[Corporations used the “crying wolf” strategy to claim that
raising the minimum wage would harm the poor, that Social Security was
a slippery slope towards socialism, and that the government has gone
“too far” in regulating carbon emissions.]
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CORPORATE AMERICA’S BIG LIE: WHAT’S GOOD FOR US IS GOOD FOR THE
COUNTRY  
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Kelly Candaele
January 2, 2024
Capital & Main
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_ Corporations used the “crying wolf” strategy to claim that
raising the minimum wage would harm the poor, that Social Security was
a slippery slope towards socialism, and that the government has gone
“too far” in regulating carbon emissions. _

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THERE ARE A NUMBER of narratives that exist about corporations. One
is that they are essential for accumulating and deploying capital and
workers in ways that increase productivity, efficiency and, therefore,
the wealth of our country. An alternative view is that corporate power
has despoiled the environment, exploited workers and overpowered our
political system. In their book _Corporate Bullsh*t,_ authors Nick
Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen explore the outright lies and
half-truths that corporations have deployed to convince Americans that
what’s good for corporate America is also good for the country.

Through case studies and hundreds of quotes from corporate executives
and their apologists, the authors demonstrate the lengths to which
corporations have gone to shape how the public views economics, public
policy, labor unions and the future of our environment. In one case
study on civil rights, they remind us of how discrimination against
Black Americans was justified by arguments that the “free market”
would end discriminatory practices more effectively than “government
meddling.” “I will have nothing to do with a law that will destroy
our free enterprise system,” Alabama Gov. George Wallace said in
1964 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Hanauer, Walsh and Cohen show how corporations and their allies used
the “crying wolf” strategy to claim that raising the minimum wage
would harm the poor, that Social Security was a slippery slope towards
socialism, and that the government has gone “too far” in
regulating carbon emissions. “Let’s face it; the science of
climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could
plunge economies into turmoil,” an Exxon executive declared in a
1997 ad
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the _New York Times_.

The authors don’t offer a comprehensive plan for combating corporate
propaganda, but they do have some common sense advice: Expose those
who fund right-wing messaging, push back in whatever way we can, and
urge progressives to shape and deliver our own compelling stories.

Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for _The Nation_ magazine,
spoke to Capital & Main from her home in New York. Cohen, founder and
executive director of the policy center In the Public Interest
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his home in Los Angeles.

_This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity._

CAPITAL & MAIN: THE BOOK EXPLORES HOW CORPORATIONS ATTEMPT TO SHAPE
THE NARRATIVE ABOUT HOW AMERICANS SHOULD VIEW THE ECONOMY, PUBLIC
POLICY AND EVEN MORALITY. TALK ABOUT THAT. 

Joan Walsh. Photo by Mindy Tucker.

JOAN WALSH: Coming out of the Depression and World War II, our
government, including corporate leaders, made a commitment to building
a middle class that was going to keep us from the catastrophes of
depression, or fascism or communism. This was a broadly shared
project. 

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, that was rolled back by a very
interesting consortium of right-wing leaders as well as corporate
leaders who felt that the county had moved too far left. Feminism was
going to ruin the family. Civil rights was going to ruin everything.
Taxation was hurting the “job makers.” I think we had a story and
then we lost the story. For the last 10 or 15 years, we’ve been
scrambling to get back what the progressive narrative might be.

DONALD COHEN: They have been telling the same story forever, even
going back to slavery. But in the 1970s it became a united project
that was much more organized [and] which took on the form of a
backlash. We go back and point out some of the arguments that were
made: Child labor is good for families. Banning lead will kill jobs.
What changed more recently is that corporations weaponized this
playbook in a more aggressive way. 

ONE OF YOUR CASE STUDIES EXAMINES HOW THE MINIMUM WAGE GETS DEBATED
EVERY TIME A POTENTIAL INCREASE IN IT COMES UP. TALK ABOUT THAT
DEBATE. 

Donald Cohen. Photo by Leighton Woodhouse.

COHEN: Every time this comes up, corporations argue that increasing
the minimum wage will hurt young people, hurt the poor, destroy small
businesses — and it’s complete nonsense. We have the most
significant concentration of wealth and power we’ve seen in a long
time, and those who are benefiting are saying that paying people more
will hurt them. They have said the same thing about minimum wage since
the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
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Every time the minimum wage has increased, the world has not come to
an end. Black Americans who get an increase do better, teenagers who
gain an increase do better. Every legitimate study reaches that
conclusion. 

WALSH: I think the important impact of the opposition to raising
minimum wages is to scare people from acting collectively in asking
for a raise or from joining a union. They are saying implicitly that
we have to depend upon the kindness of these capitalists to secure our
well-being. 

THOSE ON THE LEFT HAVE ADVOCATED NUMEROUS STRATEGIES TO CONTROL OR
COMBAT CORPORATIONS. NATIONALIZATION HAS BEEN A STRATEGY, SOME FORM OF
ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN ADVOCATED, AND SO-CALLED TRUST-BUSTING HAS
BEEN USED IN THE PAST AND IS BACK TODAY. WE HAVE TO BREAK UP THESE
MASSIVE CONCENTRATIONS OF POWER. WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES NOW?

WALSH: I’m incredibly heartened by the rise of unionism. Young
people, middle-aged people and older people are joining a union or, in
the case of actors, writers and auto workers and also teaching
assistants, deciding that collective action is going to help them. I
am a progressive Democrat, but the Democrats threw in their lot with
Wall Street and to some extent they threw their lot in with the
technology sector and are now trying to figure out how we regulate
this. How do we keep it from stealing jobs and stealing identities and
everything else? The labor movement has gotten a lot stronger, and I
love seeing that.

THERE ARE PERIODS IN OUR HISTORY WHERE LABOR STRUGGLES MORE OR LESS
CRYSTALIZE THE NATURE OF POWER IN SOCIETY. THE RAILWAY STRIKE OF 1894
CULMINATED IN A CONSOLIDATION OF CORPORATE POWER. THE UAW SIT-DOWN
STRIKES OF 1937 PUNCTURED CORPORATE POWER. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
PROFESSIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS BY PRESIDENT REAGAN IN 1981 WAS
AN OPENING TO RIGHT-WING AND BUSINESS ATTACKS ON LABOR. WHAT WILL BE
THE IMPACT OF THE UAW VICTORY, THE POSITIVE UPS NEGOTIATIONS, THE
WRITERS GUILD VICTORY AND SO ON? 

COHEN: The larger context of all of this is that neoliberalism is a
failed project. Inequality is greater than ever. Concentration of
wealth is greater than ever. There’s something desperately wrong.
The union struggles are where capital and labor come together and hit
the ground. We’re seeing some doubt about neoliberalism play out in
the Biden administration. We are now having serious discussions about
industrial policy. We’ve had massive infusions of public funding
into rebuilding manufacturing and rebuilding our infrastructure and to
greening the country. 

There are debates about whether neoliberalism is dead or not but
it’s definitely in trouble. We have to reframe the relationship
between the market and the public in a different way. Some of this is
happening now in the Federal Trade Commission and the Environmental
Protection Agency, but the question is will this last ideologically. 

YOU WRITE ABOUT THE FEAR OF CHANGE AND HOW THIS FEAR UNDERLIES MUCH OF
WHAT CORPORATE AMERICA USES TO JUSTIFY THEIR ADVOCACY. THERE IS A
PARALYSIS THAT COMES FROM THIS, AND THEN CHANGE GETS IMPOSED UPON US
RATHER THAN THE PUBLIC DIRECTING IT. 

COHEN: One of the things that is key is that corporations have
convinced us — more like coerced us — into paying for things that
used to be free. A classic example is the Fast Pass on the freeway so
a driver can move while everyone else is stuck in traffic. And with
airlines paying for a seat closer to the front of the plane or with a
few extra inches of leg room. The more we pay for things the more we
get used to it. When everything becomes a commodity, like health care
or water, it just becomes the way we think things are.  

THERE IS A CULTURAL ASPECT TO THE CORPORATION AS WELL. IT SEEMS THAT
THE CELL PHONE HAS HAD A VERY DESTABILIZING IMPACT, PARTICULARLY ON
YOUNG PEOPLE, EVEN AFFECTING THEIR PERSONALITIES. THIS IS ABOUT
CORPORATIONS IMPACTING OUR CULTURE, IS IT NOT? 

WALSH: We looked at the Facebook revelations over the years, and
Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg would say, “We would never do
anything to intentionally inflict harm, and we want to promote
positive change.” And then you find out that they actually had
studies showing that Facebook and Instagram had algorithms they were
using to surface new messages, especially to young women, that were
harming their self-esteem. 

It read to us like the case study on tobacco where the tobacco
companies start by saying, “There’s no problem here. Nicotine
isn’t addictive,” and then you go down the road and they say,
“Well, if you are still smoking, we told you it could kill you, so
that’s your fault, and if you’re still letting your daughters go
on social media, that’s your problem.” I think there is something
very American about all the ways these stories play out in which we
become the bad guys. So first it is not a problem, then it is a
problem but it’s your fault. 

COHEN: Corporations do one thing: They sell stuff. And they want to
sell as much as possible and make as much profit as possible. They
want to make sure things don’t get in their way. In terms of their
social media, they use sophisticated neuro-scientific research to
figure out how to hook us. It’s using sophisticated science to get
us addicted to things. They want to sell advertising and they want to
sell our data. This stuff is deeply embedded, and it happens to be
incredibly convenient for those that want to make a lot of money.

YOU HAVE A CHAPTER ON CIVIL RIGHTS. WHAT IS THE HISTORICAL
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE CORPORATION?

WALSH: One of the things that was so fascinating was the way Southern
segregationists used the free market to defend segregation. They said,
“We want to protect the free market and since even you guys in the
North do too, then you should not violate our free-market rights and
tell us who we have to serve at our lunch counters.” Gov. Wallace
defended everything by saying bringing civil rights to the South was
the intervention of the government against the free market system. And
that idea has persisted to today. 

When Sen. Rand Paul ran for president, he argued that the Civil Rights
Act shouldn’t apply to private businesses because the free market
would have put those discriminating businesses out of business if
they’d kept it up. In reality, the free-market system put the people
who tried to integrate their restaurants or clothing stores out of
business. 

CORPORATIONS HAVE ATTEMPTED TO TRANSFORM THEIR IMAGE AS BEING
ACCEPTING OF ALL PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF RACE, COLOR, CREED, GENDER OR
SEXUAL ORIENTATION. DESPITE THIS CULTURAL MAKEOVER, WHAT’S YOUR
SENSE OF THEIR WILLINGNESS TO MAKE A DEAL AS THEY HAVE DONE
HISTORICALLY, WITH SOME FORM OF NEOFASCISM?

COHEN: I think brand-facing corporations are having a tough time
right now. How do they deal with the far right who are going after
them for “woke” stuff? I’m wondering if there is a potential
deal to be done with progressives. But the fact that they are not up
in arms right now about what seems to be Trump’s clear fascist
intentions about what he would do if he were reelected is an
indication that they are willing to go along. We are no longer just
imagining fascism — we can now see it objectively visualized. 

WALSH: One of the Home Depot founders just decided to go with Trump.
Every day you see some new Republican or corporate donor deciding to
get back on board with Trump. So that is terrifying. At the same time,
I think that our people get discouraged easily. People are frightened
by what they’re seeing with the threats of violence and so on. 

But there is also a history of how we have succeeded over time. We got
lead out of gasoline. We essentially don’t have child labor although
some people are trying to bring it back. I don’t think corporate
diversity, equity and inclusion programs are going to save us. We
knock corporations down and they get up again. But we get knocked down
and we get up again too. 

COHEN: Joan is right. We have to acknowledge the things we have
accomplished, however messy they have been. There has been a century
of passing good laws: minimum wage, Social Security, Medicare, the
Clean Air Act, OSHA, the Clean Water Act, the Affordable Care Act.
We’ve fought for and seen a lot of progress. 

_Kelly Candaele is a filmmaker, journalist and former trustee of the
Los Angeles Community College District, and was a union organizer for
15 years. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times,
the Nation, the Guardian and the American Prospect._

_Capital & Main is an award-winning nonprofit publication that reports
from California on the most pressing economic, environmental and
social issues of our time.  Winner of the 2016 Online Journalist of
the Year prize from the Southern California Journalism Awards and a
2017 Best in the West award, Capital & Main has had
stories co-published in more than 30 media outlets, from The
Atlantic, Time, Reuters, The Guardian and Fast Company to The
American Prospect, Grist, Slate and the Daily Beast. Working with
top writers, editors and visual artists, we cover income inequality,
climate change, the green economy, housing, health care, public
education, immigration, race, and criminal justice. Capital & Main is
a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization._

* corporate power
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* Social Security
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* Minimum Wage
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* Civil Rights
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* carbon emissions
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