[NOTE: And when I say "corporate," I mean it in the sense of "communally - all of us," I'm not talking about corporations/business entities.]
In an earlier post on environmental responsibility, Chance (Zoo Station, whose url is http://sadastronaut.blogspot.com/ - and why is that, Chance - Sad Astronaut?) made the following excellent comment:
Concerning the individual, we can sin due to lack of moderation, like drinking too much, eating too much, etc... On a global scale, this is more difficult, because now we must make decisions for other people. I am not saying we should avoid such collective decisions when environment is involved, but how we decide what is moral for other people? "Don't" morality is easy on the individual or collective level (don't kill, don't steal), but "moderation" morality is very difficult on the collective level.
I responded by saying:
An excellent point, Chance. And part of why I think these issues are so difficult for us to come to grips with.
We're all for personal responsibility (most of us) but when it comes to corporate responsibility, things get blurry.
The individual responsibly driving a car, for instance, does no serious damage. There's plenty of oil in the world for one person to drive and the environment can handle a certain amount of smoke.
BUT, can 2 Billion people all drive every day and not have a negative effect? No. And so, the individual is doing no real harm there, but the collective IS doing serious damage to the world. How do we create a sense of corporate responsibility?
One thought I'd have is to work to ensure that ACTUAL costs are reflected in our purchases which will, to some degree, allow the Market to help things (how about that?! A capitalist answer from me!).
It doesn't cost us $3/gallon to drive our cars at the rate we do. It costs $3/gallon PLUS the 3 million killed in auto wrecks, PLUS the 1 million killed by air pollution, PLUS the loss of clean streams, PLUS the loss of tourism dollars that result because of the dirty streams, PLUS the loss of clean air, PLUS the days lost from work due to the effects of dirty air and on and on and on...
Our gas prices are WAY artificially low. If they reflected actual costs, then people would drive less, consume less, pollute less corporately and individually.
And that would be a start.
What do you think - what steps can we take to encourage corporate responsibility?
12 comments:
Just for clarification here, Dan, by corporate you mean "the body of" and not in business entity sense?
Yes. I'll clarify in the essay.
I thought you made the way you were using "corporate" perfectly clear, Dan. I think we need corporate responsibility in both senses of the word "corporate."
Your solution would require public policy to "help" the market accurately reflect real costs in pricing. I think that's generally a good idea, but it will be VERY difficult to implement because of the free market fundamentalism of this nation's ruling ideology. The mantra (repeated by supposed capitalists who have never actually READ Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and digested the number of conditions he thought markets had to achieve before his famous "invisible hand" worked) is "government must keep its hands off the market." Until we can overcome that shibboleth, I don't see how we can implement reasonable solutions like yours.
And as critics of Adam Smith and of subsequent neo-classical economic theorists have rightly pointed out, the preconditions for economic development they propose are in reality neither linear nor universally applicable. Context and circumstances matter, the constraints and resources of individuals and institutions matter, and these suggest that we do not have a one-size-fits-all blueprint for better living through free market enterprise. Otherwise all you would need to have American style democratic governments worldwide would be to copy the US Constitution word for word and declare it the law of every land.
Dan, will point out a serious weaknes in the idea of pricing things to include their hidden costs.
What is the cash value of a stream that is polluted or the loss of an individual in an auto wreck? How do we determine that? If we lost Dan in a car wreck, he was worth $3657.28 and we must needs prorate that out in the cost of gasoline over his actuarial life had the wreck not taken place.
And what if we COULD come up with a cash value of all those things? What would happen? People with a lot of money would buy and sell them. A stream? Pocket change. I'll take four of them so I can do some polluting later as well. People getting killed in car wrecks? Here's a blank check, just fill in the amount when you've counted up the bodies.
The same thing happened when there was a cost added to air polluting industries. They bought and sold pollution 'indulgences' from each other and most of the pollution went on unabated.
There are, of course, great limitations in accurate pricing. It can't, in fact, be done in a near meaningful way.
But inasmuch as we DO buy and sell stuff and our economy is based on this notion, we ought to act as if there were some value there and include it somewhat in our figurin'.
But I'm open to other ways of encouraging responsibility if you've opinions (and you always do).
Well, seeing as how you've asked, this is what I think might be the tack to take:
From my point of view every time we try to legislate or even encuourage through legislation and imposition of prices the curtailment of consumption, it never works. You are probably aware of how the major auto makers built and sold a fleet of gas guzzling monsters during a time when CAFE standards were being imposed. All they had to do was buy the definition of 'average' and they could build and promote whatever they wished.
Our consumptive society is going over a cliff. I doubt it will slow down before it goes careening into the abyss. But the only solution is to laugh at it.
Yes, indeed. In an oil depletion story recently a real estate agent was interviewed who drove clients to see homes in a Hummer! Why? She said - to impress them. We've got to, collectively, corporately (grammatically and ecumincally) stop being impressed with such people and start laughing at them.
Not with them, at them.
Overconsumers should be the butt of ridicule. Overly large houses, cutting a 10' x 12' lawn with large lawn tractor, commuting to work 60 miles in a truck with such huge and stupid tires you need a step-ladder to get into the driver's seat, a fast food meal with the two burgers per steer and 55 gallon drum of soda ... all such excesses should cease to be admired and instead become the richest source of our humor.
Along of that, idleness and non-productivity, the flip side of the question, should likewise be held in scorn. When people are exchanging what they do for their livelihood and someone says, "I'm the coordinator of peace awareness intervention facilitating ..." there should be stiffled chuckles as if the person were wearing a pink poka-dot clown suit and expecting to be taken seriously.
Likewise, there should be awe and reverence for productivity and simple living. When someone is asked if they want to meet their coworkers 20 miles away for lunch and the response is, "No thanks, I walked to work, and I'll be having this plain brown bread and apple for lunch ... and water ... tap water", there should be the same sort of sucking in of breath and wide eyedness that is now resreved for those who drive the new Lexus to work.
Laughter is contageous. It need only start with a snigger and chuckle here and there. What's so funny!? That house [chuckle], it must be, what, 6000 square feet [chortle], for.... [snigger] for two people. Ha. What sort of self important Bozo thinks he needs a personal palace. Hee hee.
Spontaneous chuckles when a Lexus drives by, a belly laugh for the clowns in oversized climate controlled offices shuffling papers from one side of the desk to the other, hyserical cackling at the notion of driving 60 miles to work.
Just a shift in our humor paradigm. I find it funny anyway.
So, how many ostentatiously rich people DOES it take to screw in a light bulb...?
[None. That's what the hired help is for, dahling...]
But seriously, not a bad idea at all, E. And my tribe will gladly take part in the mocking of overconsumption, even when it mocking us at times.
But would you mind if some of us didn't leave it at just a good taunting?
We are, for instance, creating policy already that has impacts. We can create policy and rules that either allow or disallow throwing garbage in one's neighbor's yard (stream, air). I'd vote for disallowing it.
If we're going to have policy anyway, why not have policy that is at least pointed in the right direction rather than the wrong?
To be sure, Dan, "we all want to see the plan."
But policy is a thorny and treacherous thing. Concerning, one of the present elements of your post, pollution: At one time there were few environmental laws, however the courts were very active with civil suits concerning land use and misuse. A facility fouling it's neighbors' air, water, or land was libel to every one of them in court and historically the courts were NOT on the side of the polluters.
Then come the well meaning environmental laws and policies that purport to act on behalf of all victims of pollution as a single standing. Now all the polluter has to do is win (or bribe, or steal, or have legislated on his behalf) one time in court and all other plaintifs lose their standing.
Don't get me wrong, good policies have done a great deal of good. A lake near here (walking distance) used to be so foul that one durst not eat the fish. Here a quarter century later, you can just about drink the water.
But in our rush for policy, individual standing was greatly weakened and in many cases this gives the polluter free license.
Ah, so we do agree on this in principle, you're just cautious in the details.
Fair enough. I've no great belief in the efficacy of the gov't to accomplish stuff, just think that we ought to start with the dictum, "Do no harm."
The term "sad astronaut" is a reference to U2's album Zooropa, which is also my current profile pic. On the cover there is a little crude drawing of a smiley face in an astronaut helmet. The mystery is revealed!
I forgot that I had not commented on this post, and it will probably be a little bit longer, as I just did this really long post on my blog, and now I have to eat. I am sure you are anxiously awaiting my wit and wisdom though :)
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