PACs Running in Packs

excerpted from the book

Dollars and Votes

How Business Campaign Contributions Subvert Democracy

by Dan Clawson, Alan Neustadtl, and Mark Weller

Temple University Press, 1998

p167

... the 1980-81 period dramatically transformed the direction of U S policy and .. the impetus for this transformation was aggressive action (of all kinds) carried out by a unified business community. Campaign finance was one part of that, and it provides the best quantitative indicator of a change that actually involved a range of other behaviors. If this is so, we need to ask: How is this business unity and power developed? What underlying mechanisms make it possible for businesses to unify and act effectively?

p169
Business power derives in part from [the] ability to achieve political unity on most issues. Even more important, however, is business's control of the economy, a control that is neglected in many analyses of power... Corporations control a host of decisions unless and until the government specifically intervenes. Control of the economy also gives business vast resources for influencing society in a host of "non-political" ways.

p187
Discussions of inequality in the United States usually focus on income, and the inequalities of income are substantial. In I995, I out of 5 families had an income of less than $I9,070, the average (median) family had an income of $40,6II, the top 5 percent had incomes of more than $123,656, and the top 1 percent of households had average (mean) incomes of more than $400,000. For every dollar in income received by households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution, I3 dollars were received by households in the top fifth.

But the inequalities of wealth are far greater. The top 10 percent of the nation's families control more than two-thirds of the national wealth; the top I percent control 42 percent. The top 1 percent thus controls substantially more wealth than the bottom 90 percent of the population.

These disparities are enormous, not simply because the wealthy have several Porsches and Mercedes while others drive beat-up Chevys or Fords. They are enormous because some people, wealthy people, own the factories and offices where many of the rest of us work. The very rich own productive assets as well as consumption goods. In consumption, there are only gradational differences: Everyone has some, the issue is only how much. In production, there are fundamentally different relationships: Some people own assets and give orders; others work for a wage and obey orders.

The primary power of the wealthy is not exercised by individuals or even by families. Power in our society is based in institutions, not individuals, and the power of wealth is channeled through corporations. There are more than 200,000 industrial corporations in the United States, but all companies are not created equal: The 500 largest industrials control three-quarters of the sales, assets, and profits of all industrial corporations. More than 250 of these companies had revenues of more than $5 billion. Similarly, in the service sector, 500 firms control a disproportionate share of the resources. The dominance of these corporations means that a handful of owners and top executives, perhaps one-hundredth of one percent of the U.S. population, or 25,000 individuals, have the power to make decisions that have a huge impact on all of our lives. Collectively these people exercise incalculable power, making decisions with more impact on most of our lives than those made by the entire elected government.

Consider for a moment those decisions that virtually everyone in our society agrees should be made by business. Consider, for this exercise, only those decisions on which there is broad bipartisan political agreement; exclude anything that would generally be considered ethically or legally dubious and anything where a significant fraction of elected officials dispute business's right. Exclude, as well, any actions that are taken only through business's influence on government, and confine your attention to the decisions made in operating businesses. Remember that any decision made by "business" is primarily determined by the 25,000 individuals at the top of the corporate ladder, since their companies control about three-quarters of all corporate sales, assets, employees, and profits.

BUSINESS DECISIONS

What are some of these decisions? A brief and partial list indicates their scope: the number of people employed when to have layoffs

* the number of hours people work

* when work begins in the morning and ends in the afternoon

* whether to phase out full-time jobs and replace them with part-time, lower-wage, no-benefits jobs. In I997, UPS workers and the Teamsters Union successfully contested the company's increasingly heavy reliance on part-timers, but it was big news that a union even attempted to raise the issue, much less that they were able to win.

* whether or not there is overtime, and whether it is compulsory

* whether to allow flextime and job-sharing

* the skill level of the jobs. Does the company make an effort to use lots of skilled workers paid good wages or is it always trying to de-skill positions and replace skilled workers with unskilled?

* the educational (and other) requirements for employment. Are certain educational levels necessary in order to be hired, or are they simply helpful? Are ex-convicts or former mental patients eligible for all jobs or only some? What about the handicapped?

* whether the firm de facto discriminates in favor of men and whites or makes an active effort to recruit and promote minorities and women

* workers' rights on the job. For example, do they have free speech? A worker at a Coca-Cola plant was given a three-day suspension (without pay) because his wife brought him a lunch with a soda from Burger King, at a time when Burger King sold Pepsi. It is totally legal to penalize an employee for this or many other such actions.

* job safety. In one of the most extreme examples, a worker was killed while performing a dangerous task. Almost immediately thereafter another worker was ordered to do the same job, and refused because he said conditions were unsafe and had not been remedied. The company fired him for this refusal, and the Supreme Court upheld the firing.

* (within limits) whether or not a union is recognized; whether the union and the workers are treated with dignity and respect; how bitterly and viciously the union is resisted.

Investment decisions

* decisions about whether to expand a plant, and if so, which plant to expand

* whether to merge the corporation and "downsize" workers. Recently, a number of corporations have laid off thousands of employees, blighting communities and individual lives, at the same giving huge bonuses to the top executives.

* whether to contract out jobs

* whether to close down a plant; when and how to do so. Virtually no one questions a company's absolute right (in the United States, not in Europe) to shut down if it chooses to do so, no matter what the effect on the workers and communities.

* where to open new plants. The company has every right to bargain for the best deal it can get. Deals can include tax abatements and implicit agreements to ignore labor or pollution laws.

Product and marketing

* the products produced, including whether to introduce a new product and whether to discontinue an old stand-by

* the design, both functional and esthetic

* the relative attention to different considerations: in a new car, how important is styling? sex appeal? fuel efficiency? safety? durability?

* the quality of the goods produced. Are they made to last, with high standards throughout, or are they just made to look good in the store and for the first month of use?

* the price for which goods are sold

* the character of the advertising used to promote the product. Does it stress the significant features of the product, or distract through sex and extraneous symbols?

* the amount spent on advertising-90 percent of the commercials on prime time television are sponsored by the nation's 500 largest corporations

* the places where ads appear-in left-wing journals? in right-wing journals? on television? on which programs?

Community and environment

* the level of pollution in the workplace: air, heat, noise, chemicals, and so on

* the level of pollution in the outside environment. Beginning in the I9705 for pollution both in the workplace and in the larger community, the government set maximum limits for a few items, but companies are completely free to do better than these standards. No government regulation prevents companies from setting and meeting tougher standards of their own devising. For example, in July I99I, a railroad tanker car derailed, tumbled into the Sacramento River, ruptured, and spilled pesticide. The pesticide was not listed as a regulated substance, and therefore the railroad was not required to carry it in a double-hulled tanker, though it could have chosen to do so. Though the pesticide was unregulated, it was strong enough to kill virtually all the fish in the river, formerly famous for its trout.

* the degree of consideration for the community: Does the company make an effort to be a good neighbor? Does it contribute to local charities? Support local initiatives?

This by no means exhausts the list of decisions that companies are allowed to make. Not only allowed to make, but expected and, in many cases, required to make. There is some regulation of business decisions at the margin, with possible regulation for issues such as: Can a company pull up stakes and leave town with no more than a day's notice? Can it dump raw wastes in the river? Can it make dubious claims in its advertising? For the most part, however, corporations are free to make decisions about their economic operations. If the government fails to act, big business can do as it wishes. The access process can be so successful because a corporation is not usually asking for an explicit transfer of government funds, but asking "only" to be allowed to continue to make economic decisions on the basis of its own short-term interests without regard to their effect on other members of the society. The corporation's government relations operation can succeed by winning delays, using the access process to craft special language that permits the specific corporate practice to continue, getting the regulations drafted in the way most favorable to the company, or reducing enforcement and penalties for violations. Weak or ineffective government-or . at least, weak and ineffective enforcement of certain regulations-serves corporate interests almost as effectively as pro-business regulations. Thus there are three times as many fish and wildlife inspectors as there are inspectors to enforce all workplace health and safety regulations. This is one reason Gingrich and the Republicans thought they would have support if they refused to pass a budget and "closed down the government" in 1995.

p194
Total spending on advertising (per year) is well over fifty times what we spend on elections (every other year), and is well over half of total spending on public elementary and secondary education.

Dollars and Votes

Index of Website

Home Page