Big Government, Big Business — Conjoined Twins, part 2
Posted by Thomas L. Knapp on Jan 12, 2010 in Commentary • 3 commentsMy last column on the incestuous relationship between Big Business and Big Government was effectively a rant on “corporate personhood,” limited liability, etc. Before going any further down the trail, I’d like to backtrack just a little bit to one important point that I missed:
The idea of the “corporation” is just a codification of certain artificial state privileges into law — an effect, not a cause. Corporate power has certainly subsequently become the cause of, or at least compounded, many economic distortions itself, but in principle those distortions could have, and probably would have, been implemented through single proprietorships and limited partnerships if the corporation had never been invented. It’s the impulse (and the ability) to seek wealth and power through government privilege rather than through market competition which is the problem; the corporation just happens to be the best available tool for the job.
That’s one of two reasons why I disagree with a reader who emailed me, and who agreed to be anonymously quoted, when she writes:
Absent corporate campaign donations, all those K Street offices and the minions who toil on their behalf for the purpose of skewing and corrupting the government agenda — lobbyists, advertising companies, image-meisters etc. — are out of work.
Looking for a quick fix? How about this: The only individuals legally permitted to make campaign contributions are those that are at present entitled to vote. The maximum amount of money any one voter may make by way of campaign contribution is $300.00 per year.
I could pick that proposal apart from any number of angles that aren’t appropriate to an anarchist argument (constitutionality, for example), but I’m going to try to stick to two points.
First, such a limit would probably not change the balance of power from a “businesses buying influence” perspective. Even if it had the effect of reducing the overall amount of money in elections, the fact is that you’d see businesses owners and corporate figures making those $300 maximum contributions more so than you’d see, for example, fry cooks making them … and those business owners and corporate figures would also be more likely to actively and visibly solicit such contributions for the candidates they favored.
After which, as a matter of course, they’d exercise the influence due benefactors on those candidates after the election. This isn’t speculation. There are already numerous contribution limits, all of them advertised as targeting “the malign influence of corporate money,” and yet the amount of money injected into political campaigns continues to increase every election cycle.
Secondly, campaign contributions are a small part of the business-government power-sharing mix.
A businessman, corporate or otherwise, doesn’t have to make a campaign contribution to tell a politician “if you vote for the appropriation to build the new battleship, we’ll locate one of the factories in your district. You constituents will have you to thank for 1,500 new jobs.”
A businessman, corporate or otherwise, doesn’t have to make a campaign contribution to tell a politician “if you help make that inconvenient amendment on contractor oversight go away, there’s a director’s chair waiting for you when you’re ready to leave ‘the public sector.’”
A businessman, corporate or otherwise, doesn’t have to make a campaign contribution to tell a politician “thanks for playing ball — here’s a brown paper bag full of unmarked, non-sequential $20 bills.”
And a politician isn’t necessarily asking for a contribution to his campaign treasury when he tells a businessman, corporate or otherwise, “fork over if you want things to go your way,” either as an inducement or as a threat.
All the election reform in the world won’t solve the problem of Big Business’s influence in government. The only thing that will solve that problem is eliminating the power of government — to put a finer point on it, eliminating government itself. As long as government power exists, people will attempt to use it to increase their own wealth and power … and the people best positioned to use it in that way are the people who are already wealthy and powerful. Government, any government, is inherently and progressively plutocratic.
Thomas L. Knapp is Senior News Analyst and Media Coordinator at the Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org).
Tom,
Thanks for the clarification but in my own case, your first piece was clear to me that you were speaking in a Statist construct concerning corporations. I also felt you gave clear options to a non state environment for something like a corp. entity to exist in a free market framework ie the advantages of a joint stock company, etc.
We sometimes (I'm guilty as hell of this) are wedded to statist terms in trying to establish understanding of non state free market ideas and getting people to in effect, see the matrix for what it is by taking the red pill. I often trip over my own 2 feet trying to do that with blue pill terminology but I've come more and more to using the term Free Market and then just let people and freedom take it's course to wherever they want it to go and let the winners and losers just prove themselves. Is that not what a non state free market would do anyway?
Although I really enjoyed your thoughts on corporations and even some of the exchange between yourself and Stephan Kinsella on the subject (Stephan's thoughts on a free market corp. I found thought provoking Thank you Stephan!) and at this point I may share more in common with some of Stephan's economic POV, I stand for the complete non state free market first and foremost and if someone wants to take a "so-called" more socialist approach in a completely voluntary, no force, no fraud setting, I'll defend their freedom and liberty to do so although I might question how sucessful it could be over the long haul. I don't use socialist in the statist understanding and maybe Mutualism is the more proper term in this setting. Excuse my ignornace on the matter if you will!
We all agree that the Statist system is a failure and in the end will only consume us as free peoples but then when we discuss among ourselves how a free market would work in our non state world we so often turn back into statist with a "it's my way or the highway" approach and then defend to the death no matter what. My hand is raised in the guilty column on that. Makes me question sometimes if the red pill completely dissolved in my case.
As I pondered the thoughts expressed in the first article and the resulting comments, I had to ask myself have we ever seen a corporation in action in a true non state free market and at least to my knowledge I had to say no but this is just me. If this is actually true in fact of history, then would it not be wise to get to the true non state free market first and then see where aspects of what we call a corporation or even voluntary capitialism fits in absence of the State or any force or fraud? People who believe in such approaches (anarcho-capitialist) just like the mutualist puts his/her ideas into practice in a free market and let the best come out in and however it does without intervention and the cream rises to the top.
Thanks for making me think even in areas I might disagree or have never had the courage to think before which is more the case. LOL!
mac
Tom: "It’s the impulse (and the ability) to seek wealth and power through government privilege rather than through market competition which is the problem"
If that's the problem, we are screwed, unless you see this "impulse" withering away!
"All the election reform in the world won’t solve the problem of Big Business’s influence in government. The only thing that will solve that problem is eliminating the power of government — to put a finer point on it, eliminating government itself. As long as government power exists, people will attempt to use it to increase their own wealth and power … and the people best positioned to use it in that way are the people who are already wealthy and powerful. Government, any government, is inherently and progressively plutocratic."
Agreed completely. And I of course agree the state should stop chartering corporations. So we really are largely in agreement.
Stephan,
Yes, we are largely in agreement.
I don't see the impulse "withering away," especially when the best tool for indulging it, the state, remains conveniently at hand.
When we rid ourselves of the state, will the impulse "wither away?"
My guess is no, or at least not for a very long time. It will probably remain a matter of continuous vigilance and frequent battle to keep the state from being re-constituted.
I suppose that over time a culture might evolve which tends to minimize the occurrence of and suppress the exercise of the impulse, but that raises the question of the impulse's cause/composition (cultural norm versus genetic predisposition, etc.).