New Year's Resolutions, Part 1

I only just got back to Madison on Monday, and it's already been a busy week. With Brown's victory in Mass., Border's teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the NYTimes.com to start charging uses in 2011 (heard that one before, maybe they won't stick to it this time, either)...I've had plenty of material from which to brew some ideas. The problem has been to get my brain to work.

Political views aside, probably the most staggering news for me has been the Supreme Court's rejection of previously established corporate spending limits (NYTimes.com). This has the potential for re-shaping the way campaigns are run, fought, and won...but more importantly for this discussion is how that decision provokes the notion that corporations should be granted the same privileges of the First Amendment (without restriction) promised to individuals.

Here's the problem, as I see it: while we are taught to treat corporations as individual "entities," separate of their owners, this systemic (and legislative) doctrine was introduced primarily due to the powerful advantage corporations have attained over time. That is, when corporations were first formed, they were typically small enterprises (and to some extent, most still are, I suppose) created to synergize the assets and capital of individuals. Greater power yields greater reward. And, in terms of business, this led developed (and developing) countries to the greatest aggregate wealth ever achieved in the history of the world. Bravo, corporations.

The problem arrives when these "individual entities" begin to sway that massive power towards policy. This is no surprise; with greater wealth comes greater responsibility, and many such organizations now have much to lose when particular legislation comes to bear. And this is in no way a political statement, as both Conservatives and Liberals alike have fallen into the shadow of corporate agendas. Governments are also prone to such abuses; thus the current American system, which, although sometimes inefficient, does at least exhibit the speed-bumps necessary to slow cartel-building (although I guess anything's possible).

But as of this week, according to the Supreme Court, we are supposed to suddenly accept that corporations (whether comprised of 2 people or 20,000) have the same pattern and degree of influence as individuals. And this is simply not the case. Corporations exist for one reason, to maximize profit. This is not true for human beings, as (for most of us) our financial aspirations are tempered with emotions, needs, and social consciousness. If anything, even the best corporations exhibit a serious lag on that curve because they must grapple with more costs, more overhead, more people, more ideas, more discord - than one individual could possibly mount.

Similarly, individuals need to coalesce to create enough leverage to change policy, while corporations (especially the largest ones) today have more than enough power to provoke and sustain significant policy change. When corporations band together to back one candidate with $50,000,000, who is to say, realistically, that another candidate who stands against that policy (and thus must rely on smaller individual donations) has a fair chance in any election. And with the Supreme Court's backing, who can blame them? After all, those corporations may have hundreds of millions at stake! Most importantly, if and when that first candidate gets elected, we no longer have any legitimate reason to protest when they put a personal agenda - driven by corporate goals rather than public interest - into action.

And this is a great mistake. Quote from the great Peter Drucker,

"Business management must always, in every decision and action, put economic performances first. It can justify its existence and its authority only by the economic results it produces...It has failed if it does not improve, or at least maintain, the wealth-producing capacity of the economic resources entrusted to it. And this, whatever the economic or political structure of ideology of a society, means responsibility for profitability."(1)

Let us never lose sight of that. And so, as my first New Year's Resolution of 2010, I promise NOT to view corporations in the same light as individuals, no matter what the Supreme Court says.

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(1) Drucker, Peter. (1974). "The Dimensions of Management." From Management, Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. New York: Harper Publishing, p. 40.