I was at a gathering of very interesting folks this evening sponsored by David Swann, the leader of Alberta Liberal Party. Guests provided an evening of Great thinking. Critical thinking. Not monologue, not dialogue but earnest polylogue, complete with senses of humour!
Heady discussions about society, government, the connection between the two and the kinds of each we want.
As is often the case, the discussion included issues of power concentration in bodies corporate versus power in the individual. That power is reflected in their respective amassed wealth. Corporate bodies, representing many as opposed to one as they do, almost always have greater concentrations of both power and wealth. That makes many of us democratically inclined folk squirm, at least a little.
There was talk about passing the cost of serving society in various ways onto corporate bodies.
I suggest that is a tricky thing to deal with. For instance, the discussion suggests that 80% of energy consumption is done by corporations, making individuals' efforts about 4 times less effective than corporations' efforts might be at reducing power consumption and the effluents associated with its generation.
The suggestion often arises that we must use the sticks and carrots available to our power concentrated in the hands of democratic governments to get those corporations to absorb their fair share of the costs of energy use and investment in energy efficiency.
It's a bit unfair to say that the 80% of energy use represents the amount of economic activity generated by corporations, but the concept of a great portion of economic activity as corporate activity is a valid one.
However, except in the case of production of armaments and support of military activity where the benefit to individual citizens might not be so readily apparent, especially in times of relative peace, all other corporate activity is in service of provision of consumer goods and services. These are the things we think we need and will purchase, thereby generating the business case for those corporations. While a significant part of all economic activity occurring at any one moment or even over a period of a year be characterized as business to business, in the final analysis, it really is part of a process from base producer to final consumer as I've heard some refer to the phenomenon.
Herein lies the dilemma. How do we make the corporate bodies pay more without making our cost of living cost more?
Interestingly, as I see it the dilemma gets even more complex. We individuals like to save. We like those savings to grow through the wise investment of our bankers, brokers and others we entrust with that task. Where do those savings make those earnings? I submit that most of those earnings come from only two sources, finance of public projects such as government owned infrastructure and private corporations producing some part of a needed supply or service. Savings growth is then generated by taxes to pay for public infrastructure or by profits earned by payments made by consumers of goods and services.
That means governments and corporations rely entirely on individuals for their source of capital investment prior to production and finally for consumption of that production.
"But li'l ol' me? I don't hold any shares in Power Corp." Is l'il ol' you sure of that? Does li'l ol' you participate in a government pension fund, private pension fund, employment insurance fund, life insurance, general insurance on house, car other possessions? Those funds are invested - you guessed it! to finance corporations' production.
One final point I raise. Do we individuals know just how much economic and political power we have? A lot more than we think. But it takes concerted and continuous effort, real day-to-day living democratically to make it effective.
For example, we might complain about the artifice of "greenwashing". That underhandedness is not all bad news, in my view. With or without conscience, the greenwashing corporation realizes the danger in alienating both savers and consumers. What if individuals quit investing in the corporation? What if individuals quit buying the products that our production is part of? We, Greenwashing Inc., are toast! Greenwashing is a clear acknowledgment of the power of individuals, even in a globalized corporate world.
Of course those options don't easily exist in the case of government services. However, with careful democratic governance, the individuals responsible for production by those government investment and production activities are directly accountable to us through the electoral process.
Alberta is an unusual case, vis-a-vis most European countries or even most of the rest of the Canadian population for that matter. We do not consume enough of the productive output of our corporations, particularly in energy production, to have much economic power by withholding purchases. That production is sold to others. The capital required for its production is likewise available from those others. However, as we have seen with the pressures from others over the oil sands production of "dirty oil", those others will apply some pressure and exercise some power. (Let's ignore for the moment the 25% of total oil production the United States uses to power its military, much of which in protection of its access to petroleum. Talk about dirty oil!)
It then takes not only a democratic government with courage to write and enforce laws of fairness with regards to that production, but also with imagination and the willingness to treat the individual owners and employees of those corporations as equal citizens. What does that mean? That means using that imagination to enable those corporations to be productive while still enabling fairness in our own markets for employment and sale of the resources belonging to the common good.
This may not be easy given the state of the art of our current economic and business models, but the success of the effort to do so is necessary because as Pogo said, "They is Us!".
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