and in the United States. At each stop in this journey through corporate time, Evan stops to impress upon the reader the details of corporate myth created at each stage, emphasizing how those myths trickled down into today’s collective social conscience, but debunking the myth before continuing the journey.
During the early parts of the journey, he deftly points out that previous forms of the corporation had, by virtue of their legal foundation in significantly less democratic societies, much more power than the corporate form takes in today’s America, decrying the claims by anti-corporate activists that modern corporations are omnipotent and all-powerful. He punctuates this illustrative journey of countering the claims of the anti-corporate movement (ACM) with profound insights, based on common sense and everyday observations. One such insight undermines general ACM claims of runaway corporate power by observing the corporate disdain for the corporate income tax and stating that if corporations were truly as all-powerful as the ACM makes them out to be, then indeed there would be no income tax.
About a third of the way through the book, Evan, an economist at Wright State University, takes on the economic assertion often put forth by the ACM, that society is actually poorer because of the existence of the corporation. Over many pages, he does an excellent job explaining how this claim is invalid. His counter-argument is clear, cogent, and convincing. I’ve read other books making this same argument (For example, The Role of Business in the Modern World, by David Henderson.), but they were not nearly as on-point or as substantially sourced as is The Rise.
This is definitely a book that should be read by all engaged in business issues involving activists and NGOs.
It’s also a book that could benefit members of the general public, to help dispel some of those corporate myths generated over the past few hundred years. I have no illusions that members of the general public will read this book any time soon. But, the loss is theirs because of the great insights they would miss. I’ll close with one of those insights.
Near the end of the book, when Evan invokes the late economist Milton Friedman who stated that the corporation owes no more “social responsibility” than any other member of society, Evan states that it is just as improper for the anti-corporate campaigner to use the law to force
Continue reading A Journey in Anti-Corporate Thought
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