Disguising Corporation Power over Governments and People

Max Bound, April 2009

In the above Galbraith’s expresses, even more clearly than in his Dec. 29th 1972 Presidential address to the American Economic Association, concerns about how damaging to society the teaching of economics as if the corporations were not a powerful political and social force is.

An aspect of the effect of this misconstruction of economic reality that is now, with but few exceptions, the common practice in the teaching of economics is to be seen in the Rudd essays. For example the ideal Rudd advocates in his February 2009 essay is “... a system of open markets, unambiguously regulated by an activist state, and one in which the state intervenes to reduce the inequalities that competitive markets will inevitably generate.” sounds to the uninitiated almost reasonable and workable.

What Rudd and his economic advisors fail to recognise, or admit in either theory or practice, is that most including all key markets are not free but are, along with our major political parties, either controlled or decisively influenced by powerful privately owned corporations. In reality, for the most part, control over economic development decisions, the mass media, much of social life and popular culture does not rest with elected Governments but in the greedy hands of CEOs and directors of powerful corporations. Corporation grants to cultural and other events and projects whilst understandable welcomed by some artists are, in reality, a skilful exercise of political cultural power by corporation chiefs using money and buying influence they should never have in a truly democratic society.

Rudd’s abject failure to act against greenhouse gas producers, as yet recognised by only a politically active minority, is not only due to doubts and ignorance about the seriousness of the impending consequences of climate change. There is very direct pressure from the coal lobby and their counterparts in the media and public bureaucracy and reported threats to use massive financial and other resources to campaign against the Labor Party in key electorates are real factors. This is an example of the sort of exercise of political power that Galbraith warns of in his above quoted writings.

Of course a government, led by genuinely intelligent people, and honestly concerned about the human future would use the many people and other resources they could muster, if concerned to do so, to expose and fight back against the powerful corporations. True the people in leading positions in the union movement who are siding with the corporation chiefs make the situation more difficult but they do not make it impossible and the stakes are very high. Unfortunately, thus far Rudd is choosing, with the support of those in his own party who are compromised by some of their own financial and other connections and actions, to do the bidding of their corporate masters.

There are alternatives that would provide better jobs and lifestyles for coal mine and oil industry workers and their families. However the short sighted approach and ignorance based narrow self interest of some union officials and many Labor M Ps is instrumental in allowing the corporation chiefs to be free of a challenge to their greenhouse gas producing activities. The Labor Party was once seen as a party for the workers. The Liberals of course have always been widely understood to be a party representing business interests although they too frequently try to camouflage their bias towards the wealthy.

The problems we in Tasmania have with the exercise of power of the forest industry corporation chiefs, big money rollers and people behind the Ralph’s Bay development for example are not restricted to our Island State. The operations at the national level are perhaps more sophisticated but are at least equally ruthless and damaging.

Several aspects of the internal contradictions in the Rudd essays are discussed in both recent and earlier articles published on the Search Website under ECONOMICS and in Search News. For example while Rudd and others talk about Keynes, who was far from having all the answers but did have some quite useful ideas, they push corporation controlled globalisation and ignore Keynes advice against centralised control of the world economy.

"I sympathise therefore, with those who would minimise, rather than those who would maximise, economic entanglement among nations. Ideas, knowledge, hospitality , travel--these are the things which should by their nature be international. But let goods be homespun where ever it is reasonable and conveniently possible, and above all, let finance be primarily national.” (Keynes 1933)

The immediately above is as quoted by E.L.Wheelwright from Keynes John Maynard -"National Self- Sufficiency 1933" - in his introduction to a publication based on Lateline & Investigations ABC Radio programs. In the same introduction Wheelwright also quotes Ariel Dorfman who was exiled from Chile after the Fascist coup in 1975 "You don't dominate only through economic power but also by making people blind to the fact there is such economic power". The failure to make the pressure put on the Rudd Government by the coal and other greenhouse gas producing lobbies a public issue is very much part of the multiple and complex processes of “making people blind” by hiding the reality of the behind closed doors political processes that are in reality at work.