Most of us enjoy a reasonable standard of living. By comparative measures, Americans and Western Europeans have the benefits of knowing that food, clothing, shelter, transportation are readily available, well within the reach of a majority of citizens. In addition, we have come to take for granted that certain levels of health care and education, protection of life and property come along with being a member of our society. We know somewhere in the back of our minds that these things are privileges, not rights, and that many human beings on the planet do not share our good fortune. A basic assumption that many people make is that things are getting better for the unseen hundreds of millions of people who live outside of the protective sphere of western "democracy," or at least that the people there have the possibility of improving their lot.

Why is it that we have so much in the way of material goods? To what do we owe our good fortune? To a large extent, whether we will admit it or not, the availability of the goods and services we readily consume are the result of the organization of our world along lines laid out by corporations.

While we normally think of ourselves as citizens of political states, free to move about and choose our careers and family lifestyles, I believe that, due to the largely unpublicized ascendancy of corporate power, we are for the most part confined to narrow modes of commercial existence. After all, if we are essentially led to our choices by the willful creation of consumer habits (media) and we, either directly or indirectly, earn our livelihoods by assisting in the production and delivery of goods and services controlled by corporate interests, we are part and parcel of the game.

Let us not be too easy on ourselves. A publisher of a socially responsible newsletter uses corporate services for the printing and dissemination of his message. We all use cars to travel to and from meetings, telephones to communicate, and chain stores to buy what we need at the most convenient location and best price. No one who operates in the world does so without supporting corporate interests. The disturbing aspect of this is that we do so without consciousness of our complicity in the perpetration of the status quo.

To begin to develop a plan to get out of the mode of guilty by association, we need to understand how we got here in the first place. Calling corporations nasty words or demonstrating in the streets may make us feel better, but it doesn’t necessarily change how they act. How can we change the situation whereby much of the Earth’s non-renewable resources are plundered so that the privileged population of the West can continue its lifestyle?

Changing our consumer patterns is one way to make a difference; however, unless enough people do so in a short enough time frame, this kind of effort will fail to achieve the necessary goal of forcing corporate interests to take into account their destructive effects on the environment. The inability to effect any significant change on real world activity, through what we call socially responsible investing, reinforces the lack of empowerment that makes most people’s search for meaning in the workplace a mockery of ideals. The growing number of people around the globe who are unable to obtain decent water, food, health care, etc. are unable to have their voices heard. It really is up to us to come up with a feasible way to undo the stranglehold that big business has on public policy at all levels.

The good news is that public policy is supposed to be created by the public and their representatives. The bad news is that business interests fund most political efforts. Corporations can and do take a keen interest in political processes at every level, from city water politics in Santa Fe up to foreign policy in the oil rich Near, Middle, and Far East. They have the focus and resources to influence the political process, and their ability to do so is unfortunately self-perpetuating. The more power that is yielded, the more influence is yielded.

Through deregulation and the removal of national economic boundaries, global corporations are able to represent their interests far more effectively than can any individual or group of individuals who are organized by non-profit motivational lines. The battle is therefore unevenly matched. On one side there are entities that are self-funded, with leaders highly motivated by the potential for personal gain. These organizations are not subject to any legal limitations that might be imposed by local authorities, other than those a court of law might eventually impose in the case of egregious malfeasance. On the other hand there are individuals who are rightfully scared for the future of the natural world, who are motivated by concern for the quality of life to be experienced by their grandchildren.

Clearly, corporate chieftains reap the most benefits from free trade and by providing cheap consumer goods at an undetermined cost to local self-sufficient economies. Business leaders are able to justify their efforts by saying that a rising tide will lift all ships, and that they are helping strengthen freedom of choice, democracy, and alleviate poverty by supplying job opportunities. All of these issues will be discussed in future articles. At this point, suffice it to say that people who are dissatisfied with the way the world is going, those who have concerns for the future of human and planetary life, who desire to have a say in decisions that affect their lives, will not be swept away by promises of "continued material progress."

The hollowness of public life, the superficiality of messages delivered by major media, and the sensation that some kind of irresolvable crisis is the norm is untenable. People want a better life, not more of the same. Some people do not feel that we are experiencing accelerating social and environmental degradation. Those who do are looking for an opportunity to do something productive, though many solutions seem so complicated and impersonal. Corporate power is impersonal indeed, and for centuries it was well understood that if left unchecked, corporations and their leaders would grow to become masters over those they were meant to serve.

Abraham Lincoln understood this well, and it was under his watch that corporations in America were first allowed to gain independence and authority over other social institutions. The demands of the Civil War were such that the industrial power of enhanced corporations was what was needed to deliver the mass quantity of war-related goods that eventually brought victory to the North. Before his death, Lincoln warned that the corporations needed to be disempowered, once their job was done, or else the "Republic would be at risk." In many ways, his words on this matter have proved to be prescient.

El Dorado Sun article

July 2002

Rob Rikoon (rrikoon@aol.com)

Bio:Rob Rikoon is a Registered Investment Advisor and an adjunct professor at UNM. His seminar this coming fall at the Anderson School of Business will focus on influencing corporate behavior in the marketplace.