True Capitalism vs. Corporatism

As I write this, it is about 7 AM in the morning and I am sitting in the lounge of a large corporation I am doing some long-term contract work for.  I have been in the corporate world as an administrative professional for over 20 years at this point, and a part of the reason I am writing this now is due to a bit of exasperation I have been feeling about the behemoth called "Corporate America," and today is a day in which it would be opportune to talk about it.

My own experience with "Corporate America" started back when I was a couple of years out of college in 1998, and over the years I've worked for several large corporations in a number of industries, as primarily I have done what is called "temp work" during the majority of that tenure.  Being a "temp," which is a word I honestly hate to use as I am in reality a contractor, has been a revelatory experience - I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in many companies, and with that being the case I have reached a number of conclusions.  One of the most prominent conclusions I have come to is that the higher up the corporate ladder one goes, the less practical common sense people possess.  Higher echelons of management in corporations have a sort of "tunnel vision." and it is a tunnel wallpapered with dollar signs.  Their rabid pursuit within the tunnel often denies the fundamental human dignity of their designated underlings, and the more tragic reality is that those higher-ups are often forced into the tunnel by their superiors who have an even more restricted view of human dignity and less foresight and common sense than even those below them in a management capacity.  Observations like that are the primary reason why something like this needs to be addressed.

I want to first define what the term "corporatism" is, as that is the driving impetus behind much of this. According to a Wikipedia definition, corporatism is defined as "a political ideology that advocates the organization of society by corporate groups," and furthermore, it can be classified as a form of fascism due to the fact that sectors of the economy are controlled by a private organizations (corporations) in conjunction with government bureaucracy.  Another term for this in its extreme form is syndicalism.  The idea of corporatism is often confused with free-market capitalism, although they are definitely not the same.  For corporations striving toward this syndicalist view of economy, the term "monopoly" is often used, in that a sort of carnivorous and even cannibalistic insight exists which puts a corporation in a position to take over and eliminate is "competition," which often is a smaller and more "mom-and-pop" type business of some sort.  It also seeks to eliminate self-sufficiency of individuals by creating a new class of serfs, these serfs being individuals confined to cubicles in large offices where unreasonable demands and threats of disposability keep them in check, placated as well by "benefit packages."   The common "serf" is viewed by the corporate higher echelons as an expendable commodity, and thus the employee "serf" is seen merely a means to the corporate entity's end, and thus dignity of personhood is both diminished and despised.  That summarizes the "Corporate America" of today.

In the 1998 cult classic Office Space, we see how this is played out.  One reason why this movie is a cult classic is because it presents a very accurate portrayal of the general attitudes of large corporate monopolies and their management.  And, people do relate to it.  Besides paying the employee an "acceptable" wage however, what it the true benefit of monopolistic corporatism?  Very little actually, and we will now discuss why.

The driving force of much of monopolistic corporatism is greed, which is seen as a cardinal vice in traditional Catholic teaching but is worn as a badge of honor in the corporate world.   It is what John Horvat calls in his book Return to Order (York, PA:  York Press, 2013) on page 2 by the term "frenetic intemperance."  The way Horvat defines "frenetic intemperance" is this - an exaggerated trust in our technological society, a terrifying isolation of our individualism, and a self-imposed heavy burden of materialism.  The result, as Horvat further notes, is a modern economy that is out of balance, cold, impersonal, mechanical, and inflexible, and it can in time lead to socialism or fascism.  Horvat, on page 14 of the same text, gives monopolistic corporatism another name - gigantism - and notes that this mentality undermines the free market as well as attacking rights to private property, and this is all driven by an oligarchy of powerful corporate executives who couldn't give a damn about the workers they manage.  Frenetic intemperance, Horvat posits, is the driving force behind corporate gigantism (or monopolistic corporatism). 

Hillaire Belloc, in his seminal text The Servile State (London: T.N. Foulis, 1912), mistakenly I believe labels this same mentality as "capitalist," and he notes that the type of frenetic intemperance Horvat refers to creates a moral strain - a contradiction exists between the accumulation of wealth and the moral base of laws and traditions (Belloc, p. 53).  This means that in time the capitalist economy gives way to one of two evils, socialism or slaverly, (p. 60), of which in reality both are one and the same.  In his book The End of Democracy (Arcadia, CA:  Tumblar House, 2017), Christophe Buffin de Chosal notes that true capitalism is a good thing in that it encourages the investment of saved assets to generate new profit.  But, as he notes on page 123, there is also a negative capitalism, and this one is enabled by big government that often is funded by corporate entities, and thence the problem.  It is a problem which creates a caste system in which, as de Chosal points out on page 69 of his book, discriminates against some in favor of others - the large corporation, for instance, is favored over the small business, and the corporate exec over the data entry clerk.  It also discriminates against the consumer as well, in that the pursuit of wealth on the part of large corporations prioritizes quantity over quality, and cheap junk is marketed to consumers at more-than-invested prices.  That is, inevitably, where problems and inbalances arise, and the average worker in these corporations is forced onto a ferris wheel of mere survival and is often suppressed.  Good, quality work is no longer rewarded, but rather numbers and unrealistic production quotas, which inevitably lead to mistakes and ultimately a tank in quality of work.  This is a sad commentary for sure upon Corporate America, although the powers-that-be could care less.  So, what of the average worker then who has much to offer but is suppressed?   That is where we now go in the next part of the discussion.

The great Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper wrote a classic book in 1952 entitled Leisure:  The Basis of Culture, and in it he has some interesting insights.  He notes, beginning on page 43, that the "worker" is characterized by these three personal traits:

1.  Extreme tension of powers of action
2.  A readiness to suffer in vacuo, unrelated to anything.
3.  Complete absorption into the social organism - itself planned to utilitarian ends
(Josef Pieper, Leisure:  The Basis of Culture. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1963)

So, what does Pieper mean?  First, the idea of leisure is seen by this mindset as strange and frivolous: "work for work's sake" is the order of the day.  This describes Corporate America to the proverbial tee - numbers, numbers, and more numbers!  A production-based environment is stressful, and cold managers expect numbers without taking into account variables, and that creates unnecessary and undue stress on the worker.  Pitch-perfect accuracy matters little, as does any other dimension of quality - rather, numbers are the priority.  But, mass-production of any sort ultimately leaders to inperfection, and it does one thing - it forces the consumer to invest in more of the product.  Inferior quality is almost the prime objective of the corporate hack who is bereft of common sense, and if workers don't produce the anticipated numbers, they are deemed useless and disposable, like used tampons in a woman's restroom.  This "corporate exec" mentality is a hazardous bi-product of both Enlightenment thinking and social Darwinism, and it ultimately does diminish God-given personhood.  You don't find this mentality in a lot of small independent businesses, but it is rampant in large mega-corporations.  Until we address this malady in our society, we face an imminent financial collapse as in time the inferior quality and excess quantity of crap product will implode many large corporations, and maybe that is the goal, as Big Business and Big Government also seem to collaborate in a lot of this.  Although it seems like a wild conspiracy, let us now demonstrate it next.

So, the question arises as to if a conspiracy exists between large corporations and centralized governments?  On the surface it doesn't look possible until one looks from the perspective of corporatism, especially its fascist dimension. As the Wikipedia article on corporatism notes, the Italian model of Fascism mandated in the 1920's by Mussolini has as its integral component a corporatist system "in which the economy was collectively managed by employers, workers, and state officials at the national level."   In order for that to happen, influential corporate executives would have to hold some sway, and in a system like that, they indeed would.  Ben Shapiro notes in his book The Right Side of History (New York: Broadside Books, 2019) that even Karl Marx incorporated this into his scheme, and despite Marx's rhetoric of "seizing capital from the bourgeosie" in order to centralize it all into the hands of the state, his scheme needed willing benefactors to make it work, and many of his successors have indeed sought the "unholy alliance" of the corporate tycoon with the statist ideologue, which involved putting at the disposal of the big corporations such apparati as the "eminent domain" privelege, etc.  Also, getting Big Business on-board with a leftist agenda is paramount - the small business which holds to traditional values is then seen as an obstacle, and in order for the corporation to further advance its frontiers, the small business must be closed by legal means, and greasing the palms of the right politicians with cash is a sure way of making that happen.  It is one reason today, as a matter of fact, why big corporations are often unaffected by stringent regulations while small businesses are often forced to comply or close.  As Shapiro notes further in his book on page 140, the catalyst to make all this happen was in the personage of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), although it could be added that Georges Sorel (1847-1922), a Marxist philosopher, equally contributed to this as both of them introduced social Darwinism into economics - this meant a "survival of the fittest" mentality applied to economics in which the stronger multi-national corporation could prevail over and devour smaller business entities, and for the state's economic stability a corporation could use (abuse) state legislation to accomplish doing just that.  It is from this that abominations such as "eminent domain" and over-regulation of industries emerged, and a corporate oligarchy benefitted from codified (albeit unjust) laws.  Therefore statism and corporatism join forces at this point, and to insure corporate interests were advanced and protected, major financial players even from the time of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan sought to place leadership in power to advance their own interests, and it worked.  It is also another reason why the moguls of huge corporations are often the chief financial backers of very leftist causes - the abortion industry, the LGBT agenda, the teaching of evolution in schools, etc.   Like the spokes of a wheel, all of these things go back to one source, and that source is malevolent to the core.  Plineo Correa de Oliviera, in his text Revolution and Counter-Revolution, points out specifically why this conflicts with the Judeo-Christian worldview - on page 80, he notes that the Judeo-Christian worldview and its social manifestations (which he called the Counter-Revolution) does not ally itself with what he called "today's hyper-trophied technicalism," which is characterized by its adoration of novelty, speed, and mechanics, and it also opposes the tendency of such a system to organize human society mechanistically (al a Huxley's Brave New World scenario).  Spiritual values, Oliviera notes, must take precedence over material considerations.  If they don't, then what happens is essentially (and precisely) what de Chosal notes on page 53 of his book - in time, world governments will no longer be the actions of major decisions affecting nations, but rather an oligarchy of major money powers.  The opinions of voters then effectively carry no weight because the voters don't have the money - but, the big corporate entities do.  As he notes on the same page, "democracy" is a political system that enables organized minorities to hold ultimate power, more so if they have limitless financial assets to do so. The needs of the "little guy" are jettisoned in favor of the oligarchy of corporate execs, and hence the problems.  As we will see, it trickles down to how workers are treated as well.

The above is also the reason why I am a Monarchist rather than a Democrat - democracy starts out with mob rule and anarchy, and then a strong force takes it over and turns it into a tyranny.  In the case of monarchy, the king is seen rightly as both servant and father to his people, and he is therefore subject to a higher law with a corporate oligarch fails to recognize.   Monarchy is tied to tradition, a moral code, and a sense of common decency that the corporate exec or political autocrat in a democracy lacks, and the good of others is the main concern of the monarch, and to note this good - also known as the common good - the monarch appeals to something higher than himself.  That something is a combination of divine Revelation and natural law, both of which make a monarch more accountable than either a career politician or corporate executive can be.  Once that order is restored and realized, then a fair advantage is given for the small business to thrive as it should.  Corporations can exist, and in and of themselves are not evil, provided their motivation is honorable.  But, forcing small business competition out of the way by dishonest means, treating employees like automaton droids, and being so greedy that one can't see the higher good doesn't constitute ethical business etiquette, something many of the "Fortune 500" entities have forgotten.  It is high time to recover that sense of decency and honor, and to check the unbridled power of billionaire corporate moguls - they are not above divine law, natural law, nor even state law.

Here is the bottom line to all of this.  First, it is not necessarily wrong to accumulate wealth, as no one should be hindered.  Secondly, in principle large corporations are not wrong either - there are some fine multi-billion dollar corporations out there which provide good services.  Third, however, is that the wealth of individuals and corporations should not be based on practices which are unethical, illegal, or dehumanizing to employees or other businesses.  Fourth, while responsible government is necessary, no government official should be bought, paid-for, and in the back pockets of any corporate entity.  Fifth, all people of creative mind and proper talent should be encouraged to pursue their dreams, free from corporate greed or political interference.   If those five things are recognized and practiced, it could effectively end corporatism and instead lead to a rise in both social betterment and economic growth.  This, I feel, can also only be achieved by one form of governance, and that is Christian monarchy.

Christian monarchy is based on a balance of power - the worker works, the soldier defends, and the noble leads.  This is not to be done in a superior manner that either diminishes personhood, but rather in a way that values contribution.  Such a system, under Biblical precepts would also provide the virtue of charity to those who lack certain abilities through no fault of their own, and in doing so, it shows everyone has value as a creation in God's image.  The corporatist model lacks this in so many ways, in that it stresses the production-based operation, and the result is that only in true Social Darwinian fashion only the most productive carry value while anyone is expendable.  The corporatist model is greed-based and lacks authentic charity, and thus it falls short.  It is the reason why movies such as 1998's Office Space and the film Outsourced from a few years later are popular.  It is also why country singer Johnny Paycheck sang a hit song in the 1970's called "Take This Job and Shove It."  The corporation does not address dignity of personhood (other than a skewered politically-correct version of it, or a lawsuit compels them to) but rather asks "how is this good for the company?"  Also, the stranglehold Corporate America has gained over the American economy has choked the life out of having passion for what one does - people are reflexively programmed to get up at the same time and then sit in little cubicles from the majority of their days, with only one purpose - paying the month's living expenses.  Corporations have stripped quality of life from so many, and it has created a less-inspiring environment in many offices and other workplaces.  Pieper notes the word for such apathy is acedia - basically, this translates as a stick-in-the-mud apathy (Pieper, p. 44).  This acedia is a discontented feeling many of us have, and St. Thomas Aquinas called it a sin against the Third Commandment - taking God's name in vain.   That bears a whole discussion of its own, but what Pieper is saying is that the pursuit of work eventually robs us of reflecting on who and what we are in God, and faith in God is taken for granted or even in vain.  Good point, and the potential source point of a future article!  Essentially, in reading further in Pieper's book, it is adequate to say that leisure and idleness are not the same - you can essentially be busy and idle at the same time, and indeed we get so caught up in working and paying bills this day and age that it makes us complacent and idle in other areas.  We forget things, housework suffers, and Christian service is seen as fruitless and not profitable.   I can definitely see the wisdom in what Pieper says.

In short, Corporate America forces us to sin against the Third Commandment by holding a pink slip over our heads - if we dare pursue higher things, we can lose our livelihood and means of survival.  It is, essentially, tantamount to a form of paid serfdom, but in some aspects feudal serfs were much better off than today's average employees in corporations.

The idea of how Corporate America is exploiting both the personhood of workers as well as national economy is not lost on many writers.  One in particular, political commentator Pat Buchanan, gives a discussion on that in his book The Death of the West (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002).  On pages 32-38, Buchanan makes the following observations about this:

1.  The post-industrial economy has wreaked havoc on the family due to a necessity of two-income households.

2.  Women, being forced into the workplace by economics, are causing an inbalance as many qualified men are losing out due to a combination of radical leftism and greed-driven corporatism.

3.  Birth rates are down in Western society due to the inbalance caused by more women in the workplace.

4.  Because young men are stripped of their fatherhood and family duties, many are left in bad situations, and they are often under-employed or even unemployable.

This inbalance is in line with Pieper's acedia, where large mega-corporations are forcing people into "ruts" and the primary outcome of this is detrimental on a lot of dimensions.  What I have called corporatism earlier is given another name by Buchanan - economism.   Buchanan defines economism as a mirror-Marxist ideology that many is a mere economic animal, and that free-market capitalism is abused to benefit some at the expense of others - the beneficiaries then begin to embrace Horvat's definition of "frenetic intemperance," and an inbalance results.  All of this is orchestrated by the hands of mega-corporations, and their "billionaire boys' club" of leaders have used their influence to manipulate national economies for at least the past 150 years or so.  A lot of it can also be attributed to the theories of the flaming homosexual economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), whose economic theories blended corporate interests with big government, and in a lot of ways Keynes is the progenitor of Corporate America and its excesses. 

This witches-brew of Keynes, Comte, a bunch of corporate billionaires, and their big-government beneficiaries constitutes the main culprit for the nasty inbalance we see in our modern economics, especially when it comes to the personal lives of the average worker.   It is a system that is fundamentally flawed, has the wrong focus, and it violates so many things in regard to the Biblical and Magisterial concepts of dignity of personhood as well as transcendental properties of being such as truth, beauty, and goodness.   Obsession with production and dollars diminishes an appreciation for the greater good and what constitutes it, and in doing so, it diminishes the quality of life God intended for us to have.  On that, we close with a short Scripture lesson.

In Luke 10, Jesus is visiting the home of His good friends Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, whom He'd raised from the dead.  The apparent scenario here was that Jesus was invited by His friends to a dinner at their home, and while Jesus is visiting and imparting some eternal wisdom in informal pre-dinner conversation to others there, Martha is busying herself in the kitchen and is also getting flustered with her sister Mary for not giving her a hand.  Martha finally basically tells Jesus to tell Mary to get the lead out and help her, and Jesus responds in this way (to paraphrase) - "Martha, stop a minute and smell the roses, girl!  Your sister is getting some good stuff here, and you could use it too.  You are so busy you are missing out."   Martha demonstrates a perfect example of Pieper's definition of acedia in his book, as he defines that on page 45 as a deep-seated lack of calm that makes leisure impossible, which eventually manifests outwardly as visible frustration and despair.   Leisure, in the true sense on the other hand, is not equivalent to "being busy," and instead is roughly related to "going with the flow."   It is further defined as a serenity that allows for productive action, but not at the expense of the more important things in life.  Mary in the story exemplifies that leisure - she was not being lazy or shirking her responsibilities, but rather saw a bigger picture and decided to explore it.  This gives an important lesson then for us.

We as a culture are caught up in a malaise of consumer-driven busy-ness, which only serves to enrich the oligarchial "Billionaire Boys' Club" of corporate moguls.  It is rife with distractions, deadlines, and other clutter, and it has gotten us severely out of focus.  As Catholic Christians, it is time to reclaim the focus, and a paradigm shift back towards the family-centered business - true capitalism, in other words - needs to happen.   If it did, I believe people would be more fulfilled.  It is obviously not practical to totally eliminate big corporations, but rather, they need to be kept in check so that they don't violate the opportunities of others.  Until we are able to get it in check, society suffers, and only a radical shift will restore what once was.  Thanks for allowing me to share this lengthy discourse, and hopefully some of this will be a beacon of encouragement to those caught in the corporate "rat race." 

(originally written 9/11/2019)