POLITICS AND NATURE

How Can We Institute Reforms?

There is a strong argument against corporate power which advocates the idea we are subject to the influential whims of industry leaders who affect public policy. I, for one, do not agree that we are at the mercy of corporations. They provide a tremendous number of goods which makes life pleasant and interesting.

It is apparent, however, that organizationally, society, politics, and economics require concrete changes.

The questions I am concerned with include: How to engage corporate leaders on a new level? And: What methods are possible to enlisting the public in debates over issues?

Many advocates of Corporate Social Responsibility have determined that the benefits of acting responsibly, both in human and environmental terms will generate better business results. There are many arguments, from the Triple Bottom Line to the utilization of responsible corporate actions, the majority of these ideas point towards the need for more growth, more sales, and more profits.

This is driven by the philosophy which has undermined the pursuit of a more just and sustainable business model. The corporate model is far from perfect but society is not trapped and if people take a greater interest in the way the economy is handled, there are many things which can be accomplished.

The “Story of Stuff” is an animation which highlights the illogical and short sighted belief that production, distribution, and consumption take place in a linear progression where we can extract all the resources we desire, ultimately throwing it all away.

There is a more complex reality underpinning the development of the consumer society. The advent of the most recent form of globalization comes at the tail end of the industrial age. It was nearly unquestioned, even fifty years ago, that production and development was good and a practically universal faith in endless possibility brought about through business growth dominated society, at least in the capitalist world.

This unquestioning faith no longer exists.

Concerns exist due to scientific knowledge, human rights abuses, consistent poverty, and growing awareness of environmental threats which have prompted theorists to challenge the dominant assumptions undergirding modern economic philosophy. Joseph Stiglitz (p. 25) provided economic leadership to the World Bank and yet, he challenged the hegemony of free markets and corporate governance:

Today, there is an understanding that many of the problems with globalization are of our own making—are a result of the way globalization has been managed. I am heartened as I see mass movements, especially in Europe, calling for debt relief, and as I see the leaders of most of the advanced industrial countries calling for a fairer trade regime, doing something about global warming, and committing themselves to cutting poverty in half by 2015. But there is a gap between the rhetoric and the reality.

The unshakeable pride and promise of the capitalist system has been rocked to its core. Yet, we do not know what is to replace it.

Stiglitz (p. 3) writes of the gathering of entrepreneurs in Mumbai at the World Social Forum (WSF) in January, 2004 as “a colorful crush of humanity. Fair trade organizations staffed rows of stalls selling handmade jewelry, colorful textiles, and housewares.” Perhaps the simple answer to the modern dilemma is to realize the disparity between corporatism, which is the dominant business model of the global era, and a more local form of capitalism, where people are able to compete and sell the items they have gathered together and crafted with their own hands.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) should take into account the need to provide stability to the entire social structure and encouraging local agency is one way to accomplish this.

Plenty of authors argue about the need for corporate reform (Jackson, and Nelson, Petras and Veltmeyer, Barber, Klein, McKibben, and Zadek, to name a few). Many of these proponents of corporate alternatives (for example Paine, Anderson, Brown, and Wilson) assert the importance of CSR for the enhancement of profit. There is, however, a good deal of skepticism regarding these ideas.

It seems we have been taught to question everything corporate America does until we graduate and go to work for the corporations which will enable us to buy the corporately produced goods and enjoy the benefits of corporate services like nice hotels on secluded beaches and easy car rental services after a long plane ride on a corporate owned airline. At least we have our corporately produced lap top to write about the evils of corporations until we throw it away (and it winds up polluting the ground water of Nigeria) to get a newer and better one.

Alternatively, we can go to work in a corporate sponsored, unelected, and unaccountable NGO to travel to distant lands and tell local people how to live uncorrupted by the misogynistic, greedy, unenlightened, and colonial Western powers who will do anything to enrich themselves. It is only then that we can become truly uncorrupted by the corporate owned media controlling the rest of the demented society and forcing citizens to consume. Then we will truly understand how a man like Hugo Chavez should be elected president for life due to his wisdom and capabilities and all decisions should be centralized under his righteous leadership for all time.

Obviously, I am being facetious for a reason. This is not (unlike Baghwati) an attempt to prove the infallibility of corporate power or reason. Nor am I trying (like Shiva) to demonize all corporate action in pursuit of an entirely local alternative. My point is that both sides of the globalization argument can be ridiculously biased and unresponsive to real needs or the positive arguments of the opposing side.

This is where those who are trying to alter the dominant corporate ethic come in. They are working to make change within the system. This can be good.

I do not believe we are unwilling and unwitting pawns in the global chess match between Exxon-Mobile and Chevron. I think we have made mistakes along the way and we have followed the industrial form of capitalism for so long, we do not believe there is another way.

Our society in the United States consumes much more than any other society in the world but this is not the only way to conduct business. People need to become more active in government and in helping direct corporate philosophy.

It is not a predetermined outcome guided by the boardroom of Halliburton by which we know what we need to do as a society. The future is not immovable.