When big business finances the enemies of capitalism (above all by advertising in anti-capitalist media and funding anti-capitalist education), it is often regarded as treacherous, foolish or ignorant. Yet this is not all that surprising. The point has perhaps been made most succinctly in a letter to Reason (Oct. 1977) by James E. Foy, a Burbank, Calif., TV news editor (yes, there are good guys among them, too!):
"It seems essential to a clear understanding of capitalism that business is not the element which benefits from it. Businesses, in fact, are punished
¾or at least, disciplined¾by the free enterprise system. Only consumers benefit... We should not ask a fox to guard the chickens. And we should not ask businessmen to assure market competition. If ever we're to keep what economic freedoms we have and roll back the smothering blanket of controls, well have to do it as consumers, not as businessmen."Do not, therefore, be surprised to see businesses preferring to look to government, especially when their product cannot beat the competition by voluntary choice in a free market.
Of course there are businesses, especially small ones, which are so good that they want the market, not the government, to ensure their prosperity; but what of the big corporate bureaucracies? What of our old acquaintance Thornton Bradshaw when he is not writing on "The Case for National Planning?" He has moved from Atlantic Richfield to RCA, for some retired chairman of Macy's was given a $250,000 contract to negotiate a $1,250,000 termination deal for the old chairman and identify a new one. He identified fellow board member Bradshaw, who got the job at $938,500 a year, with a $150,000-a-year consultants contract for the broker himself. "They have demonstrated consistently their ineptness," says a former director from this world, "and all they do is pass around the goodies among themselves."
Are these the people you expect to uphold a free market? What they will uphold is their lobbies in Washington. A brilliant book, Progress and Privilege by W. Tucker, just published (Doubleday, $17.95), makes the point from a slightly different aspect:
"There are those businesses that are well established and those that are ambitious and fighting their way up the ladder. What environmentalists never seem to realize is that environmentalism, which works so well in favoring the social status quo, works the same way in the business world. The result of a great deal of environmental legislation, despite popular impressions, has been to help large businesses maintain their dominance, at the expense of small businesses...
"Government regulation usually helps big business, while working to the detriment of small business."
That is not to say that when Exxon finances Science weekly with its double-spread ads, they do so consciously in order to support the Science scribblers' emotionalism on leaded gasoline (see below) or their antinuclear witch hunts. After all, conspiracy and treachery presuppose some degree of intelligence
¾a circumstance by which the PR departments of the big corporations are instantly exculpated.But it does mean that Foy's principle
¾capitalism does not favor capitalists¾is at work somewhere in the essence of Exxon's and other big corporations' attitudes; and that the student of energy, society and human nature should not ignore this principle if he wants to avoid disappointments.|
Vol. 10, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 10, No. 2 Date: November 23, 2004 02:23 PM Title: The Foy Principle
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