A New Approach to Corporate Bashing

Yes indeed; sometimes we lose track of the really Green ideas. Sometimes I run into what I call an "of course" issue that strikes me as off course. Somewhere a Green idea became just another rant from the left.

Of Course, Off Course

What's an of "of course" issue? That's an issue where one assumes that any Green agrees with a certain approach to a problem. Pollution free sustainable energy as government policy? Of course! Improve the lives of rich and poor alike by offering universal health care? Of course! Be easy in our own consumption of resources? Of course! You get the idea.

One "of course" issue that has struck me more and more as wandering into wrongheaded territory is the nearly reflexive corporation bashing by many Greens and most progressives. This product is made by a large corporation? The product is tainted! Corporations must be bashed! Evil greedy corporations! Get rid of them all! Of course!

Whooops. Not so fast. Somehow this "of course" moment got shortcut-ed from the nuanced issue it should be into a generalized bash, inevitably beginning with the rant that "of course, all corporate entities are evil . . . ."

Green ≠Anti-Corporate

Corporations are not per se bad. They're just a collection of people doing business under a group name. People have been doing that for a very long time, and nothing about doing business mandates poor community citizenship or moral corruption.

But the legal structure surrounding corporations both requires and permits them to do what are essentially evil things without personal responsibility for the individuals doing the bad acts, and remove any need to look beyond beyond short-term profit, and foolishly selfish motives.

Market Forces Short Term Solution

Protest and education are aimed at creating market forces that will shoo corporate businesses into greener and more responsible practices in search of profit.

Various boycotts and the Fair Trade movement rely on this aspect of corporate behavior.

And yet there is an obvious disconnect and an element of futility in such an approach -- a truly sustainable business model cannot arise from a profit-only based corporate structure.

So, while it is probably effective to create market forces to drive companies to greener profit pastures for the short term, what is needed for long-term, systemic change is an overhaul of the corporate enabling rules.

Note well that it is not necessary to do away with the corporate structure altogether. Just change it to require accounting of hidden costs currently passed on to the community, to allow and even encourage socially responsible conduct, and create a mechanism for individual actor responsibility for bad acts.

That's a Green solution.


COMING UP:
The Ethical Corporation: A Sustainable Profit Model