Who is Really Responsible for Corporate Power?

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.

Activism or Just Keeping Your Mouth Shut?

An opinion article about childhood obesity and activism recently appeared in the The Daily Camera, the daily newspaper for Boulder, Colorado.

The article was written by  J. Justin Wilson, who is the Senior Research Analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom, (CCF) a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies and consumers to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. Hmmm . . . could this organization be considered an activist organization themselves? Well, certainly if they are representing the interests of a particular business sector. Although, what I like in that description of the CCF is the promotion of “personal responsibility” as their stated primary goal. More of that sort of “PR” would do us all well.

In the article Justin refers to selected activist initiatives aimed at getting some state legislators to tax certain sugary foods, soft drinks in particular. Many of the usual arguments are made in Justin’s article. Such as this one, which for me personally is a bit hard to swallow. (pun intended) He cites no scientific link between soft drinks and childhood obesity. From his article:

There is no scientific consensus that sugary drinks are a unique cause of obesity. A scientific review published last year in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition evaluated the evidence of 12 major studies and found virtually no association between the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages and children`s weight. And an October study found no association between soda consumption and youth weight gain over a 5-year period.

I suppose the key term in that quote is “unique cause.” And you can argue from here to Sunday about whether or not there is a scientific cause underlying this particular issue. Perhaps the children studied don’t drink soda, although that idea seems almost as far-fetched as the idea that there is no association between sugar-sweetened soda and weight gain. (If that indeed is true, I going to drink myself silly with Coca-Cola.)

But that’s where I think Justin went wrong in his argument. He chose the scientific path as the main basis to support his argument. Science doesn’t always a good argument make, and I believe that is especially so when one is representing an activist group, er uh . . . excuse me, a non-profit coalition of businesses that supports personal responsibility. I feel that Justin’s argument would have been better made by hammering home as the central thrust of his article the principle of personal responsibility, because after all that’s the declared objective of his organization. Although in the article he did turn briefly to the idea of personal responsibility, his discussion of this form of “PR” was too late in the article and the point was not made nearly powerfully enough. I think he missed his chance here.

Well, hold on, now. Perhaps he didn’t make personal responsibility the central theme of the article because that is something kids have very little of. No kid is going to eschew soda for milk if

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