Democracy in the time of Corporate America
INTRODUCTION
Alexis de Tocqueville was a young French court official who came to the United States in 1831. De Tocqueville, along with his colleague Gustave de Beaumont, spent their time in the United States observing American democracy. On his return to France, de Tocqueville began to assemble a book made up of two volumes that documented his observations of American democracy. His volumes are highly valued by historians.
In our 11th grade American History class at Science Leadership Academy, we dived into de Tocqueville's volumes and examined the democracy he observed. After our exploration of his writing, we were prompted to create our own chapters exploring parts of our current day democracy inspired by de Tocqueville's work.
MODERN DAY DE TOCQUEVILLE CHAPTER
An exploration of corporate America and its influence on American democracy and government.
In the preface to Volume I of his work, Alexis de Tocqueville explained that in America the people appointed the legislative and executive powers and “are therefore the real directing power.” His work goes on to highlight different democratic values present in American society, like shared power, liberty, equality, justice, and people having a say in government. Later in his work, de Tocqueville wrote that “this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.”
“Democracy can only exist in a society in which no one is so rich as to be able to buy another and no one is so poor so as to have to sell himself.”
Jean Jacques Rousseau
De Tocqueville illustrated that democracy is a form of government for the people by the people, and is focused on equality. Unfortunately, The United States government does not always serve the people. The intrusion of large wealthy corporations into American government threatens equality and therefore democracy. Corporations have taken their massive amounts of money to gain themselves political and democratic advantages. They use systems set up to allow citizens a greater voice to gain more power for themselves. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote in his book Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy, “never in my life have I seen such a complex web of front groups sowing deliberate deceit to create public confusion about issues that should be clear. The corporate propaganda machinery is of unprecedented size and sophistication.” Corporate intrusion began decades ago, and corporations have found many ways to infiltrate the government, including political campaign donations, corporate lobbying, and more. These actions overpower everyday Americans’ voices in politics and democracy. Corporate lobbying drowns out smaller lobbying groups focused on issues like human rights because they can spend so much more money to influence laws and policies.
Throughout history, corporations have used parts of American government designed for the people to benefit themselves. The fourteenth amendment granted citizenship to all people born in America, including newly freed slaves. Yet of the 307 cases brought to the Supreme Court between 1890 and 1910, only 19 were brought by African Americans. The other 288 cases were brought by corporations. Corporations have also used the first amendment, which protects citizens’ rights to free speech, to gain more political freedom. In Citizens United v. FEC, corporations won the right to freely spend money opposing or supporting political candidates. One democratic senator said that “the Supreme Court has just predetermined the winners of next November’s election. It won’t be the Republican or the Democrats and it won’t be the American people; it will be corporate America.” Not only were they using protections for the people of the country, but by doing so they were taking away their voice in the government. In many of these cases, the Supreme Court has the power to shut down power plays made by corporations or allow them and essentially create them into law. As Senator Whitehouse brought up in his book, “the Court can change the very ground rules of democracy in favor of corporate interests.” A news segment by The Hill broke down how corporate America pushes justices who will favor them in cases onto the Supreme Court. The groups working to get nominees confirmed use their stance on social conservative issues like abortion to get politicians excited about them. In reality, they are pushing the nominee because they benefit corporate America. The Hill segment later points out that “oftentimes the areas where the liberal justices end up siding with the conservatives is also on corporate power.”
How do we, the American people, ensure our democracy while corporate America uses aspects of the government designed for us to gain power? As the film The Corporation pointed out, “the great problem of having corporate citizens is that they aren’t like the rest of us… they have no soul to save and they have no body to incarcerate.” One major weakness of corporations is their reliance on consumers. We can see examples today, in the case of Delta Airlines and Georgia’s new restrictive voting laws. When consumers put pressure on corporations, they have no choice but to respond. A Philadelphia Inquirer article highlights this in a recent article: “With their valuable brands under pressure from consumers in an increasingly diverse, progressive America, more corporations are taking stands on issues like LGBTQ rights, gun safety, or now voting rights.”
We can also prevent corporations from weaving “complex webs” by making it impossible for them to hide their actions. The new bill For the People Act/H.R.1. includes parts working to identify corporate money and also inhibit corporate influence. The bill states that it will “expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes.” One way that corporations are attempting to increase their power and influence in government is by changing campaign finance laws and making it harder for working-class and poor citizens to cast their ballots. The For the People Act also protects voters’ rights. Although large corporations are intruding on American government, many democratic values have not yet been lost. Our voices still have power, and therefore we must use them.