“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.” – Minority Opinion by Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor.
News outlets and the blogosphere are abuzz with reactions to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision that will allow corporations to fund political campaigns. The ruling, which overturns decades of legal precedent and legislation limiting the ability of corporations to influence the outcome of elections, may have broad implications for the political process in the U.S. News of the decision has drawn criticism from both the right and the left, many voicing the opinion that dramatically increased rights for corporations will significantly diminish the ability for individual citizens to have their voices heard.
In his weekly address, President Obama said, “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest,” he said. “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.” Congressman Alan Grayson (FL) has already introduced legislation to combat the policy change. His “Save Our Democracy” Reform Package contains several strong measures, including a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.
Although some claim that this most recent ruling will have only a limited effect on the political process, the decision certainly re-confirms the doctrine of granting constitutional rights, originally reserved for flesh-and-blood U.S. citizens, to corporate entities, which have held the dubious status of “legal persons” with rights since 1886, when another Supreme Court decision accorded it to them. This unexpected action by the Court re-opens the debate about about the wisdom of affording corporations such rights, and what effects this all has for sustainable business.
In the glorious Past Before Television, adventurous men and women gained fame and fortune by testing their skills in competitions designed to expand the limits of human knowledge and innovation. Several organizations are bringing back this kind of “innovation prize” in a big way, with competitions designed to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges, and expand its horizons beyond terrestrial limits.
One of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history was the result of a prize offered by the British government in the 18th century. At that time, many ships were being lost due to the inaccuracies involved in calculating their longitude at sea. The previous method, dead reckoning, introduced greater errors the farther the ship got from a known point, usually ending in loss of life and heated discussions about the velocity of various types of swallows. The British Parliament offered the modern equivalent of $4.56 million for a solution to the Longitude Problem.
One of the potential solutions to the problem required invention of a marine chronometer of such high accuracy that even Sir Issac Newton doubted that it could be created. But, in 1730, clockmaker John Harrison set himself to the task, and effectively solved the multiple problems of corrosion, temperature, humidity and durability within 5 years, (although it took him another thirty to collect his prize) a task which has been compared to the landing of men on the moon in the 1960s.
…a hitherto obscure macroeconomist who died over a decade ago. Many economists had never heard of him when the crisis struck… But lately he has begun emerging as perhaps the most prescient big-picture thinker about what, exactly, we are going through…Minsky was one economist who saw what was coming. He predicted, decades ago, almost exactly the kind of meltdown that recently hammered the global economy.
Minsky basically believed that the conservative fiscal stance which comes in the wake of a financial collapse, such as the Great Depression, would inevitably sow the seeds for the next crisis decades down the road. The main ingredients are time and short human memories, “Instability,” he wrote, “is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism.” The article compares Minsky’s view to the one held by mainstream economics, that capitalism is self-regulating and self-stabilizing, known as the Neoclassical Synthesis.
It’s amazing how cheap. diposable products and waste have crept into even our oldest traditions. It’s insidious. I’m talking about the commencement ceremonies that are happening at every high school, college and university at this time of year. Even my own graduation, a ceremony meant to celebrate the achievement of people dedicated to sustainability and building a world that works for future generations, was rife with single-use items that were never intended to be that way.
I don’t blame the institutions, which, by necessity, are obligated to provide their students and their loved ones with a ceremony befitting of their hard work and investments in time and money. I don’t blame the students, faculty, family and staff who have these expectations either. We certainly should not be in the business of sacrificing the things that mean the most to us in the process of achieving a sustainable world.
It all comes down to a matter of perceived cost. Most of the items currently used are very cheaply made because graduation is seen as a very rare occurrence: why spend a lot of money on something that will only happen once a year for the institution, and only a handful of times for the graduate?
Not to mention the fact that the regalia is not exactly everyday wear. Even a bridesmaid’s dress might be remade into a cocktail dress that might get worn after the big day, but graduation gowns are never seen outside of a graduation ceremony.
I haven’t really been posting much lately. I guess graduating from Presidio has been a little bit harder to adjust to than I thought it would be. In any case, here’s some interesting stuff from around the web today.
The following video describes how an electronic “run on banks” almost collapsed the ENTIRE WORLD ECONOMY in just under 5 hours, if it wasn’t for fast action by the Fed. If this isn’t a prime example of a “Black Swan” or unintended consequence of complexity, I don’t know what is. [via BoingBoing]
This video is about as good a place as any to begin a blog on sustainability and lifehacks. One could certainly call Natural Capitalism a lifehack on a grand scale.
As a first-semester student in Presidio School of Management’s MBA in Sustainable Management program, I’ve been learning quite a bit about what sustainability really means, and what it will take for business and our economy to become sustainable. One topic that gets discussed quite a bit is how to encourage people and business to use natural resources more efficiently, while encouraging them to use more of the one resource that isn’t in short supply: human labor. Inevitably, the discussion turns to tax policy, specifically, how the US income tax system makes labor more expensive while discouraging savings and encouraging consumption. One professor suggested that a possible solution is to stop taxing labor and begin to tax things that we want less of, like carbon emissions.
This really caught my attention, because I have been a long-time advocate of the FairTax legislation, which would replace the Federal income tax and payroll taxes, and many other federal taxes with a consumption tax. It occurred to me that enacting the FairTax would, in addition to a myriad of other benefits, solve one piece of the puzzle, namely untaxing labor and making labor more attractive in the marketplace. I also realized that there are a number of other benefits of the FairTax which apply to sustainability, such as encouraging savings and discouraging consumption, encouraging purchases of used items (re-use), encouraging investment in education, and creating a safety net for the poor. In the remainder of this article, I will explain how the FairTax can be a positive tool in the effort to make the U.S. more sustainable.
While some try to find ways to reduce their impact by changing lightbulbs, choosing better cars or using cloth bags, there are others of us on this planet who appear to be on a mission to single-handedly use up all the resources we’re trying to save via ridiculous consumption.
I had previously mused to some collegues about the potential impact of a single resident of my community, who owns this gigantic house, complete with Llamas and Emus. I had asked if it makes any sense for 100 people to conserve resources when one individual can so easily use up those resources himself. I certainly was not prepared for this news story, about the righest man in India, who is building himself a 60-story single-family house!
Steve Puma is a sustainability and strategy consultant, technologist and writer. He lives with his wife Cori and pug dog Miles in Northern California. More...
“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.” – Minority Opinion by Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor.
As a first-semester student in 
