Why do liberals love to hate “Big Corporations”? It’s a standard villain for the populist politician on the stump. Perpetually outraged hippies paste anti-corporate fliers all over college campuses, among other things calling for an end to “corporate personhood”. Corporations always seem to be wearing black hats in recent Hollywood fare, at least when it’s not the US Government. (It’s never terrorists or foreign dictators – it’s wouldn’t be right to show the Religion of Peace in a bad light, after all…) If it’s not Big Oil, then it’s Big Pharmaceutical. Or there’s the amorphous but always ominous “Developers.” And let’s never forget defense contractors, who are always ready to start one war or another in order to line their pockets.
If corporations were the evil, bloodthirsty, step-over-any-corpse-for-a-buck organizations they’re accused of being by Oscar-hungry movie directors and the Lyndon LaRouche raggamuffins polluting college campuses, all this angst would make sense. But is that really the case?
The answer to that question, of course, is obvious. So why the hate? And am I overblowing it? After all, there are certainly some unsavory corporate types out there that really will rob the pension fund of their business. (They tend to go to jail under laws we already have, but don’t let that get in the way of a good rant against The Man.)
Well, take Exhibit A – John Edwards, neck and neck to win the Iowa primary, as reported by Rich Lowry:
“Corporate greed is killing the middle class,” Edwards says, “and stealing your children’s future.” He promises to confront the corporate interests, and explicitly promises not to sit down with them. (In his mind apparently, Pfizer is less worth talking to than the mullahs of Iran.) He pours scorn on those who want to work with “stakeholders” on legislation. Corporate interests aren’t going to “voluntarily give their power away — they’ll give it away when we take it away from them.”
Anyone who has the most casual familiarity with economics should be at least puzzled by these statements coming as they do from an educated man. People concerned about their freedom should be downright frightened that this guy has any chance at all at being in the White House.
First of all, what are corporations, really? Technically, they’re a “business entity,” which means they have separate legal identities from the people who form and run them. It means that a company can go bankrupt and be sued without the entrepreneur who started it losing his family’s house in the process. It means that if a business owner dies, the company can still pay its employees without having to fight over a frozen estate. Incorporating makes the enormous risk of investing in and starting a business something less than a life-or-death decision. It encourages people to jump into the business world when they otherwise might not feel they could do it without endangering their families.
But more importantly, corporations (most of which are fairly small) are run by people. Regular Americans trying to live out the American dream, and are willing to take some risks to do it. Along the way, they’re creating jobs for other Americans, producing and improving products that make everyday life better, and paying far more than their equal share of taxes (if they’re successful, of course). “Corporate greed” is nothing more than people making a living and benefiting from their risks they took with their own money (or with that of other willing investors), their hard work, and their ingenuity.
(All this is especially galling coming from Edwards, who set up an S-Corporation to shield his millions from Medicare taxes while he was voting for tax increases and tut-tutting about a lack of adequately funded government run health care programs.)
I don’t know how businesses making money “kills the middle class” or “steals the future of our children.” I think that the future for our children relies a great deal on a strong, vibrant economy, which itself relies on the ability of ordinary people to set up money making, tax generating, job creating, consumer product producing businesses!
And what about all that “corporate power” that those villains just won’t give up until “the People” take it away from them (via liberal Democrats in Washington, of course)? Well, the First Amendment protects the inherent, God-given right of us all to petition our government for redress of our grievances, and that includes people who run, finance, or work in a corporation! Business owners are powerful constituents because happy businesses mean a healthy economy, and thus reelection for the politicians who cultivate a good business climate. Not only that, but successful business owners are generally successful because they have some smarts and have learned to exercise at least a little good judgment. Why shouldn’t they be listened to more closely than, say, a low level government functionary, or a college student with a face full of piercings? They certainly shouldn’t be considered less important, or forbidden from exercising their First Amendment rights altogether. Edwards’ talk of government taking power away from the people (or just certain people) so directly is nothing short of fascist.
But the best part about corporations is that they are so directly accountable to the people. I get to vote for politicians once every two years at best. If I don’t vote for them and they get elected anyway, they still have a monopoly on their position of power and what they do still impacts me. If I did vote for them and change my mind next month, there’s no return policy.
Not so with corporations. I get to vote for or against corporations dozens of times every single day. I pick which store to go to, or to not patronize. I choose which products to buy, which airlines to fly, which lawyer to consult, and which gas station to fill up in. If I want to spend more for “fair trade” coffee or products not made in China, I don’t need the government to pass any laws before I make that choice. Even better, I can choose not to use a certain product at all. If a bad product from a lousy organization that doesn’t treat its customers well is still on the shelf, well, at least I’m not stuck with it. If that corporation still makes money, it doesn’t impact my world a bit. And with 309,687+ corporations in Nevada alone, I have plenty of choices to make!
The free market, and the corporate structure that has allowed it to grow so prosperous, is not the enemy of the people (or their children). It is indeed the very opposite. Businesses that exist do so only because hundreds of thousands of individual Americans have liked a product or service enough to purchase it repeatedly. Most of us wouldn’t have jobs if not for corporations. None of us would have stuff like cars, consumer electronics, phones, electricity, internet access, big houses, plane tickets, or even groceries without them.
It is why conservatives love the free market – it is the ultimate expression of the sovereignty of the individual in action. And more than respecting the principle – it works. It leaves us all richer, healthier, and with more lifestyle options than any society in the world has ever had at any point in history before.
Why the Hate?
So how could you hate all that? I think there are three reasons.
One is simple envy mixed in with the manufactured “us vs. them” tribalism known as class warfare, the fuel of all populist movements. “They have more stuff than I do, and it’s not fair! I want some of that stuff!” Politicians who forget that in order to “give” voters stuff they have to forcibly take it away from someone else think nothing of proposing raising taxes on “corporations” to put a chicken in every pot. After all, all those “corporate types” (all stereotypes out of a New Yorker cartoon from the ’20s) have more money than they’ll ever need. They won’t miss it! Never mind that anti-corporate policies impact the corner dry cleaner and Wal-Mart alike, or that those rich folk just might have actually earned all that money somewhere along the way by doing things the populists were unable or unwilling to try.
The second is a fear of the unknown. The business world is complex and confusing to people not part of it (and to plenty who are!). Many people, were you to propose starting up a business to them, wouldn’t even think it was possible for them to do. Most people also, I think, don’t understand that most small, local business are actually corporations of one type or another.
Most people also think in the short term. It sounds great for a politician to promise that they’ll make it tougher to fire you or lay you off, or promise to “give you a raise” by forcing them to pay higher wages. It’s harder to see the long term impact of that – the very real risk that the company goes out of business because they couldn’t afford the payroll or that they move to a different state or country with less regulation. And besides, even if that happens, the populist politician will simply use it to “prove” that they were right about those evil corporations being out to get you all along. People who respond to a populist message have generally never been on the other side of the boardroom door, and don’t understand the difficulties and challenges faced by management. That fear and lack of understanding is easy to exploit, but the gains to the worker are almost always short lived if they appear at all.
But the third and most frightening reason for anti-corporation rhetoric is the disdain for individual liberty and sovereignty. It is collectivists who want to force everyone to work together and make the same wage regardless of talent or work ethic (which says something about the talent and work ethic of said collectivists). It is the people who think that an all intrusive government is always benign – or at least is more so than the “greedy capitalists” – despite the relative lack of accountability government regulators enjoy as compared to a business owner or manager. It is people who hate the American culture of individualism and the free and prosperous American economy. It is the social engineers who in their arrogance think they know better than you how you should live your life and where you should shop, and that you should be forced to conform to their ideal for the “greater good.”
It is the people who make up this third group who are seeking power on the strength of anti-corporate rants. Beware of them. They bear vigilant watching, for they are no friend to freedom.
