Corporate Critiques
No fair-minded person contends that the private enterprise system is perfect. It is operated by human beings who are full of imperfections. Many of us deplore the fact that a few of our corporate entities seem to lack that social consciousness proportionate to their power and the privileges granted them by the state. Some businesses apparently still fail to recognize that there are social and spiritual values as well as profits that should be considered in their operations.
Ezra Taft Benson, LDS President
The ever-expanding size and clout of corporations in both the U.S. and abroad have seen a corresponding growth in questions and criticisms from the public. Politicians, students, left-wingers and right-wingers, housewives, academics, policy-makers, trade unions, the press, and many small- and medium-size business owners and managers–all constitute voices of concern.
The concerns range from excessive executive pay and greed to political power and behind-doors deals. Many fret over ecological toxicity, global warming and issues of sustainability. Others worry about downsizing, outsourcing, off-shore finance, and other unpredictable decisions. Concentrations of wealth at the top of the social pyramid, and an increasing bifurcation between haves and have-nots are also troubling. Critics complain about sweatshops, exploited workers including child laborers, while others focus on de-unionization of industry around the globe and the decline in worker rights and job security.
This flesh-eating piranha I got from a town deep in the Amazon region of Brazil (1975). It now sits on my campus office desk as a symbol of the dangers of corporate America.
- “Economic Insanity: How Growth-Driven Capitalism is Devouring the American Dream“. (Book Review) Exchange, Fall 1995, p. 29.
- “Distorting Labor: Erasing the Past“. The Daily Universe, October 5, 1989.
- “Steel Busting in the West“. Social Policy, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1988, pp. 53-56.
- “Brave New Bureaucracy“. Dialogue, Vol. 20, No. 3, Fall 1987, pp. 25-36.
- “Utah Ignored Steel Crisis“. Deseret News, April 14, 1987.
- “U.S. Steel Abandons Utah“. The Progressive, Vol. 50, No. 5, May 1986.
- “Unionbusting: The Corporate Assault on Organized Labor“. Business and Society Review, No. 52, Winter 1985, pp. 15 20.
- De Steeling: The Fall of U.S. Steel and Implications for Utah. Provo: Alexander Press, 1984. (Revised 1985, book of 224 pp.)
- “‘Exploitable’ Utah Vulnerable to Corporate Irresponsibility“. The Salt Lake Tribune, August 12, 1984.
Do you ask what moral obligation I owe to my fellowmen? –None. . . . I deal with men . . . only for my own self-interest.
Ayn Rand, author of The Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged
Corporate Critique Links
- Ruckus Society
- International Labour Organization
- The National Labor Committee
- Resource Center of the Americas.org
- OXFAM’s Nike Watch
- Political Economy Research Institute
- Stop Sweat Shops
- National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice
- Maquila Solidarity Network
- Unite Labor Union
- Economic Policy Institute
- Corporate Reports on 1,000 Firms
- Child Labor Education and Action Project
- No Sweat Abuse
- Free Trade Area of the Americas
- Global Living Wages
- Alliance for Responsible Trade
- AFL-CIO
- Mormons for Economic and Social Justice
The absence of outrage is an outrage itself.
Thomas Lynch