The Political and Business Institutions as Obstacles to Civilization's Resistance: Part IV

This is the fourth of a six part series exploring the ways in which the political and business institutions collude at the expense of the rest of Civilization and the biosphere. Here we will examine the ways in which big business influences the US government. 

 Photo: Bloomberg

To be clear, the United States political and economic institutions are not unique in their corruption, collusion, and abuse of power, and so the absence of “political will” to resolve the issues of equality and ecocide are not uniquely American either. For example, the FAO noted in the Executive Summary of its 2006 The State of Food Security in the World, “We have emphasized first and foremost that reducing hunger is no longer a question of means in the hands of the global community. The world is richer today than it was ten years ago. There is more food available and still more could be produced without excessive upward pressure on prices. The knowledge and resources to reduce hunger are there. What is lacking is sufficient political will to mobilize those resources to the benefit of the hungry.”[i] However, we will continue to focus on the United States as a case study, for two reasons mainly: one, because of its disproportionate global impact, and, two, because many of its citizens still believe that the American system uniquely stands out as the model for the rest of the world to emulate. The United States and its powerful institutions have acted as significant obstacles to economic equality and sustainable existence.

The American form of representational democracy has developed the same fundamental flaw as large-scale corporate capitalism—namely that long-term wisdom must be sacrificed to short-term gain. One of the hallmark features believed to have distinguished modern humans from all other competing species has been our ability to delay gratification for long-term goals.[ii] The invention and development of tools and technology, early farming, and the planning and carrying out of big projects such as colonizing distant lands and making the first atomic bomb have required that one distinctive neurological feature. And the crisis decisions we are now facing of environment and economy require a similar use of our prefrontal cortex. However, it also requires an even higher level of consciousness than in previous generations, for the decisions also require a bit of self-interested altruism, meaning just the least bit of sacrifice. Choosing environmental health over immediate economic gain tends to disproportionately benefit the world’s impoverished billions at the short-term financial cost of those very government elites who will be making the decisions. If only we could assure the elites that the cost to them is only a perceived one: for it is the elite—given their acumen and wealth—who are best situated to benefit from any large-scale redirection of resources. So far, for example, the beneficiaries of most of the U.S. government subsidies for solar energy have gone to the large businesses like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, NRG Energy, Exelon, and Google.[iii]

Large-scale representational democracies suffer the flaw of being inherently short-sighted. Career politicians face re-election every few years in contests that require persuading millions, if not tens of millions, of voters of their ability to “get things done.”  In a system the size of the United States, this requires perpetual campaigning, shrewd reading of the polls, and, most importantly, an ability to raise impossible sums of money.  Funds are essential for persuasion, particularly for media access and advertising budgets.  Over 90 percent of election winners in the United States outspend their losing opponents.[iv] Money wins. The presidential campaign of 1976 cost the whopping sum of $67 million. By 2004, campaign budgets had ballooned ten-fold to $718 million, and they crossed the billion dollar mark in 2008.[v] In both the 2012 and 2016 elections, total spending on the two presidential candidates—not counting primaries—neared $2.5 billion.[vi] On top of that, in each of the two-year congressional election cycles ending in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012, the two parties together averaged about $1.5 billion in spending, rising to $1.7 billion by the 2016 elections.[vii]

Corporate contributions to campaigns and political parties have been steadily rising, as well. In 1990 the finance lobby committed about $50 million to federal campaigns, split equally between the Republican and Democratic parties.[viii] By the 2008 election cycle, the finance industry was “contributing” nearly ten times more—$475 million—to the campaigns of the two parties, again each equally sharing the pie. Then, in the 2016 election, “Wall Street spent $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 election,” according to Fortune magazine.[ix] The finance industry was but one of the interest groups buying political good will. The Health Care lobby spent about $150 million.[x] During the 2004 election, agriculture interests gave nearly $55 million in contributions.[xi] In 2012, contributions from wealthy “donors” to the two parties totaled over a billion dollars.[xii]

To make the playing field even less even, “Outside Spending” from organizations not directly affiliated with political parties (and who need not disclose sources) was upheld by the 2010 Supreme Court Decision, Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission. Repeating several historical court decisions that have oddly but effectively equated corporations with people and money with free speech, Citizen’s United reasoned that limiting corporate donations was tantamount to limiting their First Amendment right of free speech.[xiii] President Obama called it, “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”[xiv] By weighing so conspicuously in favor of corporations, this 5-4 ruling seemed designed to remind us that members of the third branch of government also belong to the elite circles. Predictably, corporations have since funneled hundreds of millions of more dollars into political campaigns in the form of Super PACs.[xv] They have already greatly influenced races of governorships, the 2012 presidency, and legislators at both state and national levels.[xvi] In each of the 2012 and 2016 election cycles alone, Super PACS spent more than a billion dollars.[xvii] And this does not include “Dark Money” spending, which is the term used for political nonprofit organizations that are not required by law to disclose their donors and that can receive unlimited contributions. Dark Money spending shot up from $5.2 billion in 2006 to $300 million by 2012.[xviii]

Lobbying congress is another way big business buys what it wants. Corporations with common interests pool their money together into lobbying firms whose sole business it is to convince congressmen “with all means necessary” to propose and pass legislation favorable to their clients.[xix] Through what the economist Simon Johnson calls “intellectual capture,” lobbyist flood congressional time and set the legislative agenda and the outcomes.[xx] In 2009, this persuasion business totaled eleven thousand lobbyists in the American capitol with ninety thousand total staff.[xxi] That’s over twenty lobbyist per congressmen and senator. Corporate expenditures in that year alone was $3.5 billion, or “$1.3 million for each hour Congress is in session.”[xxii] None but the richest citizens have a similar power. The rest of us do not have the money or the organizational structure to buy lobbyist or television spots or loyalty through campaign contributions.  

If corporations and wealthy citizens were legally prevented from funding political campaigns, these constituents would have far less leverage over politicians. This is why campaign finance reform has been considered the Gordian knot of political transformation, of readjusting the scales of influence to reflect the desires of voters to proper proportionality—one person, one vote.[xxiii] Given that corporations are not actually people, under U.S. law they cannot cast a ballot at the voting booth. Campaign finance reform could also prevent them from having undue influence in the affairs of political campaigns. Not surprisingly, campaign finance legislation has met stiff resistance from lawmakers throughout the country’s history.[xxiv]

REFERENCES

[i] FAO (2006c:4) The State of Food Security in the World, Rome, FAO. 

[ii] Coolidge, F. L. and Wynn, T. (2001). Executive Functions of the Frontal Lobes and the Evolutionary Ascendancy of Homo sapiens, Cambridge Archaeological Journal,  v. 11, 255-260.

[iii] Lipton, E., and Kraus, C. (2011, November 11) A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search, New York Times.  2011.

[iv] OpenSecrets.org (2008, November 5).  Money Wins Presidency and 9 of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. election Ever. 

[v] OpenSecrets.org (2011a). Available at http://www.opensecrets.org.  

[vi] OpenSecrets.org (2013a) Available at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/index.php. 

The Washington Post (2016 December 31) Election, 2016: Money Raised as of December 31. 

[vii] OpenSecrets.org (2013b). Available at http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/index.php.  

OpenSecrets.org (2016) Election Overview. Accessed April 19, 2017 at https://www.opensecrets.org/overview/.

[viii] Drum, K. (2010, Jan/Feb) Capital City, Mother Jones, pp. 37-79. 

[ix] Bukhari, J. (2017, March 8) Wall Street Spent $2 Billion Trying to Influence the Election. Fortune.com.That included $1.1 billion on campaign contributions and $900 million on lobbying.

[x] Drum, K. (2010, Jan/Feb) Capital City, Mother Jones, pp. 37-79.

[xi] Barrionuevo, A., and Becker, E. (2005, June 2) Fewer Friends in High Places for This Lobby, New York Times.  

[xii] OpenSecrets.org (2013c)  Accessed February 20, 2013 at http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2012&disp=O&type=A&chrt=D.  . About a quarter of this total involved no disclosure of donors and another quarter included those who allowed partial disclosure. 

[xiii] Liptak, A. (2010, January 21) Justices 5-4 Reject Corporate Spending Limit, New York Times.   Significant turning points in the history of corporate involvement in U.S. governmental affairs include the great wealth amassed by businesses from the profits made in the American Civil War and decisions such as Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which were interpreted as giving individual rights to corporations (Beaud, 1983:96; Bakan, 2005; Reich, 2007). And Buckley v. Valeo (1976) was one of several Supreme Court decisions that has been interpreted as granting money legitimately as a form of free speech, thereby institutionalizing inequality (Wright, 1976; Chomsky, 2013:175).

Beaud, M. (1983) A History of Capitalism: 1500-1980, Translated by T. Dickman and A. Lefebvre, Monthly Review Press, New York.

Bakan, J. (2005) The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Free Press, New York.

Reich, R.B. (2007) Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Wright, J.S. (1976) Politics and the Constitution: Is Money Speech? The Yale Law Journal, v, 85(8), pp. 1001-1021.  

Chomsky (2013) Power Systems. Metropolitan Books, New York.

[xiv] Liptak, A. (2010, January 21) Justices 5-4 Reject Corporate Spending Limit, New York Times. 

[xv] Liptak, A. (2010),

OpenSecrets (2011b). Available at http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/index.php.   Super PACs, or Super Political Action Committees, can raise unlimited sums of money and spend them for or against any candidate, but are not permitted to contribute or coordinate directly with the candidates or political parties, wink, wink. Super PACS are but one more way in which the wealthy insure that they have a disproportional voice in society. According to NPR (2012), some 80% of all money raised by super PACS came from just 100 of the wealthiest Americans. And Blumenthal (2012), reporting in the Huffington Post, found that 72% of February’s 2012 contributions came from donations of more than $500,000.

[xvi] Kroll, A. (2012, January/February) The Republicans’ Dark-Money-Moving Machine, Mother Jones.  

Opensecrets.org available at http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/.

[xvii] Hubbard, G., and Kane, T. (2013, July/August) In Defense of Citizens United: Why Campaign Finance Reform Threatens American Democracy. Foreign Affairs, pp. 126-133.,

OpenSecrets.org (2017a) 2016 Election Spending, by Super PAC. 

[xviii] OpenSecrets.org (2017b) Political Nonprofits (Dark Money). 

[xix] Purdum, T. (2010, Sept) Washington we have a problem, Vanity Fair, p. 288-339.

[xx] Wright (1990), Drum (2010). 

Wright, J.R. (1990) Contributions, Lobbying, and Committee Voting in the U.S. House of Representatives, The American Political Science Review, v. 84(2), pp. 417-438.

[xxi] Purdum (2010).

[xxii] Purdum (2010).

[xxiii] Wertheimer and Weiss Manes (1994), Overton (2004), Reich (2007:210-212).

Wertheimer, F., and Weiss Manes, S. (1994) Campaign Finance Reform: A Key to Restoring the Health of Our Democracy, Columbia Law Review, v. 94(4), pp. 1126-1159.

Overton, S.A. (2004) The Donor Class: Campaign Finance, Democracy, and Participation, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, v. 154, pp. 73-118.  

[xxiv] Wertheimer and Weiss Manes (1994).