The first two essays were about corporations' pretenses of being ethical and of being socially responsible respectively by having programs bearing those names all the while their normal corporate behavior is unethical and socially irresponsible. This third and last essay in the series shines a brief "slime light" on all the rest of the charades corporations have in their bag of dirty tricks. They are, in this order; philanthropy, general counsel, governance, investor relations, public relations, advertising and marketing, customer relations and service, human resources and employee relations, and finally, the biggest charade of them all, corporate personhood.
Philanthropy
"Philanthrà ´pà a," to the ancient Greeks it meant "love
of humanity." Turning this ancient meaning on its head and vulgarizing it is
"corporate philanthropy." Its roots in
The most honorable form of giving may be anonymous giving that makes a positive difference, but there is nothing anonymous or positive about corporate giving. Corporations can't get their tax benefits if the government doesn't know they gave. And the public wouldn't know, which is, of course why corporations trumpet their philanthropy. They trumpet it as their benevolent gesture to society hoping it will mask their harmful and often deadly malevolence.
As a case in point, let's pull back the charade's curtain at Wal-Mart, one of the wealthiest corporations in the world that is also at or near the top of philanthropic giving. It hardly reflects a "love of humanity." Here is a sample of what can be read about this corporation's treatment of humanity: It threatens to shut down stores in areas where a living wage law might be passed; fires workers who strike for fair pay, decent working conditions, and respect at work; pays below poverty-level wages, forcing many employees to get state-funded health care and overall to collect a $2.6 billion in taxpayer-funded welfare annually; pressures employees to work overtime without pay or risk being fired; trains managers to falsify time sheets or not pay employees for all the hours they worked; forces higher-paid, full-time employees to work inconvenient shifts to get them to quit; buys from suppliers purring workers in sweatshops and deadly fire traps; quashes an internal investigation of a major bribery involving a foreign subsidiary; etc.; etc. In sum, "Wal-Mart," says Paul A. Samakow, an attorney, "is the poster child for despicable behavior" (Mr. Samakow is living proof that not all lawyers are unsavory). [1]
Wal-Mart would just as soon keep the curtain closed on another fact. It isn't about to tell the public that the corporation's giving is embarrassingly tiny considering its total assets (if my data and figuring are roughly accurate the percentage of corporate gifts to total assets is half a percentage point).
Before moving on to the next charade, I want to point out that the "non-profit industrial complex" could not exist without funding from corporate philanthropy or the tax exempt status of both that is given by our government. This complex is the corpocracy's clever way of moderating resistance to it and to making social reforms by the complex its own charade. I will have more to say about this complex, an off-spring of the Devil's Marriage between corrupt corporations and corrupt government in a separate essay sometime later.
General Counsel
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