The Case Against TransNational Corporations

TNCs are simply too big, and too big runs against the interests of a a free society. Period.

Too big is, well, TOO BIG!. Some basic data, below. (Don't forget the prior citation by Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies.) BTW, the vast majority of Americans agree: Business Week reported that 74% of those polled agree with a statement that government should rein in corporate power.

TNCs are virtually unaccountable for their action and enjoy too much privilege

The Invisible Hand mystifies realities. Reification (confusion of abstractions as concrete things) must give way to responsibility and dialogue with stakeholders (not just shareholders). See the scenario built around Banking on Disaster. Opponents of economic globalization regard TNCs as predators. A global ethics must be defined and implemented.

Some presumptions:
1. Physical growth is job #1.
2. Market fundamentalism is the religion of all humanity.
3. Hidden but perverse subsidies to favored (perhaps obsolete) industry is not discussed.

All three presumptions are basic to the clash between economic globalization and social ecology; economic growth and World Sustainability. The social ecology response:
1. Development must go forward with harmony toward and restoration of resources, sinks, ecosystems -- getting the metabolism right.
2. Markets are tools, means, not ends. Commerce must not dominate but be balanced by the public sector and civil society. A floor of livelihood must be established, not demolished.
3. Transparency and openness must be shared norms within an honest discourse about all of this.

The Leninst critique: TNCs must grow and, well, devour and exploit -- in the name of, uh, progress. Get used to it!

This lament can be traced to Lenin, who clearly saw that Global Capitalism must grow or die -- TNCs are the major agent of Global Capitalism. Specifically, TNCs will: seek new markets, exploit new sources of cheap labor (aka, people), and devour dirt cheap resources (aka, the environment). See Cavanagh and Mander, pp. 34-35. Note: Social Ecology does not adopt Marxism as its critique. It does ascribe to the thought of another political economist, Karl Polanyi, explained below.

Privatization and commodification ofthe commons -- this is perhaps the critical issue

To expand the territory ripe for market transactions, corporations have relentlessly claimed what is not yet ruined of the commons, essentially such gifts of nature as air, water, the seas, even our biology itself (see Shiva, Cavanagh and Mander, pp. 115-117). The markets' relentless expansion intrudes into all aspects of life itself. Hence, a new term: biopolitics. We witnessed this in the destruction of the tropical forests of the Amazon seen in Banking on Disaster. Another example: the global population of large fish has declined by over 90% in the last two generations. Regional fisheries has collapsed, e.g., cod. Much worse to come, such as water rights. See Cavanagh and Mander, chapter 5.

Privatization and commodification of public services

Nature is not sufficient to keep the market juggernaut fed. Public services must also be arranged for sale, such as (public) health, (gated) community, education, even incarceration (prisons). Privatizing has swept through the public sector with the specific goal of shrinking the public realm and expanding the private realm. IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) start with selling off public resources and services.

Self-reliance hampers market expansion and must be impeded: we must be dis-abled!

If you and I and our families are less self-reliant and more dependent, a host of potential products and services can be sold to us. If we make our own food, energy, health, and security, we are not good customers for such emerging markets. This is basic to our interpretation of affluence.

The utter simplification of that which had been diverse: culture, regional economies, and nature. Social ecology promotes diversity and resilience.

A premise of economic globalization is the making of mass markets fueled by mass consumption, which discourages market -- and cultural -- differentiation. Standardization and cultural homogenization is just the start here.

Diversity is the essential attribute of a social ecology. To simplify is a cardinal transgression which will weaken the yield and the resilience of all human and natural systems.

Export-driven economic policy must not be balanced with internal community needs.

The watchword, again, is balance. Export industries are favored and promoted with subsidies while local firms are hampered. Cavanagh and Mander explain:
Here's the crux of the matter: systems that emphasize local or regional self-reliance are extremelysubversive to free trade, economic globalization, and hyper corporate growth. (page 40). Pages 40-41 is essential reading here.

TNCs detest competition and regulation. TNCs try to devour competition with consolidation and cripple the authority of nations.

Corporate consolidation continues relentlessly and so does the decline of competition. The authority of public bodies to regulate must be crippled to allow TNCs to act unrestrained. In particular, safeguards to labor and to the environment must be forestalled. A compliant (codrporate) media preaching market fundamentalism is essential to the regime of economic globalization.

The indoctrination by a compliant corporate media must preclude dissent.

TINA! is the message. The campaign for economic globalization requires mass deception and the eradication of dissent. Case in point: the corpoate-funded assault on global warming and science in general. Open societies threaten economic globalization, ironically.

Worst still is the merger of TNCs, the state, the military, and the media.

This emerging power axis threatens freedom and can form the basis of a fascist regime, an authoritarian right-wing political economic order. See Hardt and Negri, Empire

Given the above, What to do?

Open mic, folks. Is case worthy of a response? What to do?