In the past century, the rise of capitalism has led to a slow transition of corporations becoming the real world superpowers rather than nation-states. The fundamental issue behind this is that governments are there to look out for their citizens – they are inclusive institutions there to provide the necessities for a society to function and flourish – whereas corporations are only looking out for themselves. The selfishness of corporations coupled with their influence has challenged communities that are, by definition, generally altruistic groups of interdependent people who work together to propagate a common agenda of peace and productivity. Corporations know that if a sense of community flourishes, people may become hostile toward them. This is exemplified by ‘Keep Austin Weird,’ which was a campaign by locals and small businesses to prevent chain stores from building locations in downtown Austin, TX. This shows a resistance to corporations in favor of a more grass-roots approach to doing business. Given our market economy, where people respond to incentives, corporations are simply doing what any person would do: maximizing utility out of every situation.
Corporations and governments will often make their motives look different to the public compared to what they actually are. One example of this is the US invasion of Iraq after 9/11. Harvey notes how President Bush often said that the United States’ role in Iraq was to spread a key American constitutional right: “as the greatest power on earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom,” Bush claimed (2005). In Freedom’s Just Another Word, Harvey explains how the Bush Administration used this language to create a sense that America was fighting some sort of crusade for freedom when in reality they were just trying to have boots on the ground to protect their oil interests. This idea goes hand-in-hand with the ideas conveyed in the Rise of Corporate Power in America where the author insists, “it is the corporate interest more than the human interest that defines the policy agendas of states and international bodies” (Korten, 2001). The power that corporations and governments hold, especially when working together, allows them to accomplish their goals no matter what citizens actually want.
The proposed, and approved, Kinder Morgan pipeline gives another good example of this. This pipeline will run from the tar sands of Alberta to the southern British Columbia coast in order to increase oil exports. As lucrative as this may be, there are risks such as the pipeline leaking and causing environmental damage. In Burnaby, BC, the Vancouver suburb where the pipeline will end, people have squatted on the construction site to protest the pipeline. The land where the pipeline will end is Indigenous land that has not been ceded to Kinder Morgan; this corporation does not have permission from the Indigenous landowners to build on that site, yet they are going ahead anyway. They got permission from the government and that’s all the red tape they need to go through; the fact that the land is not ceded means nothing to Kinder Morgan. Fifty-three people have been arrested for getting in the way of Kinder Morgan surveyors and Kinder Morgan has also filed lawsuits against protesters in an effort to deter them. Shouldn’t it be Kinder Morgan facing legal action for building on land they don’t have permission to build on? This issue highlights the power that corporations and the government have when they work together.
More attention needs to be given to the benefits of corporations recognizing the ‘triple bottom line,’ in which financial, environmental and social costs are all accounted for. By assigning monetary values to social and environmental exploitation, corporations can be held accountable for their actions. Once multinationals start doing this, they will gain respect from communities as they will become inclusive institutions rather that extractive, exploitative ones.
Harvey, David. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press, 2005.
Korten, David C. “Rise of Corporate Power in America.” When Corporations Rule the World (1995).
RCMP Arrest Protesters at Kinder Morgan Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion (2014). Environment News Service. Retrieved from http://ens-newswire.com. Accessed 2014, November 23.