Curbing Corporate Power to Promote a More Peaceful World

Cleveland Peace Action Policy Statement

1.      In the coming decade, Peace Action and the US peace movement should focus on the increasing dangers of violence and war (“limited” wars and world war, including nuclear war), as well as all other forms of violence against humanity.

 

2.      Peace Action and the US peace movement must focus on how the US Government contributes to violence at home and violence and war abroad. We must deal with the root causes of conflict and propose remedies to eliminate them.  Then, more people will understand “why they hate us” enough to commit acts of terrorism.

 

3.      At the heart of any understanding of the root causes of violence and war are the great and growing disparities in wealth between the richest and the poorest people in the US, and between the US and the rest of the world.  The latest figures show that 47% of the real income gain in the U.S. between 1983 and 1998 went to the top 1% of the population, while only 12% went to the bottom 80%.  There also has been little progress in overcoming the historical differences in wealth, health, mortality figures, education, etc. between African Americans, Latinos, and whites.  The disparity between wealth in the US and the rest of the world has been well documented.

 

4.      Giant, wealthy corporations are a primary force in creating and perpetuating these disparities.  Corporations are increasingly running away to low wage countries and forcing the peoples of the world into a “race to the bottom,” in order to maximize corporate profits.

 

5.      Mass struggles against individual corporate practices and against the international bodies that have been created to benefit these corporations, like the WTO, are on the increase.  The National Labor Committee, Students Against Sweatshops, and many other organizations are  conducting effective campaigns. These campaigns are very important and should be actively supported by Peace Action and other peace groups.

 

6.      What is less well understood is the relationship between the role of the corporations, on the one hand, and their government and military backers on the other.  The government and the military of many nations, including the United States, use their powers to enhance corporate profit and extend corporate influence.  Stated differently, the threat of and actual use of military power is used to promote economic domination by corporations over people and localities.  Star Wars, which has been sold to people in the US and the world as a “defensive” system against threats from “rogue” states, is in fact an extension of US military power into space – an attempt to guarantee US domination of the “high frontier” for, among other things, corporate profit.

 

7.   The confluence of corporate power and government and military action is a significant cause of violence and war in our time.  This unholy alliance also lends itself to effective mass opposition.  The decoupling of corporate power and government and military action would greatly benefit all humanity.  When corporate and government domination is replaced by a more just set of social relationships and a more equitable distribution of wealth, millions of people will be lifted out of misery, poverty and disease, and the world will be a far safer, more peaceful place.

 

8.   Recent revelations about business and accounting practices at Enron, WorldCom and other corporations, demonstrate that deception and dishonesty are all too common at the highest levels of corporate office.  Often, public officials are complicit: they have knowledge of corporate misdeeds from which they stand to benefit.  These criminal acts reveal with stark clarity what little regard these corporations have for the millions of people who depended on them for pension security in their retirement years.  They also reveal how much the behavior of corporations is driven by greed.

 

9.   Based on the premises above, Peace Action supports:

 

a)  all working people in the US struggling for jobs at a living wage; acceptable conditions on the job; the right to organize into unions; universal, affordable, accessible, high quality health care; affordable  prescription drug coverage for all; secure, livable pensions; government-run, not privatized social security; and racial and sexual equality.

 

b)  the struggles of workers around the world who work in sweatshops owned partly or entirely by US and multinational corporations.

 

c)  the elimination of child labor and the promotion of universal education.

 

d)  the struggles of mass movements challenging corporate power.

 

e)  a federal budget which places human needs over corporate greed and which expands, not cuts, social services, education, health care, infrastructure rebuilding, etc.

 

f)  reducing military spending. Once it is widely understood and accepted that the US military   serves corporate interests and influence, its budget demands can be more closely scrutinized. Decisions about where and when to use military force will be more carefully examined and challenged.  One could raise such questions about every instance of US threat of or actual use of its military might. 

 

g)  building effective coalitions and mass movements with other progressive constituencies.  Reducing corporate influence and the government and military power that backs it could provide an unifying issue for the various movements for peace, labor rights, equality, women’s rights, civil liberties, environmental preservation, quality education, etc.

 

h)  supporting alternative energy development, to reduce the adverse environmental effects of fossil and nuclear energies, and to reduce dependence on foreign oil, which leads us to military interventions, as the US seeks to control world oil supplies.

 

10. Programmatic proposals that could be included in such a plan are:

 

a)  Limit the powers of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; oppose free trade agreements which seek to circumvent labor and environmental laws and regulations; forgive debts owed by poor countries; add to international loans, provisions requiring use of funds for education, health, infrastructure and peaceful, sustainable development, while prohibiting expenditures for arms.

 

b)  Support fair taxation: no tax cuts for the rich; corporations pay fair taxes; eliminate tax loopholes.  The corporate share of federal tax receipts has dropped from 28% in 1961 to 12% in 2001.  

 

 

c)  All corporate and public officials guilty of fraud should be investigated by a truly independent commission and prosecuted with penalties to include imprisonment.

 

d)  Support further campaign finance reform which does not limit organized labor while allowing wealthy individuals and corporations to circumvent limits.

 

e)  Oppose the expansion of NAFTA through the FTAA.  The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has caused the loss of over 1.3 million manufacturing jobs in the US in less than 2 years, as well as the elimination of thousands of family farms. US workers lose jobs as corporations run away to lower-wage countries that lack our labor and environmental standards and where workers may work under sweatshop conditions.  The corporations benefit; the great majority of people do not.

 

Now, with the support of the Bush Administration and many members of Congress, big corporations want to expand NAFTA to the entire Western Hemisphere through the Free Trade Area of the Americas ( FTAA).  This is a threat not only to jobs but also to democracy.  Secret tribunals run by the corporations, not US courts, will settle trade disputes.

 

FTAA also threatens the environment.  Local and national governments will not be able to make any regulations about oil drilling, toxic waste, pesticides or other chemicals that hurt the ecosystem, without the risk that those regulations will be successfully challenged by corporations claiming to be put at a competitive disadvantage by such rules.  Such challenges have already been successfully made by corporations here and in other countries.

 

A new coalition has  been formed in the Greater Cleveland area to oppose the FTAA, with the participation of the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of Labor, Jobs With Justice, the InterReligious Task Force, the United Labor Agency and others. Peace Action will become a part of this coalition and work to prevent the passage of FTAA legislation in Congress.

 

f)  Eliminate war toys and TV programs and movies that glorify violence and war.

 

g)  Implement a peace curriculum and conflict resolution programs in all schools, dealing with the causes of war and violence and possible solutions to these problems.

 

h)   Support the teaching of tolerance and an appreciation of the history and culture of all peoples.

 

Drafted by Judy Botwin and Judy Gallo.