Corporate Governance and Political Activism: The Case of Ben & Jerry's

When a company’s management decides to take a partisan position publicly on a political issue, especially one that is contentious, decreased revenue, whether from potential or actual consumers individually who disagree with the company’s position, or from an organized boycott from groups that stand against the position. Anger may be a stronger motivator than ideological agreement, in which case any increase in purchases would be less than the lost revenue. This asymmetry itself is interesting from the standpoint of human nature, and strongly suggests that CEO’s steer their respective companies, which managements operate on behalf of the stockholders anyway, away from taking controversial positions on social or political issues that do not directly and significantly pertain to the bottom-line (i.e., profitability) in the short- or medium-term. In short, wading into societal issues is, generally speaking, not good for business. What then about a company like the ice-cream manufacturer, Ben & Jerry’s, which from its inception had social/political activism as a salient part of the company’s mission?

The full essay is at "Corporate Governance and Political Activism."

Euroskeptic Federalism: Obstructing the E.U.'s Recognition of Palestine

Just because U.S. federalism deposits foreign policy exclusively with governmental institutions at the federal level does not mean that that domain cannot be shared between state and federal governments in a federal system. This was precisely the case in the E.U. as it struggled to come up with a unified response to Israel having ignored the verdict of the World Court—the UN’s court—ordering Israel to cease and decease from invading Rafah from May 24, 2024 onward. Meanwhile, two of the E.U.’s states were poised to recognize Palestine. Such emphasis on the state governments playing the leading role is fraught with difficulties even though in theory there is on reason why foreign policy cannot be a competency, or domain, that is shared at the state and federal “levels.” In federalism, the federal and state governmental systems are on par, rather than one of the governmental systems being above the other, so “levels” is misleading. Even so, a lot can be said for delegating foreign policy to the federal level. This can be seen from the state and federal reactions in the E.U. as Israel continued its invasion of Rafah just after the World Court had ruled that Israel would be violating international law and the UN’s charter in continuing the offensive.

The full essay is at "The E.U. on Israel."

On the Impotency of International Law in a System of Sovereign States: The Case of Gaza

The sheer brazenness with which countries ironically recognized as being sovereign states by international law ignore international law even in regard to human rights that seeks to place boundaries on said sovereignty reflects the impotency of international law, and thus even that which recognizes national sovereignty itself. For the rest of us, continuing to believe that upcoming cases before the International Court of Justice, the UN’s court, are of consequence and thus even worth paying attention to, demonstrates abject stupidity, as if we were herd animals without learning curves. Admittedly, the stubborn, self-aggrandizing governments are ethically worse than the world’s population that lets such governments blatantly and even explicitly ignore judicial rulings of the International Court of Justice (and the European Court of Human Rights), but culpability can also be gleamed from the public’s truly pathetic irrational belief that another case against a country that has just ignored a verdict of that very court might just work in curtailing human-rights abuses and outright, even genocide-scale, aggression that outstrips even the sin of retaliation. Either I am blind or the proverbial emperor is not wearing any clothes.

The full essay is at "On the Impotency of International Law."

The U.S. Supreme Court: Free Speech Trumps Public Accommodations Law

I contend as a matter of reasoned opinion rather than infallible fact that the Free Speech protection in the U.S. Constitution applies to not only human beings, rather than to non-human legal “persons” (e.g., corporations), but also to speech where the purpose is speech rather than something else. I have written elsewhere on the mistake in treating corporations as if they were human beings, so I treat only the second claim here. I reference the first claim only as context for my broader claim that the U.S. Supreme Court has tended to over-extend applications of the free-speech clause not only beyond its original intent, but also common sense. The latter violation is particularly astonishing. 

The full essay is at "Free Speech and Public-Accommodations Law"

Is Blogging a Marxist Activity?

In writing posts on a blog, is a blogger alienated, or estranged, from his or her own labor and the product (i.e., the posts)? If not, would Karl Marx say that both the blogging activity and any resulting content exemplify his ideal? In short, are bloggers de facto Marxists? Or are we entrepreneurs better suited to Capitalism? In this respect, we can distinguish the free-standing blogger from the blogger who works on a blog owned by a company (i.e., others). In answering these questions, I look first at Marx’s criticism of labor that is alienated from the worker. Marx argues that a worker laboring on another’s product is estranged from both the worker’s own labor and the product. In both respects, clues of the sort of labor that Marx advocates can be found. From these inferences, I turn to Marx’s positive characterization of labor that is natural for the sapiens species, drawing also on Maslow, Locke, and the erasable Nietzsche for additional support.

The full essay is at "Blogging from a Marxist Perspective."

The U.S. Military in Iraq: Were Human Rights Ignored?

Philip Alston, a United Nations human rights official, warned the U.S. Government in 2006 that he had received information indicating that Iraqi reports of American troops executing an Iraqi family were true. Five of the victims were children five years old or younger. According to Alston, the troops “entered the house [after a 25 minute gun battle], handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” He noted that the troops attacked the house in part because they suspected that the family was involved in the killing of two American troops earlier in March, 2006. If this is true, both the vengeful attack and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. military, which concluded that the report of the execution was false, demonstrate what can go wrong when conflicts of interest are ignored.

The full essay is at "Human Rights in a Military Occupation."

The Wealth of 8 People and 3.6 Billion People: Utilitarianism Applied

As of the end of 2016, eight people held as much wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the world’s poorest half. Just a year earlier, a similar study had “found that the world’s richest 62 people had as much wealth as the bottom half of the population.”[1] Part of the difference in these findings is due to new data gathered by Credit Suisse. Put another way, the richest of the rich were richer than had been thought. In this essay, I want to call attention to the sheer magnitude of the wealth involved, as it pertains to the richest.

The full essay is at "Wealth of 8 People and 3.6 Billion People."

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[1] Gerry Mullany, “World’s 8 Richest Have as Much Wealth as Bottom Half of Global Population,” The New York Times, January 16, 2017.

Adolf Eichmann: Justice or Retribution by the Victims?

In February, 2016, 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning, a former guard at Auschwitz, went on trial in Detmold, Germany for being an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 people. Back in 1961, Adolf Eichmann had been tried in Jerusalem for crimes against the Jewish people. I submit that the situs for the Hanning trial is proper ethically and legally, which is to say that Eichmann too should have been tried in Germany rather than in Israel.

Reinhold Hanning, center, on trial for 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in Germany. Proving that he himself facilitated the murders may be more difficult than one might assume; hence the importance of a fair hearing by neutral judges. Associated Press.


The full essay is at "Adolf Eichmann."

Business, Government, and Society: Making Humans Less Humane?

Richard Rinaldi, an innovative photographer in New York City, devised an interesting photo series, titled "Touching Strangers." It provides an answer to the following question: If brought together literally through touch, will two people who have never met begin, after some initial discomfort, to feel comfort, even a feeling of caring for the other person? Richard traversed the streets of Manhattan looking for pairs to put together. Seeing one person, and then another, who together would make an interesting picture, he would ask them simply to stand together. The  resulting picture would depict any initial reluctance. Then, he would arrange the two so they are touching each other in a friendly way.

A curious thing came out in the resulting pictures: a feeling of caring. Astonished, the subjects invariably reported that merely from the touching they actually had actually begun to care about a stranger! Reflecting on this feedback, Richard said in an interview that his “experiment” reveals humanity that lies within us, that we wish there were more of in the world, and that existed in the past. By “the past,” the photographer was referring to the photo shoots.

                                                            Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)  Source: Wikimedia Commons 

If we are willing to go a bit farther back in our reflection, say to the state of nature, whether mythic or historical, we can profit from the theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which can explain why we do not feel more caring and compassion as we inhabit great edifices of modern business, government, and society. Indeed, it may be that those tremendous artifacts within which we work, argue, and live may have gradually changed human nature itself—and not for the better.
 

Essay Applying Rousseau: Inequality and Warfare in Business, Government & Society

Federalism Facilitating Self-Preservation

The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of property (Locke) or happiness (Jefferson) can all fit within a federal system that enables its two systems of government—that of the federation itself and the republics  or (member) states—to check and balance each other. The alternative, at least for a federal empire, may be a return to the state of nature.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.