Corporations and consumerism

These supposed scourges need to be defended systematically

a) Here are two sets of notes, one defending the consumer society and the other includes "10 propositions on corporations." (one of a series) which I hope will embolden corporations to defend themselves more robustly and their employees, customers, shareholders and pensioners to enjoy them better.

b) Consuming produces good government. Consumer societies are those in which people make and spend money freely, and on a large scale. It is forgotten that wealth produces better government and better government produces wealth. Sophisticated economies require long-term social stability, the rule of law and the free flow of information. Only in the short term do "mafia", "crony", corrupt and violent societies produce viable economies, and only simple industries thrive in such situations. Sophisticated economies require education, legal and media systems to match. Celebrate wealth, and one is in the end celebrating responsive government. Amongst other things which affluent consumers demand and get, is high environmental standards.

c) Consuming can be clean. We have the technological means to deliver consumer goods with very light ecological loads. Incineration, clever landfill and recycling (probably in that order) can virtually eliminate the "waste problem"; and solar, hydrogen and nuclear power (probably in reverse order) can handle our energy needs. Spreading these technologies to 3rd World countries requires that they grow their economies fast, and it is that over-arching necessity which "greens" habitually forget. Their growth is required on humanitarian and green grounds.

d) Consuming is the best way to be green. The market everywhere delivers quickly and cheaply whatever is technologically possible and popularly demanded. Naturally, the market needs regulation, and sometimes it needs socially-desirable signals to be sent (perhaps to promote solar research, etc). Where it is possible to turn a socially-desirable good into a marketable good, we are using the most efficient mechanism we have. Modern consumers often demand goods and services of an environmental kind through the supermarket till, but sometimes they demand politicians to ordain them, via the market, through fiscal signals. That is still the consumer society at work.

e) Consumers should argue not fight. Western values include human rights, and these have come to include, controversially, freedom to trade internationally. Western values especially enshrine the value of debate and argument and a reluctance to use violence. It is therefore very depressing to see the "globalisation" debate conducted in part by people who deliberately provoke street riots, as they may have done in Seattle and certainly did in Prague. By every account, the protestors' leaders used tactics which would produce inevitable confrontation. The WTO is manifestly democratically-mandated and is open to democratic control of all its most important main players.

f) Consume to help the 3rd World. The cliche that the "only thing worse than being exploited by multinationals is not to be exploited by multinationals" is an important insight. We buy petrol in the West. Some of it comes from Nigeria. Shell's operations in Nigeria illustrate how a great Western company can generate huge income for a state with minimal environmental damage. The squandering of the revenue is a quite separate issue, and a trivial one in the context of discussing Shell: almost any conceivable alternative to Shell's operation would be environmentally and socially less respectable. In the case of Nike, and its sub-contractors abroad, the key question is whether Nike workers would rather you didn't buy the shoe? It is a secondary important question what if anything could and should be done to improve the workers' lot.

g) Consumers have moral choices. Naomi Klein and others are suggesting that we in the consumer societies should "reclaim our aspirations" (as well as our streets). But advertising and branding is as old as the hills, it is amusing and interesting in its own right, and it pays for the media, including the left-wing media. Advertiser do indeed try to influence us, but they also every day provide us with an opportunity to define ourselves in distinction to their blandishments. We turn down the opportunity to buy the vast majority of the goods and services which are paraded so seductively before us. For most of history, people have had to develop moral fortitude in the face of poverty. Now we develop fortitude in the face of plenty. Which would you prefer?

ends

2) Corporations in the 3rd Millennium Villains, Victims and Getting Real, a presentation by RDN

The thesis in a nutshell: Corporations in EU and US are under attack and need to fight back robustly

The thesis in a few words:

a) The Post-Modernist Baby Boomers and their ragbag rationale of dissidence, emotionalism and Green romances has acquired a leading place in the minds of university educated and uneducated youngsters.

b) The young are greedy, ambitious and selfish, like all generations, and are also subject to high and rising expectations of material affluence, green environments, cheap dissidence, ready victimhood and petulant insistence on rights.

c) Corporations satisfy society's needs (for employment, pensions and goods and services) and its whims (for trivial consumption). Yet they are cast as the villain of society.

d) Corporations are institutionalised capitalism: their biggest problem is that they may become too respectable in their quest for the necessary licenses to produce and provide goods and services.

e) The campaigners and media have put corporates on the defensive and into fudge-mode

f) The young deserve to hear the facts and opinions of Corporates as they really are, not as strategic convenience (driven by campaigners) dictates

g) The young will punish corporates for their Third Way spin just as they will punish Tony Blair for his.

10 Propositions...... on corporations

1 Corporations are nice but powerless.

They are weak (provisional, open to take-over, market collapse) open (audited by all and sundry) accountable (challenged by shareholders, employees, customers) respectable (law-abiding, consistent) honest (seldom criminal or even piratical) fair (operating quasi-judicial practices) needed in the Third World (for investment, excellence) cowardly (weak in defending their values) productive (they provide much of the most awkward wealth: oil, chemicals, drugs, etc)

2 Corporations are cast as villains

They are wrongly said to be science (as in, amoral, aggressive) technology (as in careless of the natural) inequality (because enshrining wage-inequality) conspiracy (because operating at the heart of society) rationalism (as against touchie-feelie emotionalism) elitism (because large but led by a few) racism (because tending to take the white world to the third world) masculinity (because led by men) risk (because licensed to undertake society's dangerous work)

3 The attack comes from fantasists

These are greens (oil, farming, energy, transport, roads, chemicals, logging); animal rightists (research animals, shooting, fur, leather, meat); pro-peasant idealists (trade, globalisation, child labour); organic campaigners (farmers, retailers, consumers); alternativists (medicines, therapies, counseling); consumerists (inequality of distribution, mis-selling, any cock-up); victims (infrastructure accidents, mis-selling, work place accidents); publicity-seekers (BA air stewardess, tobacco workers, victims); Anxiety Industry (Post Modern stress specialists)

4 The attack focuses on modern facts of life

These include things such as downsizing (Barclays) dematerialisation (decline of manufacture) global trade (child labour, global branding, footloose facilities) fat cat pay (BT etc) "McSociety" (shopping malls over neighbourhoods) animal use (BSE, fur, salmonella, welfare) industrial agriculture (GMOs, prairie barons) techno-food (Taco shells) techno-medicine (drug rationing, drug prices) Global Warming (Shell, BO) nuclear power (BNFL and waste) carcinogens (any chemical, especially organochlorines) infrastructure hazards (trains, planes) other environment hazards (mobile phones, water borne disease) invasion of privacy (data swapping, fraud, genetic privacy) lobbying (tobacco, oil) patenting (drugs, crops, software, music)

5 Society is bored with being well run

So it denigrates Parliamentary democracy/ the common good (as discerned by Parliaments, elected representatives); order (preferring demonstrations); balance (preferring individual rights); negotiation (preferring the statement of non-negotiable rights); evidence (preferring intuition); reasonableness (preferring shrill statements); expertise (preferring public perception); disinterestedness (preferring interest group battles); dignity (as in understanding one's own blame).

6 Proposition: Society is becoming petulant and febrile

So it listens to "the People" (especially consumers); victims (Sarah Payne, Hillsborough, vaccines, Paddington rail crash); instinct (uninformed and misinformed bigotry better than expertise); glamour (celebrities); public opinion (as against expertise); "values" (especially Greenery, peasantry, noble savagery, heartfelt wisdom); dissidence (against the elite, the Establishment); class war (against the Toffs); special pleading (victimhood, glamour illness); sentimentality (anthropomorphism, child victims); revenge (suing the corporation).

7 corporations have fallen for vacuous spin

So we get rhetoric about the Middle Way (profit plus wider values); inclusiveness (the win-win message); Greenery (we share the environmental agenda); co-option (let's listen to the Greens); spin (perception is what matters, not reality); apologising (Monsanto, Blair, BP); listening (BP, Shell)

8 Important constituents aren't listening

Greenpeace (still slates BP); consumer bodies (getting more not less shrill, recently on mortgages, GMOs); victims (they can't afford to listen); the media (hardly ever listens when there's a good story); academia (always thirty years out of date); the young (still hearing pop stars, teachers, parents)

9 Corporates need to stress the stuff they can do

This includes wealth creation (pensions, taxes, wages, goods and services); law abiding (but not progressive); customer led (price matters!); transparent (prepared to tell the facts); self-interested (especially when lobbying); reliable (technical competence, contractually obliged); provisional (centrist management vs devolved management, eg); permanent (legal existence, obligation to contracts); capitalist (not socialist); productive (not green); risk-taking (not historical fantasists); competent (not virtuous)

10 Corporates suffer a permanent identity crisis

They are piratical (conducting guerrila war against each other); respectable (law-abiding contractors); chancers (gambling large capital on large plant and processes); heroic (misunderstood, persistent, dumb); husband-like (loyal, consistent, dull); father-like (mature, permanent, old-fashioned, oppressive)