On the façade, giant corporations seem like benign entities that provide appealing products and services to the population at large. We can hardly imagine living today without all of those things that make our lives easier, busier, more entertaining, more complicated, more varied, more exciting. But at what cost are we enjoying these products provided by enormous corporations? Populations pay in both tangible and intangible ways for the extensive reach and growing influence of these transnational corporations whose tentacles extend far beyond national boundaries.  

One tangible cost is the growing accumulation of massive assets in the hands of fewer and fewer companies over the course of their profit-seeking existence, especially as they continue to buy smaller businesses and dominate and monopolize markets. Their low tax bracket if not tax exempt and legal status of being financially superior (over citizens) add an additional tangible burden on the national asset and budget; average and low-income populations have to compensate by paying relatively more taxes. And tangibly, it is no secret that some of these corporations damage the environment and pollute the air and water in the process of producing and transporting their products.

But perhaps intangible costs are just as damaging. The ever-escalating sphere of influence of transnational corporations is becoming clearer day by day. Through their power of lobbying, they utilize their financial might to influence elections and the political process, directly weakening the structure and balance of democracy. In addition, these corporations depend on and benefit from the military industry. This may not be immediately obvious – how could a corporation involved in producing and selling harmless things like clothing or phones or cars be a beneficiary of the military industry? But in fact, their overseas investments and markets are often protected through means of the military, either directly or indirectly. In this way, military contracts for producing weapons actually benefit non-military corporations. A globalized military alliance, such as NATO for example, was actually designed not only to counter the former Soviet threat but also to protect and expand investments and to further pave the way for corporations in other countries, under the banner of alliance of military security. Despite the propaganda, such operations are not just about ‘freedom’ or ‘protecting democracy.’ Those terms can be easily taken as euphemisms for ‘protecting markets.’ In this sense these corporations work directly against Second Enlightenment principles of reducing or ending war. Needless to say, it’s the corporate world of today that is subcontracted by the military establishments to make the most lethal and most expensive weapons.

As the perception of democracy has evolved, gradually being equated with a free market with minimal regulation, as some politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher have promoted, some democratic governments have taken on a role more like running a supermarket rather than practicing democracy as a system of government which supports and provides rights to healthcare, and social and financial justice among citizens – actually creating a democratic society. Democracy requires fulltime vigilance on the part of elected officials to serve all people, not prioritizing the interests of the financial elites or their corporate surrogates, the capitalist frontrunners. The power held by these gatekeepers of capitalism with their lobbying influence has gone too far, swaying the outcome of policies to favor corporations over the lives of citizens who try to make ends meet and live a decent life. The ideal of democracy offers the promise of people’s power and an equal voice among citizens, but it has become entangled with the greedy transnational corporations which paralyze democracy’s ability to deliver and implement such a promise. Some democracies are even more lenient towards business, passing laws that favor corporations to the degree of allowing them to declare bankruptcy and take consumers down with them with no recourse (‘legalized corruption’). 

With this in mind, it becomes easier to see how indeed the transnational corporations of today, by the very nature of their being and their profit-focused aims, present hurdles to some of the ideals of a Second Enlightenment. Such corporations are neither the guardians of equal voices in the society nor the protectors of the natural environment. Despite propaganda glorifying them as almost god-like ‘job creators’ for their country, their cleverness and success usually lies more in exploiting than in creating. They take advantage of cheap human labor, whether in China, Bangladesh, or even in their own countries, rather than finding creative ways to gainfully and with dignity employ the workforce of taxpayers of their home country.

Today’s transnational corporations are yesterday’s colonizers and exploiters. As an example, let us not forget the East India Company of the 1700’s. It seemed at first to be merely a British company which colonized India and controlled major ports in China while being exempted from the taxation of the imported commodities to the colonies in America. The East India Company engineered the opium exports from India to China which led to the Opium War in order to serve their own corporate aims. It was a company which, driven by the greed for profit and domination of resources, exploited people and violated their rights around the world. Historical chronicles relay their ruthless policies, which led to mutinies and revolutions in America and India among other places in Southeast Asia.

These manipulations for profit are examples from the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, although outright territorial colonization like this has generally subsided, powerful transnational companies still try to dominate the world market with identical aims of profit and domination, exploiting people and countries but in more modern ways – with marketing, advertising, mergers, tax manipulations, price controls, and monopolies. They have turned into giant ‘neocolonial’ powers that do not need lands to physically colonize, but want to maintain the same kind of power and militaries to protect their investments and markets, especially in defenseless countries. Their ultimate goal is to make profits, from the populations of their own or foreign countries.

One can see that even though a company is theoretically based in a country, its actions are not truly in the service of that country. The use of a nation’s flag by the lobbyists or those who represent the interest of these corporations is deceptive because they want people feel they act in the interest of the country. In fact, their interest is in ownership and profit-making, not in patriotism. They put their own interests ahead of that of the nation.  the tax breaks and privileges they receive and the power of their lobbies to influence politics and policies reveals that in a very real sense, corporations own the country.

We need a new generation of politicians who can develop a fresh and workable paradigm, who can offer dignified solutions to curb the financial as well as political power of these transnational companies. One of the first steps should be to limit or even ban lobbies. Why are lobbies necessary, or even permissible, in a democracy? In addition, corporations should be required to do more to share their dividends and profits with the human beings who make up society, both their employees and consumers as well as those who live in the margin of society and can’t afford to be consumers.

The clubs of the billionaire people and corporations or the power-mongers of capitalism carry little patriotic sentiment and rarely, if ever, do they conduct their businesses for altruistic aims. Only by wresting democracy itself back from the tentacles of the corporations can democracy change the course of future history where ordinary citizens can determine their own destiny. The beauty of democracy will be manifested when people face events of their lives which they can plan themselves, not have them it engineered for them. In a democracy people determine the course of events (history), not the military generals or corporate CEOs.

The evolution of democracy and planning one’s own destiny are based on mass movements and the consequent participation in implementing financial and social justice through honest good governance, cooperation and generosity, with the goal of equally decent lives for everyone.

(photo attributions © virtosmedia, 123RF Free Images )