December 21, 2000:

Corporate Democracy; Civic Disrespect
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James K. Galbraith
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With the events of late in the year 2000, the United States left behind
constitutional republicanism, and turned to a different form of government.

It is not, however, a new form. It is, rather, a transplant, highly familiar
from a different arena of advanced capitalism.

This is corporate democracy. It is a system whereby a Board of Directors --
read Supreme Court -- selects the Chief Executive Officer. The CEO in turn
appoints new members of the Board. The shareholders, owners in title only,
are invited to cast their votes in periodic referenda. But their franchise
is only symbolic, for management holds a majority of the proxies. On no
important issue do the CEO and the Board ever permit themselves to lose.

The Supreme Court clarified this in a way that the Florida courts could not
have. The media have accepted it, for it is the form of government to which
they are already professionally accustomed. And the shameless attitude of
the George W. Bush high command merely illustrates, in unusually visible
fashion, the prevalent ethical system of corporate life.

Al Gore's concession speech was justly praised for grace and humor. It paid
due deference to the triumph of corporate political ethics, but did not
embrace them. It thus preserved Gore for another political day -- the
obvious intention. But Gore also sent an unmistakable message to American
democrats: Do not forget.

It was an important warning, for almost immediately forgetting became the
media order of the day. Overnight, it became almost un-American not to
accept the diktat of the Court. Or to be precise, Gore's own distinction
became holy writ: One might disagree with the Court, but not with the
legitimacy of its decision. Press references from that moment forward were
to President-elect Bush, an unofficial title and something that the Governor
from Texas (President-select? President-designate?) manifestly is not.

The key to dealing with the Bush people, however, is precisely not to accept
them. Like most Americans, I have nothing personal against Bush, Dick
Cheney, nor against Colin Powell and the others now surfacing as members of
the new administration. But I will not reconcile myself to them. They lost
the election. Then they arranged to obstruct the count of the vote. They
don't deserve to be there, and that changes everything. They have earned our
civic disrespect, and that is what we, the people, should accord them.

In social terms, civic disrespect means that the illegitimacy of this
administration must not be allowed to fade from view. The conventions of
politics remain: Bush will be president; Congress must work with him. But
those of us outside that process are not bound by those conventions, and to
the extent that we have a voice, we should use it.

In political practice, civic disrespect means drawing lines around the
freedom of maneuver of the incoming administration. In many areas, including
foreign policy, there will be few major changes; in others, such as annual
budgets and appropriations, compromises will have to be reached. But Bush
should be opposed on actions whose reach will extend beyond his actual term.

First, the new president should be allowed lifetime appointments only by
consensus. The public should oppose -- and 50 Senate Democrats should freely
block -- judicial nominations whenever they carry even the slightest
ideological taint. That may mean most of them, but no matter. And as for the
Supreme Court especially, vacancies need not be filled.

Second, the Democrats should advise Bush not to introduce any legislation to
cut or privatize any part of Social Security or Medicare.

Third, Democrats should furiously oppose elimination of the estate tax -- a
social incentive for recycling wealth to the non-profit sector, to
foundations and universities, that has had a uniquely powerful effect on the
form of American society. Once gone, this ingenious device will never be
reenacted.

Fourth, the people must unite to oppose the global dangers of National
Missile Defense -- a strategic nightmare on which Bush campaigned -- that
threatens for all time the security of us all.

Fifth, Congress should enact a New Voting Rights Act, targeted precisely at
the Florida abuses. This should stipulate: mandatory adoption of
best-practice technology in all federal elections; a 24-hour voting day; a
ban on private contractors to aid in purging voter rolls; and mandatory
immediate hand count of all under-votes in federal elections.

With those steps taken, Democrats must also recognize and adapt to the new
political landscape that emerged from this election. Outside of Florida,
Democrats are finished in the South. But they have excellent prospects of
consolidating a narrow majority of the Electoral College -- so long as, in
the next election, there is no Ralph Nader defection.

What can prevent such a thing? Only a move away from the main Clinton
compromises that so infuriated the progressive left. Nader's voters were
motivated passionately by issues like the drug war, the death penalty,
consumer protection and national missile defense -- issues where New
Democrats took Republican positions in their effort to woo the South.
Clinton the Southerner succeeded at this -- but against Republicans who were
only weakly "Southern" at best.

Gore, on the other hand, was principally a Northern candidate, strongly
backed by the core Democrats, who ran against, and defeated so far as
ballots were concerned, a wholly Southern Republican. Future Republicans
will almost surely also be "Southern," for that is where the base of the
party now lies. And future Democrats, if they are Northern candidates too,
can beat them -- all the more so if they bring the Greens back into the
Democratic fold.

In short, Al Gore's campaign proved that there is an electoral majority in
the United States for a government that is truly a progressive coalition,
and not merely an assemblage of sympathetic lawyers, professors and
investment bankers. Rather, Americans will elect a government that firmly
includes and effectively represents labor, women, minorities -- and Greens.
This is the government we must seek to elect -- if we get another chance.

And for that, the first task is to assure that the information ministries of
our new corporate republic do not successfully cast a fog of forgetting over
the crime that we have all just witnessed, with our own eyes.

This article will appear in the Texas Observer.


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Top Ten Ways Bush Could Die Before Inauguration #9: Trips on Gary Bauer
garden gnome and hits head.