Another early on Corporation conspirator was Susan Gleason of Yes! Magazine and Reclaim the Media in Seattle. In our last e’Zine we linked to a Yes! Magazine article about Corporate Rule. Following up on this in more recent days I chatted with Susan, who I first met in the early days of The Corporation launch. She put me in touch with Michael Marx of the Business Ethics Network (BEN) and Corporate Ethics International. The Strategic Corporate Initiative (SCI) team that Marx was part of interviewed dozens of colleagues and progressive business executives with an eye to developing a coherent, long-term strategy to rein in corporations.
Three major strategic tracks emerged which we noticed had similarities with our own previously mentioned ideas of Rewrite, Regulate and Reform that first surfaced during the DVD house party campaign when we asked people to give us feedback.
1. RESTORE democracy and REBUILD countervailing forces that can control corporate power.
At the community level, this means elevating the rights of local municipalities over corporations. Communities should have the right to determine what companies will do business within their jurisdiction, and to establish requirements like living wage standards and environmental safeguards.
At the national level, restoring democracy means separating corporations and state. Corporations and the wealthy should no longer be allowed to dominate the electoral and legislative processes.
At the international level, the task is to create agreements and institutions that make social, environmental, and human rights an integral part of global economic rules.
2. RESTRAIN the realms in which for-profit corporations operate.
Most extractive industries (fishing, oil, coal, mining, timber) take wealth from the ecological commons while paying only symbolic amounts to governments and leaving behind damaged ecosystems and depleted resources. The solution is to develop strong institutions that have ownership rights over common wealth. When commons are scarce or threatened, we need to limit use, assign property rights to trusts or public authorities, and charge market prices to users. With clear legal boundaries and management systems, the conflict over the commons shifts from a lopsided negotiation between powerful global corporations and an outgunned public sector, to a dispute resolved by deference to the common good.
3. REDESIGN the corporation itself, as well as the market system in which corporations operate.
Companies' internal dynamics currently function like a furnace with a dial that can only be turned up. All the internal feedback loops say faster, higher, more short-term profits. And maximizing short-term profits leads to layoffs, fighting unions, demanding government subsidies, and escalating consumerist strains on the ecosystem.
To prevent overheating, the system needs consistent input from non-financial stakeholders, so that demands for profit can be balanced with the rights and needs of employees, the community, and the environment.
To end “short-termism,” company incentives — including executive pay — should be tied to measurements of how well the company serves the common good. Stock options that inflate executive pay should be outlawed or redesigned. Speculative short-term trading in stock should be taxed at significantly higher rates than long-term investments. Companies should be rated on their labor, environmental, and community records, with governments using their financial power (through taxes, purchasing, investing, and subsidies) to reward the good guys and stigmatize the bad guys.
At the same time, we need to celebrate and encourage alternative corporate designs, such as for-benefit corporations, community-owned cooperatives, trusts, and employee-owned companies.
The paths outlined here do not represent impossibilities. With a citizens' movement, we could turn these musings into reality in 20 years.
Editors-in-Chief: Katherine Dodds & Mark Achbar Editor: Sandy Haksi Contributing Writers: Sandy Haksi & Katherine Dodds Designer: Terry Sunderland Lead Programmer: Atef Abdelkefi Contributing Programmer: Aviva Lazar
With luck we'll be putting out more e'Zines soon! Some upcoming themes include the corporations' encroachments into classrooms plus the concept of harm reduction and how it applies to activism.
And... have you spotted The Corporation logo anywhere interesting or weird lately? If so, take pix and send 'em to us for our branding issue: info@HelloCoolWorld.com
In our last e’Zine we linked to a Yes! Magazine article about Corporate Rule. Following up on this in more recent days I chatted with Susan, who I first met in the early days of The Corporation launch. She put me in touch with Michael Marx of the