CORPORATIONS ARE NOT HUMAN : NOT EVEN CLOSE ---Episode 9

      Corporate Libertarians Are Deeply Capturing Human Society


   In the quest for economic growth, free-market ideology has been embraced around the world with near-religious fervor. Money is its sole measure of value, and its practice advances policies that are deepening social and environmental disintegration everywhere. The economics profession serves as its priesthood.  It champions values that demean human spirit. It assumes an imaginary world  divorced from reality. And it restructures our institutions of governance in ways that make our most urgent problems more difficult to resolve. Yet to question its doctrine has become heresy, invoking risk of professional censure and damage to one's career in most institutions of business, government, and academia. In the words of Australian sociologist Michael Pusey, it has reduced economics to "an ideological shield against intelligent introspection and civic responsibility," and infused the study of economics in most universities with a strong element of ideological indoctrination. 

                     THE SANCTIFICATION OF GREED 

The beliefs espoused by free-market ideologues are familiar to anyone conversant with the language of contemporary economic discourse : 

   + Sustained economic growth, as measured by gross national product, is the path to human progress.

   + Free markets, unrestrained by government, generally result in the most efficient and socially optimal allocation of resources.

   + Economic globalization, achieved by removing barriers to the free flow of goods and money anywhere in the world,  spurs competition, increases economic efficiency, creates jobs, lowers consumer prices, increases consumer choice, increases economic growth, and is generally beneficial to almost everyone. 

   + Privatization, which moves functions and assets from government to the private sector, improves efficiency, lowers prices, and increases responsiveness to consumer preferences. 

  + The primary responsibility of government is to provide the infrastructure necessary to advance commerce, maintain public order, protect property rights, and enforce contracts. 

 These beliefs are based on a number of explicit, underlying assumptions embedded in the theories of neoclassical economics :

   + Humans are motivated by self-interest, which is expressed primarily through the quest for financial gain.


   + The action that yields the greatest financial return to the individual or firm also yields the most to society.

   + Competitive behavior is more rational for the individual than cooperative behavior and ultimately more beneficial for society.

   + Human progress and improvements in well-being are best measured by increases in the aggregate market value of economic output. 

To put it in plain ole English, these ideological doctrines assume that : 

   + People are by nature motivated only by greed.

   + The drive to acquire is the highest expression of what it means to be human.

   + The relentless pursuit of greed and acquisition leads to socially optimal outcomes. 

   + The interests of human societies are best served by encouraging, honoring, and rewarding the above values. 


  A number of valid ideas and insights about markets have become twisted into an extremist ideology that raises the baser aspects of human nature to a self-justifying ideal. Although this ideology denigrates the most basic human values and ideals, it has become so deeply embedded within our values, institutions, and popular culture that we accept it almost without question. This pervasive ideology plays a critical role in shaping nearly every aspect of public policy. It plays to the declining economic fortunes of the majority and to well-founded public distrust of big government to build a populist political constituency for agendas with decidedly non populist consequences. 
   Reminiscent of twentieth-century Marxist ideologues, advocates of this extremist ideology seek to cut off debate by proclaiming the inevitability of the historical forces advancing their cause.  They tell us that a globalized free market that leaves resource allocation decisions in the hands of giant corporations is inevitable, and we had best to adapt to the new rules of the game. They warn that those who hold back and fail to get on board will be swept aside ; the rewards will go only to those who acquiesce. 
   The extremist quality of their position is revealed in the stark choices they pose between a "free" market unencumbered by any form of governmental restraint or a Soviet-style, centrally planned, state-controlled economy in which government makes all economic decisions. They countenance no middle ground, such as a market that functions within a framework of democratically determined rules. 
   Similarly. they divide the world into two groups : "free" traders who would remove all economic borders to allow goods and money to flow unimpeded by public oversight ; and protectionists who would build impenetrable walls around countries, cutting off all trade and exchange with others. Again, in defiance of history and logic they recognize no middle ground, such as the possibility that government might establish appropriate rules to assure that cross border exchanges are fair and balanced to the mutual benefit of people on both sides.
   In its various guises, this ideology is known by different names--- neoclassical, neoliberal, or libertarian economics ; neoliberalism, market capitalism, or market liberalism. In Australia and New Zealand, Michael Pusey's book Economic Rationalism in Canberra has popularized the term economic rationalism and injected it into the public debate. Latin Americans commonly use the term neoliberalism. However, in most countries, including the United States, it goes without a generally recognized name. Unnamed, it goes undebated, and its underlying assumptions remain unexamined.  
  The more descriptive label for those of this ideological persuasion, however, is corporate libertarianism, because whatever they call themselves, the "free" market, "free" trade policies they advocate do NOT free trade, markets, or people. Rather they free global corporations to plan and organize the world's economic affairs to the benefit of their bottom line, without regard to public consequences. 

         THE CORPORATE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE

   Three major constituencies have joined in a powerful political alliance to advance the ideological agenda of corporate libertarianism with a dogmatic fervor associated with religious crusades. 

Neoclassical Economists --- Most mainstream economists align with the neoclassical school of economic rationalism. Rationalism is defined as "the doctrine that knowledge comes wholly from pure reason, without aid from the senses." This is the underlying doctrine of contemporary mainstream economics, which builds its economic models deductively from first principles, without reference to the real world. This commitment to rationalism has given economics its standing as the only truly objective, value-free social science --- and led it to conclusions that often defy both common sense and observable reality. Most of the profession embraces two first principles as fundamental articles of faith. One is that individuals are motivated solely by self-interest. The other is that individual choice based on the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest leads to socially optimal outcomes. IT IS IMMEDIATELY EVIDENT TO MOST ANYONE WITHOUT ADVANCED TRAINING IN ECONOMICS THAT BOTH PRINCIPLES ARE DEMONSTRABLY FALSE.
   Mainstream economists also treat corporations the same as individual people and presume that maximizing the freedom of corporations is the same as maximizing the freedom of real people----ignoring the reality that the corporate charter is a vehicle for creating massive concentrations of authoritarian power, and that more freedom for corporations inevitably means less freedom for most people. Through this distorting bit of intellectual sleight of hand, neoclassical economists provide corporate libertarianism with a patina of intellectual legitimacy. In return, corporate interests provide neoclassical economists with generous funding and a powerful political constituency.