=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #433
—March 16, 1995—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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THE CORRUPTION OF OUR DEMOCRACY
It is one of the deep mysteries of American democracy: how did
we, the people, allow a truly undemocratic institution –the
modern corporation –to assert such powerful influence in all the
arenas of self-governance: our schools, our courts, our
law-making apparatus, our elections?
As M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky has observed, the modern
corporation is almost completely totalitarian. [1] There is
nothing democratic about it. There are only two ways an ordinary
citizen can relate to a modern corporation: you can rent yourself
to it (hire on as an employee), or you can buy something from it
(in your role as a consumer). Besides those two ways, the
ordinary citizen has no handles for making serious contact with
the modern global corporation.
The corporation, on the other hand, pretty much determines all
the basics of modern life, just as the church did in the middle
ages. Today small corporate elites determine what most of us will
read (in newspapers, magazines and books); what we will see (in
theaters and on TV); what subjects will become “public issues”
permissible for discussion and debate; what ideas our children
will absorb in the classroom (school boards may select texts and
curricula, but usually only from among the choices offered by the
pedagogical publishing corporations); what modes of
transportation will be available to us; how our food and fiber
will be grown, processed, and marketed; what consumer products
will be made by what technologies using what raw materials and
which manufacturing techniques; whether we will have
widely-available, affordable health care, or whether we will have
a health-care system like the present one; how work will be
defined, organized, and compensated; how war will be waged (and,
generally, against whom); what forms of energy will be available
to us; how much toxic contamination will be present in our air,
water, soil, and food; who will have enough money to run an
election campaign and who will not.
Throughout the 19th century, most Americans thought of themselves
as a self-governing people. We fought a revolution to cast off a
monarchy, to govern ourselves. We published the Declaration of
Independence, established the Articles of Confederation, and,
later, the Constitution, to embody the principles and create the
institutions of a self-governing people: the rule of law with no
one above the law; free public schools where the people could
gain the knowledge they needed to govern themselves; a system of
courts where justice was blind; a public law-making apparatus
staffed by public servants chosen in open elections, largely free
of corruption. Now those institutions of self-governance have
all been modified to suit the requirements of modern
corporations, and self-governance is, for many, a faded
remembrance.
However, there is much reason for optimism. Today people across
the political spectrum have begun to realize that corporations
have gained enormous, undue influence over government, that
government is now largely serving the needs of corporations at
the expense of ordinary people. In a recent report, the Cato
Institute –a conservative think-tank in Washington, D.C. –noted
that “federal aid to corporations” is “a major contributor to the
budget crisis.” [2] The Cato report said, “corporate pork is
everywhere,” estimating that federal aid to corporations has now
reached $250 to $300 billion per year, though the report only
itemizes $85 billion in annual corporate subsidies.
The Cato report makes the following points:
** In some cabinet agencies, such as the Department of
Agriculture and the Department of Commerce, almost every spending
program underwrites corporations;
** Through Sematach –a program originally intended to bolster
U.S. microchip producers against foreign competition –the
Pentagon pours $100 million each year into the largest 14 chip
makers like Intel and National Semiconductor, giving them a big
advantage over 186 smaller U.S. chip makers;
** An estimated 40% of the $1.4 billion sugar price support
program benefits the largest one percent of sugar farms. The 33
largest sugar cane plantations each receive more than $1 million
annually. One family, the Fanjuls, who own several large sugar
farms in the Florida Everglades, capture an estimated $60 million
each year in artificial profits thanks to government price
supports and import quotas, according to the Cato report.
** The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was set up
during the New Deal in the 1930s to extend electric lines to
rural America because “the market” would not do it. But today $2
billion in low-cost REA loans goes to huge corporations like
AllTel which had sales of $2.3 billion last year. Low-interest
REA loans now subsidize ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado, five-star
hotels in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and gambling casinos in
Las Vegas, Nevada, according to the Cato report.
** Last year the U.S. Forest Service spent $140 million building
roads for logging companies. Over the last 20 years, the Forest
Service has built 340,000 miles of roads –more than eight times
the length of the federal interstate highway system –all for the
benefit of logging companies.
** In 1991, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Market
Promotion Program, American taxpayers spent $2.9 million
advertising Pillsbury muffins and pies; $1.2 million boosting the
international sales of American Legend mink coats; and $2.5
million extolling the virtues of Dole pineapples, nuts and prunes.
** Federal environmental cleanup and defense contractors have
been milking the public for millions of dollars in entertainment,
recreation and party expenses, according to Cato. Martin
Marietta charged the Pentagon $263,000 for a Smokey Robinson
concert, $20,000 for the purchase of golf balls, and $7,500 for a
1993 office Christmas party, according to the Cato report.
Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Lancaster, N.Y., spent $243,000
of funds designated for environmental cleanup on “employee
morale” and $37,000 on tennis lessons, bike races, golf
tournaments, and other entertainment, according to the Cato
report.
“Any serious attempt to balance the budget will require a
strategy for getting businesses off the $80 billion annual dole,”
the Cato report concludes.
The Cato Institute report also points out that corporations make
enormous, corrupting contributions to political candidates, in an
effort to influence elections. For example, the Fanjul family
–the sugar kings of Florida –contributed $350,000 to political
campaigns in 1992. “All of that has a corrosive effect on the
American free-enterprise system,” the Cato report points out.
Cato notes that Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and its chief
executive officer, Dwayne Andreas, have given senate majority
leader (and presidential candidate) Bob Dole more than $150,000
over the years. In turn, ADM –an agribusiness giant in Decatur,
Illinois –is the recipient of huge government subsidies.
It is not only elections that have been corrupted by corporate
money. People in many states enjoy a democratic institution
called the “initiative” –a democratic voting process by which
citizens can pass laws if a majority approves. Corporations now
routinely corrupt the initiative process, dumping serious cash
into anti-environment campaigns. For example in 1992, citizens
of Massachusetts sponsored a ballot initiative to reduce wasteful
packaging and require packaging materials to be reusable or made
of recycled or recyclable materials. Out-of-state corporations
pumped $4.8 million into Massachusetts to corrupt the political
process, defeating the measure 41% to 59%. Here is how
corporations defeated the Massachusetts packaging initiative:
American Paper Institute of Washington, D.C., spent $854,564; Dow
Chemical of Michigan spent $225,297; Occidental Petroleum of
California spent $223,660; Quantum Chemical of Ohio spent
$220,000; Exxon Corp. of Texas spent $195,205; Union Carbide of
Connecticut spent $175,326; Philip Morris of New York spent
$175,000; Chevron Corp. of California spent $140,000; Mobil
Chemical of Virginia spent $128,500; Eastman Kodak of New York
spent $104,350. Of the $5.15 million total spent by corporations
to defeat the Massachusetts packaging initiative, only 6% came
from inside Massachusetts. [3]
Many of the worst-polluting corporations spend huge sums to
corrupt our democratic institutions. [4] Exxon, for example,
contributed $507,600 to influence federal elections in the
1993-1994 election cycle, and was assessed $5.3 billion for
environmental damage in 1994; the corporations who brought you
silicon breast implants (and agreed in 1994 to pay victims of
this technology $4.1 billion) also spent $361,000 in 1994 to
influence the outcome of elections; two giant accounting firms
(Deloitte & Touche, and KPMG Peat Marwick) together were fined
$498.5 million for failed audits of failed savings and loan
associations, and together they spent $623,921 trying to
influence the outcome of federal elections. DuPont in 1994
agreed to pay $214 million (without admitting liability) for
selling a fungicide that harmed farmers’ crops, and in that same
year DuPont spent $192,708 trying to influence federal elections.
And this is but the tip of a very big, very dirty –though
completely legal –iceberg.
Across America, a burgeoning group of citizens of all political
persuasions is now recognizing that our democratic institutions
have been corrupted by corporations –and that corporations
themselves are not accountable to anyone.
Increasingly, environmental activists are recognizing that, if
they are ever to achieve their goals, they will need to join
forces with other citizens seeking to put democratic controls on
the corporate form. The first necessary step is to reform our
election finance laws, to get the corrupting influence of private
money out of our elections. WE NEED ELECTIONS ENTIRELY FINANCED
BY PUBLIC FUNDS. From that fundamental reform, other democratic
reforms will flow. We can do this, and we must. [5]
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
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[1] Noam Chomsky, “Containing the Crisis at Home and Abroad,” a
speech delivered in Chicago, Ill., October 18, 1994; audio
cassette available for $11.00 from Alternative Radio, 2129
Mapleton, Boulder, Colorado 80304. Phone: (303) 444-8788. Be
sure to ask for the Alternative Radio catalog.
Descriptor terms: democracy; self governance; public education;
justice; courts; elections; election finance reform; campaign
finance reform; corporations; the corporate form; publishing;
books; magazines; newspapers; radio; TV; health care delivery;
labor; occupational safety and health; energy; transportation;
agriculture; manufacturing; cato institute; sematech; corporate
welfare; corporate subsidies; us government; federal government;
taxation; trade; free trade; intel; national semiconductor; farm
subsidies; farm price support program; fanjul family; florida
everglades; rural electrification administration; rea; us forest
service; logging; marketinmg promotion program; us department of
agriculture; department of commerce; pillsbury; american legend;
dole; martin marietta; malfeasance; waste; fraud; abuse; ecology
and environment; archer daniels midland; initiative;
massachusetts; american paper institute; dow chemical; occidental
petroleum; quantum chemical; exxon; union carbide; philip morris;
chevron; mobil chemical; eastman kodak; center for responsive
politics; corruption;