Anti-Corporation Sentiment Spans SD Blogosphere Spectrum

Dear readers, lest you think the Madville Times is a lonely, envious voice preaching class warfare, consider the anti-corporation, anti-plutocracy sentiment that appears to span the spectrum of South Dakota blogopolitical thought (and my apologies to my fellow thinkers for simple political labels):

1. Joining me on the left, SD Watch agrees that corporate farms are bad for our economy, our politics, and our culture. He also sees "crony corporate capitalism" afoot in subsidies for big companies.
   
2. Also on the left, Dakota Today recognizes the absurdity and destructiveness of corporate personhood. He also sees the corporate media meddling in politics to stifle the voices of populists like John Edwards (hey! now you know how we Kucinich folks feel!)
   
3. On the right, Professor Schaff at SD Politics gives a nod to the wealth and jobs corporations create but notes that even conservatives recognize that "corporate welfare" leads corporations to "promote anti-competitive policies in the form of subsidies for themselves and/or regulations on their competition."
4. And on the way-right, Sibby Online might join me in founding our own palindromic PAC, the PBGPACAPGBP: Populist Bearded Guys' Political Action Committee Against Plutocrats Grabbing Big Power (if we can stop fighting about secular humanism).

Now before we all break into "Kumbaya," there are still some philosophical chasms to bridge. Sibby and Schaff both tie the problem of big corporations to big government:

It is not just about "Big Corporations" and capitalism. It has more to do with the marriage of BIg Government and BIg Business (I think in the past I called it the marriage of big government Democrats and Country Club Republicans [link added]...ala MAINstream Coalition). And we as individuals need to take repsonsibility for ourselves and not look to the government as the solution. in the long run, that is self defeating [Steve Sibson, "Plutocracy, the Farm and Energy Bills," Sibby Online, 2008.01.06].

While conservatives need not play the populist game of attacking corporations, they should point out that big government encourages the proliferation of interest groups who seek to manipulate that government to their own ends. Corporations have a lot of money and naturally they spend some of it to influence Washington.* Only by shrinking government can you reduce the influence of corporate America [Jon Schaff, "Anti-Corporation, Anti-Big Government," South Dakota Politics, 2008.01.07].

The younger me that went through college cheering Rush Limbaugh (and fighting lily-livered multiculturalists in the SDSU College of Education) wants to agree. But shrinking the government in the face of corporate power is like shrinking the military in the face of Soviet power. Individuals can't take responsibility for fighting mutlinational corporations any more than they could take responsibility for fighting off the Commies (although Patrick Swayze did a pretty god job of it in Red Dawn -- "Wolverines!"). Shrink the government, and corporations will drown it in the bathtub and proceed to have their way with us.

Now I can see some merit to the smaller-government argument. If government didn't have the power to grant subsidies and regulatory favors, the corporate lobbyists wouldn't have anything to gain. A prime example: the automakers want federal regulations to trump state regulations on emission standards, since it's easier for the automakers to lobby the federal government than to fly lobbyists out to 50 state legislatures to make the same argument (everybody likes one-stop shopping). Eliminate the EPA, and the corporations have no one to lobby.

But then we also don't have any environmental rules that allow us to seek redress against corporate polluters who dodge the full cost of doing business by dumping the sludge and smog on us. Someone's got to check corporate power. Whether it's the feds, the states, or Mayor Hexom, I don't care, but at some level -- local, state, national, or UN (I'm teasing on that last one, Sibby!), we citizens need to be able to act together to stand against corporate power that puts profit above the common good.

Ever read Hobbes? His big idea was the Leviathan, government as the biggest beast on the block, so big and scary that no one would get out of line. Hobbes makes me a little nervous -- it's not hard to jump from his thinking to totalitarianism -- but it does make sense to say that there should be no single entity that can amass so much power that it can thumb its nose at the rules established by the general will for the general welfare.

If you don't like Hobbes, try Adam Smith. He prescribes three proper roles of government: protect us from invaders, protect us from each other, and do public works the free market won't build and maintain if left to its own devices. Even Smith would accept checks on the power of corporations, the same way our Constitution checks and balances the powers of the three branches of government and the citizenry.

I'd love to wave the magic Madville wand and make big corporations and big government go poof! But that's not going to happen. As Schaff points out, corporations do some good: wealth, jobs, Priuses (Prii!), cheap laptops.... But even these great corporate engines of prosperity need governors to keep them from running amok. If we are to have big corporations, we must have big government -- not a nanny state, but city councils and legislators and a Congress with the power and the will to keep corporations in their place, paying their fair share, and serving the public good.

Update 09:30 CST: But then again, with dead-eye shots like Martha Smith, who needs government? When corporations come "a spittin' and a growlin'," all we need is Martha and her trusty .22! ;-)