Corporate philanthropy as a cover for not contributing to the common good of your country

another insightful post from glenn's guest blogger, murtaza hussain...

A list of the most charitable companies in America shows some of the biggest tax evaders in the country. These include heavyweights such as Goldman, Wells Fargo, BoA and Exxon Mobil; a company which made $41.1 billion in profits last year and paid only 17 percent in effective taxes, a far lower rate than the average U.S. citizen. The savings here vastly outweigh any donation which is subsequently offered in the spirit of “social responsibility”. The result of this neglect of public duty has been spending cuts across all areas of government, resulting in layoffs to teachers, the closing of hospitals and the slashing of benefits to the most vulnerable sections of society including children and the elderly. That these same corporate citizens turn around and give back a fraction of what they owe in the form of charitable donations (for which they of course can claim further tax benefits) is a cynical attempt to manage their public image in the face of the increasingly angry public backlash against their policies.

The private social safety net, provided by corporate donors as compensation for the public one which their tax avoidance helps shred, is a poor substitute for democratically accountable public spending. Besides being poorer, free of public oversight, and geared primarily towards public relations efforts, the private safety net is a rug that can and will be pulled out from under its beneficiaries at the slightest notice. Goldman Sachs, which generously gave $320M in charitable contributions in 2010 and $500M in 2009, drastically cut its charitable budget to $78M a year in 2011 in response to reduced profits while making minimal cuts to employee bonuses and other compensation. “Doing God’s work”, as Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein famously described the companies activities is apparently an elective commitment based on market conditions. Whereas as a strong public safety net is managed democratically by its beneficiaries, corporate charity can and will disappear the moment it is deemed necessary which exemplifies clearly why it is no substitute for government spending.

i am fully in favor of csr (corporate social responsibility) but in no way is it a substitute for contributing a fair share of resources to the overall common good... an effort to polish a reputation to such a sheen that it blinds the public to what is in essence a repudiation of the social welfare of the country is, i'm afraid, the strategy for many corporations... particularly notable is the point hussain makes about the rug being pulled at a moment's notice...

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Mr. Fish' take on corporate America remembering to serve the common good

i seem to be on a bit of a visual streak...

mr. fish...



see more of mr. fish here...

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Our destitute working class

chris hedges is a staunch defender of unions...

while i would be the last one to say that unions haven't had a hand in our economic collapse and aren't guilty of pursuing their own self-preservation without regard for the effectiveness or profitability of the organizations who employ their members, i also know that systematic union genocide leaves ordinary employees defenseless against what is increasingly clear are the insatiable predators that constitute our corporate state... i also have little doubt that those predators have waged and are waging a ceaseless campaign to rid their world of those pesky unions who might, just might, affect their precious bottom line...

Our destitute working class is beginning to grasp that Barack Obama and other elected officials in Washington, who speak in a cloying feel-your-pain language, are liars. They are not attempting to prevent wages from sinking, unemployment from mounting, foreclosures from ripping apart communities, banks from looting the U.S. Treasury or jobs from being exported. The gap between our stark reality and the happy illusions peddled by smarmy television news personalities and fatuous academic and financial experts, as well as oily bureaucrats and politicians, is becoming too wide to ignore. Those cast aside are reaching out to anyone, no matter how buffoonish or ignorant, who promises that the parasites and courtiers who serve the corporate state will disappear. Right-wing rage is being fused with right-wing populism. And once this takes hold, a protofascism will sweep across our blighted landscape fueled by a mounting personal and economic despair. Take a look at Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here.” It is a good window into what awaits us.

“One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out,” the philosopher Richard Rorty warns in his book “Achieving Our Country.” “Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words ‘nigger’ and ‘kike’ will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.”

Whoever rides to power on the back of this rage will swiftly broker a deal with corporations and corporate overlords. But by then it will be too late. Dissent will become a form of treason. The security state will be quickly cemented in place. The bankrupt liberal class, which abandoned the working class and the fight for basic civil liberties, will be reviled, discredited and impotent. America will develop its own peculiar form of Christian fascism.

Obama, entranced with power and prestige, is more interested in courting the elite than saving the disenfranchised. The president, when asked to name a business executive he admires, cited Frederick Smith of FedEx, although Smith is a union-busting Republican. Smith, who was a member of Yale’s secret Skull & Bones Society along with George W. Bush, served as John McCain’s finance chair. I guess Obama is hoping for some cash. And Smith has a lot of it. He founded FedEx in 1971, and the company had more than $35 billion in revenue in the fiscal year that ended in May. Smith is rich and powerful, but there is no ethical system, religious or secular, that would hold him up as a man worthy of emulation. Those who make vast profits at the expense of workers and the common good are not moral. They are not worthy of adulation. They build fortunes and little monuments to themselves off the pain and suffering of [other] people... . Jesus called them “vipers.”

there's plenty more to the article, much of it, i'm afraid, i'm in complete agreement with, not because i think it's a good forecast, but because i see a lot of it playing out in front of my very eyes...

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Is "the purpose of the corporation to harness private interests in service to the public interest?"

one would think that any organization that requires state approval to operate would also be required to serve the common good...

one would think...

it's pretty evident that, in the united states, in particular for the u.s. health insurer industry, that's not the case...

from business week...

The industry has already accomplished its main goal of at least curbing, and maybe blocking altogether, any new publicly administered insurance program that could grab market share from the corporations that dominate the business.

maybe all of us should start thinking more in terms of the common good...

[S]ix propositions from Allen White, co-founder of Corporation 2020, an organization formed in the United States to “rethink corporate purpose, rights and obligations”.

1. The purpose of the corporation is to harness private interests to serve the public interest.

2. Corporations shall accrue fair returns for shareholders, but not at the expense of the legitimate interests of other stakeholders.

3. Corporations shall operate sustainably, meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

4. Corporations shall distribute their wealth equitably among those who contribute to its creation.

5. Corporations shall be governed in a manner that is participatory, transparent, ethical, and accountable.

6. Corporations shall not infringe on the right of natural persons to govern themselves, nor infringe on other universal human rights.

whaddaya think...? personally, i like 'em... i like 'em a LOT...

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