We hear it so often: Big corporations determine, through their massive financial and
political power, virtually everything the government does or does not do. As a result, the rich only get richer while
the majority of us are progressively worse off, true democracy in America is a
chimera, and our country as the “City on the Hill” is but a memory of either what
once was or could have been, depending on your politics.
Because of the power the big banks and other greedy corporations
wield, millions of hard-working Americans cannot find a job, millions have lost
their homes, and even more millions can’t afford health care. All of this against a backdrop of record
multi-billion dollar profits for the corporations, with compensation for top
executives running into the tens of millions annually, in no small part made
possible by government subsidies and bailouts.
Just this week, $27 million – minimum guaranteed - over three years for
a Padres player I’ve never even heard of. (Yep, pro sports in America is nothing if not
Big Business).
Big Business defeats legislative changes that would
give us healthier food, more fuel efficient cars, affordable health care, fewer
Columbines and Auroras, and a decent living wage. It promotes income inequality and social division,
crass materialism, and devalues true art for art’s sake. Big corporations have ruined America, and
most of us – the little guys and gals – are merely powerless pawns, manipulated
for their greater aggrandizement.
Sort of.
Big corporations DO have way too much power over America
and its people, and their endless search for greater earnings, at almost any
cost, disgusts me. But I disagree with
the implicit message that commonly follows this type of thinking: That (1) it’s the corporations’ fault (not
ours), and that (2) there’s not much the little guy can do about it.
Look – businesses exist to make profits, and they do
so by convincing us to give them their money.
It’s OUR job to be careful with our money, to say “No!” to business more
often than not. I have a big problem
accepting that it is our lot in life to pay $200 a month so we can chat
and text endlessly on our cell phones day and night. I reject the premise that somebody forced
Americans to buy bigger, more expensive cars and houses than they need or can
afford. I call bullshit on the claim that
people don’t have time to fix a decent cup of coffee in the morning or to cook,
and therefore they’re forced to spend $4 on a Starbucks Vente Mocha each
morning and eat fast food crap for lunch and dinner. I don’t understand why they have to buy
designer jeans or handbags or polo shirts and whatnot at prices 2 or 3 or 10
times higher than what a perfectly serviceable generic substitute would
cost. I say it’s just plain stupid that
the average American household has zero savings and an average $16,000 in credit
card debt, as a result of decisions such as these.
How in the hell did Americans get so gullible, so
ignorant? When and why did we abrogate
our responsibility to spend wisely, to say “No!” to spending decisions that
people 50 years ago would never dreamed of making, to limit corporations’
ability to take advantage of us?
Decisions like those have played a key role in allowing
Big Business to become so powerful.
Verizon and Cadillac and Starbucks and Donald Trump and Nordstroms and
McDonalds wouldn’t be nearly so large, not nearly so powerful, if we
hadn’t voluntarily opened our wallets and invited them to take whatever they want. Even on the lower end, WalMart – the world’s
largest corporation – has prospered not by selling us higher-quality (and priced)
goods than we need, but have become immensely powerful by selling us a greater
quantity of goods than what we really
need. So it’s our endless search for more and better controlling us that has given power and money to Big
Business.
This is not to give the businesses themselves – and our
political leaders – a pass. Shameless
advertising tactics that appeal to our baser emotions have been perfected over
the years. Predatory business practices
have similarly been improved, to great effect.
Investors have focused more and more on short-term profits rather than ethical
actions and long-term value. Meanwhile, governments on all levels have allowed
big corporations to flourish via a number of active means: subsidies, bailouts,
bribes, waivers, as well as passively by failing to pass and enforce legislation
that might better control business excesses.
But the buck stops, or should stop, with the
individual – with us. We’re the ones who
should and can have the power. Not in
every case, of course, but to a great enough degree to not be mere pawns, jerked
around by the corporations. Why aren’t we the ones who are jerking them around? This takes us to my second main point of the
essay.
Putting it into a first-person perspective, my wife
and I are regular old, middle-class folks.
We don’t come from a privileged background; never had high-paying jobs
(OK – there were a few pretty good years when we had business careers a long
time ago). Yet as people of modest
means, we live really good lives. And we
don’t feel at all like Big Business’s helpless bitches. In fact, we take advantage of what the big
corporations offer, so it’s more like we're the boss of them. I realize that what follows is going to sound
like bragging, but it’s the way to make a point, so bear with me.
Our 3-bedroom
house in a decent neighborhood will be paid off in 3 years. We both own vehicles made in 2012; both cost only
about $20,000 but are great cars. There's nobody we need to impress by driving a $50,000 Lexus or Escalade. We
play (and win) the car dealers’ own weekend ad game every time we buy, and we get
sweet deals as a result. One car is paid
off, we owe about half on the other one.
I love hunting, fishing, and surfing, so I own over
a dozen nice guns, about 15 fishing rods/reels, and half a dozen boards;
something for every type of hunting, fishing, surfing. Plus all the necessary gear to go along with
those things. They’re $600 guns with
$200 scopes, though, not $2500 guns with $1000 glass; $250 rods/reels, not $700
ones. I make the boards myself for $250-$300,
rather than spend $600-$1500 for them.
But they all look good and work just fine; just as good as the big ticket
guns/poles/boards. I go on one or two out of state hunting trips and a few tuna
fishing trips each year, along with occasional salmon or trout fishing trips
and surfing just about every weekend (neck problems permitting).
Apart from those trips, though, we enjoy traveling,
so each year we go to Europe or Asia or Hawaii or whatever for a few
weeks. We usually fly Business or First class, paying little
for airfare and for about half of our hotel rooms, using frequent flier miles to
get those. The miles come from paying
for virtually everything on credit cards, which cost us basically nothing since
we pay off our entire bill each month. Thank
you airlines, hotel chains, big banks, and credit card companies!
We both enjoy good food, so we both cook: chicken,
ribs, seafood, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, whatever. Almost everything is made from scratch, using
natural, raw ingredients. Following
doctor’s orders, we usually have a glass of red wine with dinner; often as not,
“2 buck Chuck”. We used to be big wine
snobs, but not anymore; we just can’t tell much difference between Chuck and a
$30 bottle. We rarely eat out, not only
because the cost is ridiculous, but because the food usually just isn’t better
than what we fix at home. Morning coffee
comes from a can of Yuban and a pint of half-and-half at home, not from a trip
to Starbucks or 7-11. We eat VERY well,
and in ways that don’t add much to corporate bottom lines.
My jeans come from WalMart or K-Fart, and cost $10
or $12, or from thrift stores and garage sales, which is where my wife buys a
lot of my shirts for $2 or $3. Ditto for
her clothes; when she was in the business world, most of her $200-$300 suits
were from those places and cost $20 or $30.
But you couldn’t tell; they looked professional and good as new.
We’ve got 2 flat-screen TVs, a good sound system, 3
laptops and 1 desktop computers, nice artwork around the house, a 3-piece
leather sofa set, an antique oak dining table and China cabinet – you get the idea.
And
almost no debt.
In fact, other than 3 years of remaining house payments and about $10,000 on one
car, we have no debt whatsoever. What we
do have though, are healthy savings accounts, along with even healthier
personal retirement accounts. If either
of us were to die, if I were to lose my job tomorrow, if I never got a dime
from my pension or Social Security – our lives wouldn’t change much financially.
We’ve been lucky.
Despite family tragedies and some bad career moves, we haven’t had any
financial, health, or legal disasters – thank God. But mostly – mostly we’re in the rather
comfortable situation we’re in because (geez, how do I say this tactfully?) we’re not f#@*ing idiots. We didn’t spend more than we earned, we didn’t
fall for all the marketing hype, we didn’t care much about keeping up with the
Joneses or impressing the Smiths, and we saw the corporate world as worthy adversaries, capable of
benefiting us if approached wisely. Please understand - I'm happy, even proud - to be in this situation. But the point is not to brag, but to show how one has a choice, how a regular person doesn't need to be a pawn at the mercy of big business. If we could do it, so can most other Americans.
So I reject the “poor me!” mentality that says the
big corporations run the world and the little guy can’t get ahead. Maybe they run it and maybe they don’t; if
they do, then the typical American and their foolish decisions over the last four
decades are a big part of why that’s the case.
But it almost doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned. I can’t do much about the international
implications of our military-industrial complex - granted. Big corporations CAN have more power and influence than we'd like in some cases. In my little corner of the world though, we’ve
managed to eke out a sweet life in spite of, because of, or whatever of, Big
Business. And that’s not so bad.
