Friday 1 June 2018

The Political Wing of Bad Business

Think of those businesses which make their money from activities that are harmful to millions of people. If governments were left to develop policies to serve the public interest, these inherently anti-social corporations would be tightly regulated, and their callous profit-making would be much curtailed. To make sure that does not happen, many of them have adopted the strategy of ‘donating’ funds to those politicians who would prioritise their profiteering over the protection of the common good.

The political wing of these corporate marauders is then positioned as the party of the ‘free market’. In the name of promoting ‘economic prosperity’, it will do all it can to keep any unhelpful legislation off the table, and bring in changes that will make it even easier for irresponsible companies to ride roughshod over ordinary citizens.

Is this an unfair exaggeration? Let us look at the political parties in the US and the UK that have historically obtained a larger share of the contributions from big businesses. And for both the Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in the UK, their leading backers come from four notable sectors:

Finance: the largest donations overall come from the sector that gamble with their savers’ money (while counting on public bailouts if they end up losing), and also includes hedge fund management, insurance, payday lending, and distressed-debt acquisitions (these last two particularly rely on minimising regulatory protection of people living under precarious social and economic circumstances).

Fossil fuel industry: for those whose profits come from the sourcing or utilisation of fossil fuel, it is vital that protection of the public from local environmental degradation and wider climate change damages be minimised. Fracking in the UK, for example, was supported by changes in the law that were opposed almost unanimously by the public.

Private healthcare businesses: in the US, any attempt to improve public healthcare provision that may reduce the profit margins of private health insurance providers is strenuously opposed; in the UK, the demand is for handing over much more NHS money to private healthcare companies; and in both countries, pharmaceutical companies want public funding support with research but private autonomy to push up profit margins.

Property developers: public investment in infrastructure is sought, but private profiteering must trump requests for housing that is affordable or development that enhances rather than destroys local jobs and enterprises. One US developer indeed described affordable housing quota as “immoral”.

Two additional sectors feature in the US, namely, casinos and information technology. Any business model that relies on people gambling when the odds are against them needs lawmakers to stand aside as much as possible, and the casino moguls have built their empires with the support of ‘free market’ champions. As for information technology, the capturing, passing on, and exploitation of personal data have been seen increasingly as a key threat to privacy and democracy, but tech companies’ mantra remains fixed on wanting to be left alone to do what they regard as ‘beneficial’ (and profitable).

Perhaps it is time responsible business leaders join forces to curb the dubious financing of the political wing of their not-so-responsible counterparts. There can be no level playing field when the unscrupulous few can keep bending the rules to suit themselves. The only way to end what by any name is blatant corruption, is for the majority to take a stand.

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Notes:

For more on how to tackle the undermining of democracy, see my book, Time to Save Democracy: how to govern ourselves in the age of anti-politics, from Policy Press in the UK: https://policypress.co.uk/time-to-save-democracy , or Amazon in the US: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Save-Democracy-Ourselves-Anti-Politics/dp/1447338243

For more information on the donations referred to above, see:

Bloom, D. (2018) ‘Revealed, how a third of Tory donations come from a tiny group of rich men who enjoy lavish dinners with Theresa May’, Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-how-third-tory-donations-11798246
Cahill, H. (2017) ‘Party donors: Here are the biggest names bank-rolling the Conservative campaign’, City A.M.: http://www.cityam.com/264987/party-donors-biggest-names-bank-rolling-conservative
Pilkington, E. & Swaine, J. (2017) ‘The seven Republican super-donors who keep money in tax havens’, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/07/us-republican-donors-offshore-paradise-papers
Reeves, J. (2016) ‘Top 10 list of corporate donors to political parties reads like a most-hated-companies ranking’, MarketWatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-10-companies-could-influence-the-presidential-election-again-2016-06-16

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