U.S. Corporate Governance, Part VI: Footprints

My last couple of posts were about some of the worst case scenarios that I envision resulting from excessive intermingling between the political and business entities of our state and federal governments. That is simply a tension that will always exists and probably always has to some degree. (In ages past, people tended to look at the monarch as their advocates against lesser lords, landed gentry, and wealthy merchants.) Today, people look at the government as one of the few means to reduce the oppression that "apolitical" businesses might cause.

The more those two power structures merge, the fewer options for people to enforce any rights they may have. Of course, it is not inevitable that corporations will take over the country and enforce their desires with private armies. However, it is difficult to argue that it is impossible when you read stories like this one. I am with most Americans when I say that terrorism is something that concerns me. I don't worry about it more than cancer, auto accidents, climate change, and many other things because the chance of dying in a terrorist attack is about as great as being struck by lightening. It is certainly something to worry about, but it is not even close to even the hypothetical threat that the Soviet Union posed. The difference is it is easier play on terrorism because there is no warning and the perpetrators are not usually white people with innocuous religious beliefs.

On the other hand it is fairly obvious that the beneficiaries of the war on terror are the largest corporations and that makes me very suspicious. While it may be that people are safer as a result of the war on terror, there is very little indication that such security is anything but coincidence. The only group that ever set out to study this with the sanction of the U.S. Government was the 9/11 Commission whose recommendations have not satisfactorily been implemented.

There is a business model in place that depends on the circulation of oil throughout the Western World. That business model is promulgated and implemented by the modern business corporation. You and I are its end-users. While we can certainly blame the corporations for some of this; ultimately, the consumers have the responsibility of not playing along. It's simple enough, but we have few options when the corporations want us to play along, and our public officials are complicit. That allegedly leads to results that were documented in this film. The MBA president is much more than complicit. His VP is one of the architects of this model, and of course, one of its greatest beneficiaries.

I think it necessary to point out, again, that the people involved in any one of these organizations, even Dick Cheney himself are not bad people, or evil. People make bad decisions in desperate circumstances. However, our system of corporate governance actually pushes people to make those poor decisions, or as I hesitate to reiterate again, put profit ahead of all other considerations.

Tags: Cheney, Bush Administration, Corporation, Corporate Governance