Corporation Nation
excerpted from the book
Corporate Predators
by Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Common Courage Press, 1999
Exxon merges with Mobil. Citicorp marries Travelers. Daimler
Benz gobbles up Chrysler. BankAmerica takes over NationsBank.
WorldCom eats MCI.
Corporations are getting bigger and bigger, and their influence
over our lives continues to grow. America is in an era of corporate
ascendancy, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Gilded
Age.
Charles Derber, a professor of sociology at Boston College,
believes that, contrary to the lessons our civics teacher taught
us, it is undemocratic corporations, not governments, that are
dominating and controlling society.
In his most recent book, Corporation Nation (St. Martin's
Press, 1998), Derber argues that the consequence of the growing
power of giant corporate multinationals is increased disparity
in wealth, rampant downsizing and million dollar CEOs making billion
dollar decisions with little regard for the average American.
A couple of years ago, Derber wrote The Wilding of America
(St. Martin's Press, 1996), in which he argued that the American
Dream had transmuted into a semi-criminal semi-violent virus that
is afflicting large parts of the elites of the country.
That book tried to call attention to the extent to which violent
behavior could be understood as a product of over-socialization.
"The problem was not that they had been underexposed
to American values, but that they could not buffer themselves
from those values," Derber told us. "They had lost the
ability to constrain any kind of anti-social behavior-because
of obsessions with success-the American Dream."
By anti-social behavior, Derber means the epitome of Reaganism-"a
kind of warping of the more healthy forms of individualism in
our culture into a hyper-individualism in which people asserted
their own interests without regard to its impact on others."
At the time, Derber was interviewed on a Gerald show about
paid assassins-people who killed for money.
"It was scary to be around young people who confessed
to killing for relatively small amounts of money-a few thousand
dollars," Derber said. "They said things like-'you have
to understand, this is just a business, everybody has to make
money.' I pointed out on the show that this was the language that
business usually uses."
At the same time, Newsweek ran a cover story titled "Corporate
Killers." On the cover, Newsweek ran the mug shots of four
CEOs who had downsized in profitable periods and upped their own
salaries.
"These corporate executives tended to use the same language
as the paid assassins on the Geraldo show, 'I feel fine about
this because I'm just doing what the market requires,' "
Derber explains. "I develop an analogy between paid assassins
on the street and those in the suites. In the most general sense,
these corporate executives are paid hitmen who use very much the
same language and rationalization. I argue that corporations are
exemplifying a form of anti-social behavior which is undermining
a great deal of the social fabric and civilized values that we
would hope to sustain."
With the hitmen parallel fresh in his mind, Derber began writing
Corporation Nation. In it, Derber points to the parallels between
today and the age of the robber barons 100 years ago- the wave
of corporate mergers, the widening gulf between rich and poor
(Bill Gates' net worth-well over $50 billion-is more than that
of the bottom 100 million Americans), the enormous influence of
corporations over democratic institutions, both major parties
bought off by big business, and a Democratic President closely
aligned with big business (Grover Cleveland then, Bill Clinton
today).
One big difference between then and now: back then, a real
grassroots populist movement rose up to challenge corporate power,
though it did not succeed in attaining its core goals.
Today, while there are many isolated movements challenging
individual corporate crimes, there is no mass-movement attacking
the corporation as the cause of the wealth disparity, destruction
of the environment and all the many other corporate driven ills
afflicting society.
Derber, a professor of sociology at Boston College, says that
when he asks his students, "Have you ever thought about the
question of whether corporations in general have too much power,"
they uniformly say they have never had that question raised.
Derber says that one good way to again build a populist movement
to attack corporate power is to study the language and tactics
of the populists of 100 years ago. He has, and he makes clear
in his book that the original conception of the corporation was
one of a public-not private-entity.
We the people created the corporation to build roads and bridges
and deliver the goods. If the corporation didn't do as we said,
we yanked their charter.
The corporate lawyers quickly got their hands around that
idea, smashed it, and replaced it with the current conception
of the corporation: a private person under the law, with the rights
and privileges of any other living and breathing citizen.
Thus, a quick transformation from "we decide" to
"they decide."
Derber is a bit too modest to say it, so we will: perhaps
the best way to rebuild a strong, vibrant and populist movement
is to get this book into the hands of people who care about democracy.
The corporations have us on the run, but we should pause for a
moment or two, find a quiet place, and read this book.
Corporate Predators