Facing Down Corporate Power in Boulder

Thanks to my sister-in-law, Donna, for posting this wonderful story to facebook.  I guess it’s wonderful because it’s kind of inspiring to read of a successful response to exploitation and bullying by corporate power.  The story is about how the Boulder, Colorado community discovered that they could go green and lower their utility bills despite the extraordinary pushback from the monopoly electrical utility. 

But it is also a powerful case in point.  Money can buy power because, not only can it buy political access, it can (often) buy public opinion as well. There is a point made in this video that is a deeply held article of faith by every experienced activist:  The 99-percenters will never be able to match the spending of the corporations, their CEOs or their major stockholders – spending on lobbyists, pollsters, consultants and super pacs.  The only hope everbody-else has against that kind of power is numbers.  People have to get on the phone, collect signatures, use cheap social media, and stand in the heat or rain in spite of concerted efforts to keep them from voting.

The other demonstration certainly bears endless repeating:  Corporations are not people.  They are tools.  They are controlled by boards and major stockholders and their first duty – by the terms of their charter – is to their stockholders:  not to their customers and not to their employees.   It is a happy coincidence when the needs of the many match the needs and proclivities of a large corporation.  This mechanical, relentless efficiency toward a very narrow end (enriching the stockholders) makes corporations potentially very dangerous.  They must be taxed enough to cover the resources they exploit – including, for example, their employees who need to be healthy and educated, or the environmental degradation that needs to be rehabilitated.  They need to be regulated because the drive to profit is indifferent to considerations of collateral damage.

The most insidious threat to the public from corporate power – more so than threats to health and safety – is the concentration of money.  That is the same thing as a concentration of power.  Strength in numbers can overwhelm such power but only with vigilance, knowledge and supreme effort.  The bad news is that the rich are getting richer.