Government – Of, By and For … Whom?

Between the 1970s and the millennium, the United States federal government forgot whom it was of, by and for. Instead of serving the citizen electorate, legislators have been the lackeys of the corporate “protectorate” with the loudest lobbies.

Surveys have shown that we know it. In 1964, only 29 percent of us believed that big, self-interested companies had major influence over our government. More than 60 percent of us held that cynical belief in 2000. Today, with reports that indicate our internal “axis of evil” consists of the unholy triumvirate of big finance (insurance and banking), big pharma and big oil, I’d guess that even more of us are true cynics than true believers in government of, by and for us.

I remember one of my former employer’s Human Resources department acting on principles of nurturing the company’s “human capital.” The company (in the Fortune 5 of its industry) thrived, grew, had zero debt and benefited from high creativity by its employees driving both product innovation and internal efficiency. In the 1990’s, consolidations began in that industry. The HR department ran conscientious outplacement programs to support the job transition of employees in downsized departments. Until 1993, outplacement assistance included job-search counseling and retraining. Then outplacement programs disappeared. Meanwhile, the layoffs and outsourcing have done nothing but increase. I escaped to a more nimble and forward-thinking industry. Today, no HR professional I know manages any program truly meant to benefit the company by protecting its investment in its human capital. The era of the corporate good citizen is over.

In Robert Reich’s latest book, Supercapitalism (see interview and review links below), you can find a thorough and readable analysis of the imbalance between our capitalist economy and the representative government that’s supposed to be “ours.” Since the 1970’s, as our instincts have told us all along, our economy as shifted. As competition has increased and been met with consolidations, the balancing institutions—labor unions, legislatures responsive to Main Street instead of Wall Street, and regulatory agencies—have declined. Wealth has increased, but narrowed instead of spread. It sure hasn’t trickled down.

As consumers we benefit from the market competition and technology, but as employees—and as citizens—we suffer. The Web lets us find the best bargains, so manufacturers are pressed to give us the most products at the lowest prices, and we end up with lead paint on our kids’ toys. That’s the only metaphor we really need to see the overall trend, isn’t it?

The Web also lets us express our demands to our legislators. What do we want? We want them to do the jobs we elected them for, not what industry lobbyists buy their agreement to do.

Right now, our federal legislators are distracted by a war founded in fraudulent claims, and funded by our tax dollars in a manner than enriches a few contracting companies while impoverishing our national infrastructure. We need to re-focus the legislators on the part of their job that involves the nation’s well-being – sound roads, good public schools, protection for employee unions, and a social safety-net for displaced workers. (Oh, and anti-terrorist security measures that really work, don’t just distract those of us boarding the planes from the absence of inspection down in the freight bays.) That social safety-net, in today’s and the future’s economic reality, must include a national healthcare program unrelated to one’s employment. And grants for skill upgrading and retraining would help keep us professionals “professional” in jobs that actually exist here.

Bottom line, as corporations think of it, it’s time for our government to be our government again. Our elected legislators must do the hard work of traditional “homeland security,” using the Fed’s regulatory power to maintain a balance between a healthy capitalism and robust societal institutions. We elect representatives to represent us – society’s best interests, regardless of the agendas of the industries with the highest war-chest contributions, the best lobby-treats, and the most persuasive B2C advertising (or stealthy product placement) campaigns.

We are not persuaded. We do expect our government to use its regulatory powers to regulate industries that have consolidated into near-monopolies, and dumped truly productive American professionals out of offices into the day labor pool, while creating billionaire hedge-fund managers who produced nothing but houses of cards that are about to collapse along with the housing mortgage market that’s not such a solid a hedge after all.

Let capitalism be capitalism. Let democracy be democracy. Our legislators’ job is to maintain balance for the citizens, the electorate who put them there. Let’s be our own lobby and remind them who their boss really is.

You can read a transcript of Reich’s MSNBC/Newsweek interview about Supercapitalism, or Forbes’ book review . Or both – in the name of fairness and balance.

Tags: Robert-Reich, supercapitalism

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Directors Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.