Why Not Democracy for Corporations

What's the deal with wondering what can be done about corporate excess? Occupy Wall Street protesters are getting slammed for supposedly having no solutions, but there are plenty.

Tax computer-generated trades. Abolish subprime mortgages. De-regulate shareholder lawsuits. End corporate tax loopholes. Encourage employee ownership. Punish exporting jobs. And how about nominating a Supreme Court that doesn't equate corporate dollars with free speech for the purpose of legalizing bribery?

Decades of politicians giving corporations every imaginable thing they wanted provides a litany of particulars for reform. Just because protesters are focused on identifying the problem doesn't mean that there aren't solutions to talk about.

Craig blogs daily at Trail Mix on craigcrawford.com

 

 

 

 

 

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Comments

[Rob Roday]

10:44 AM on 10/07/2011

Great place to start Craig. Thanks for the list.!!!!!!

[ocatty]

01:02 AM on 10/07/2011

One parenthetical thought: As far as I'm concerned the #1 key to reigning in Wall Street is for customarily feckless Democrats to once and for all explain to the electorate in the simplest terms just how obvious it is that the Republican Party is beholden to Wall Street and that Republican congressmen and women are bought and paid for by their Wall Street puppet masters. Such as TV ads that ask questions like: Would you rather have a Democratic Congress and keep your Social Security and Medicare benefits? Or would you rather elect more Republicans so you can relinquish those benefits in return for the privilege of helping the super wealthy become wealthier?
BTW, while we're at it, can someone go to the nearest bar and explain to John Boehner that the "Buffett Rule" is named for Warren, not Jimmy?

[ocatty]

12:52 AM on 10/07/2011

A couple of other suggestions: (1) Revive our long dormant antitrust laws and enforce them for a change. For example, banks might be a bit more reluctant to impose new fees if they were busted up into 40 medium sized banks instead of 4 "too big to fail" behemoths. (2) Democratic presidents have to stop appointing centrists to the Supreme Court and instead appoint honest to goodness liberals to counterbalance the right wing extremists on the court.. Four 40 years now, every Republican president has tried to appoint the most extreme right wing idealogues he could find to the high court, while Democratic presidents during this period (Clinton and Obama) have invariably been satisfied to appoint moderates. (Unfortunately, no vacancies arose while Jimmy Carter was in the White House. I say "unfortunately" because he had a wonderful track record of appointing real liberals to the federal intermediate appellate courts.) When the Supreme Court is comprised of four right wing idealogues, one staunch conservative (Kennedy), and four moderates, what kind of decisions do you expect?

[bg66astoria]

09:17 PM on 10/06/2011

We need to emulate the EU and others and have non-executive employee board members as well as input from customers and the communities that the corporations "serve." Germany & Norway have nationally-mandated diverse boards of directors.

In the U.S., shareholder control was ebbing even before the movie "Solid Gold Cadillac" was filmed and released. Since the 80s exec-friendly & crony capitalism/interlocking boards have become ubiquitous, if not the rule.

[lckayaker]

08:57 PM on 10/06/2011

"Why Not Democracy for Corporations" Well, duh, it is a form of democracy. Buy shares, get votes. Have not shares, can't vote. Sorta the same principle that disallows Frenchmen from voting for American presidents.

Who holds the most subprime mortgages? Try the Fannies - Mac & Mae - owned in reality by the federal government.

End corporate tax loopholes - absolutely. AND end private citizen loopholes ala the mortgage interest deduction.

Encourage employee ownership - absolutely. AND hold employee owners responsible ala the Enron fiasco where employees "believed" that their investment would double every year.

[Lane Campbell]

01:42 AM on 10/07/2011

Right on. Corporate governance is surprisingly like political governance. It's no better than the quality and involvement of the voting stakeholders.

[LibertyQuotient]

08:31 PM on 10/06/2011

Mr. Crawford, there are plenty of solutions all wrapped up in "two-fisted democracy power," a way to achieve sweeping political, legislative, judicial, and economic reforms.

Gary brumback
www.uschamberofdemocracy.com

[LibertyQuotient]

08:29 PM on 10/06/2011

Mr. Crawford, American corporations will be the last entities on earth to embrace democracy as a principle for the way they organize their work and manage their workforces. Go to my blog site and read my free book about the Corpocracy and the Megaliio Corporation's Turn Up Strategy. Megalliio is a fictitious corporation because there is none like it in reality. Megaliio depicts what a truly democratic corporation would look like and operate.

Gary Brumback
www.democracypowernow.blogspott.com

[The Ben Bernanke]

08:51 PM on 10/06/2011

your link doesn't work

[polidoc]

11:01 PM on 10/06/2011

one too many teas.... try www.democracypowernow.blogspot.com

[LibertyQuotient]

06:11 PM on 10/12/2011

Too many t's. Try democracypowernow.blogspot.com Also C www.uschamberofdemocracy.com and consider signing the petition. TY