…There’s nothing in the Constitution, which is public law, that gives corporations the rights they’ve gotten. It never mattered to them. They just crafted their own private law, piece by piece, over many years with the help of corporate-friendly lawyers, legislators and the courts. And today it’s easier than ever with both major parties strongly pro-business and the courts stacked with business-friendly judges ready to do their bidding…
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Note: This is the second of a ten-part series.
Publicly owned corporations are mandated by law to serve only the interests of their shareholders and do it by working to maximize the value of their equity holdings by increasing profits. That’s it. Case closed. Think of these businesses as gated communities of owners (large and small), the welfare of whom is all that matters and the world outside the gates is to be used and exploited for that one purpose only. Forget about any social responsibility or safeguarding the environment. The idea is to grow sales, keep costs low, increase profits, and if you do it well, shareholder value will rise, the owners and Wall Street will be happy, and you as a CEO or senior executive will probably get a raise, good bonus and keep your job. Try being worker-friendly, a nice guy, a good citizen or a friend of the earth and fail to achieve the above objectives and you’ll likely face dismissal and even possible shareholder lawsuit for not pursuing your fiduciary responsibility. Anyone choosing this line of work has no other choice. To do the job well, you have to think only of the care and feeding of your shareholders and the investment community, ignore the law if that’s what it takes to do it, and obey the only law that counts – the one that helps you grow the “bottom line.”
There’s nothing in the Constitution, which is public law, that gives corporations the rights they’ve gotten. It never mattered to them. They just crafted their own private law, piece by piece, over many years with the help of corporate-friendly lawyers, legislators and the courts. And today it’s easier than ever with both major parties strongly pro-business and the courts stacked with business-friendly judges ready to do their bidding. The result is big business is now the paymaster, or puppetmaster, with government and the halls of justice their faithful servants. There’s no government of, for and by the people, no public sovereignty, no democratic rights or any choices but to accept their authority and bow to their will. It’s a democracy for the few alone – the privileged elite. Our only choice is to go along to get along or get out of their way.
A Profile of the World’s Largest 200 Transnational Corporations
In December, 2000 The Institute for Policy Studies released a report called “The Rise of Corporate Global Power.” It was a profile of the 200 largest transnationals that showed just how dominant they are. A summary of their findings is listed below.
1. Of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 are corporations.
2. The combined sales of these 200 corporations (called “The Group” below) in 1999 equalled 27.5% of world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and are growing faster than overall global economic activity.
3. The Group’s combined sales exceed the total combined economies of all nations in the world except the largest 10.
4. The Group’s combined sales are 18 times the income of the bottom one fourth of the world’s population (1.2 billion people) living in “severe” poverty.
5. Despite their combined size and percentage of world economic activity, The Group employs only 0.78% of the world’s workforce.
6. From 1983 to 1999 The Group’s workforce grew only 14.4% while their profits increased by 362.4% or about 25 times as much.
7. The largest employer in the world, Walmart, employed 1,140,000 in 1999 (1.6 million in 2005) or 5% of The Group’s total employment. It’s also a model (and increasingly a target) for corporate union-busting, widespread use of part-time workers and a practice of avoiding giving its workers needed benefits like health insurance.
8. 82 US corporations are in The Group, twice as many as Japan with 41, the next highest contributing country.
9. 44 of the US corporations in The Group didn’t pay the full 35% federal tax rate from 1996 – 1998. 7 of them paid no tax in 1998 and also got tax rebates, including Enron and Worldcom now exposed as corporate criminals.
10. The percent of The Group’s sales from the service sector (not manufacturing) grew from 33.8% in 1983 to 46.7% in 1999. In the US, the service sector comprised 79% of the total economy in 2004.
Coming in Part 3: How Corporate Behavior Affects Public Interest
Written by Stephen Lendman, (email – lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net) who lives in Chicago. Stephen maintains a blog at http://sjlendman.blogspot.com, and writes a regular column at www.populistamerica.com
