Taking on Big Business

...On the negative side, Vogel acknowledges that the battle against the corporation has not become a popular political movement, and that it has been only marginally effective in reorienting corporate affairs He notes, too, that the benefits of increased minority representation on corporate boards appears slim...

...Do organized protests challenge corporate practices, or the very legitimacy of the corporate structure...

...Such questions deserve to be answered, particularly the last one, since so many corporations have now begun to co-opt their critics' concern for social accountability...

...Indeed, had his approach been more ambitious, he would have taken up other vital questions about citizen activism as well How far can a corporation go before it is perceived as having violated the public trust...

...Vogel saves his most devastating-and surprising-criticism, however, for the final six pages of Lobbying the Corporation Here, after seeming to have tacitly accepted the activists' stress on citizen action, he tackles their central premise "namely, that corporations have become, in effect, public institutions exercising a degree of power closely connected to or rivaling that of the state " Unlike government, Vogel observes, corporations do not have the power to command compliance, in the end, they are at the mercy of the market, even in the case of oligopoly So it is the law sot the state that should be used as the chief weapon to correct corporate wrongs At best, corporate activists can supplement government regulation, what they cannot do is substitute for it In the final analysis who governs the corporation is less important than who controls the government ". Unfortunately, by raising this crucial issue almost as an afterthought, Vogel has marred his book For clearly such a discussion of axioms belongs at the beginning, where it would provide the context for the subsequent analysis What could have been a probing study in contemporary political economy is ultimately reduced to the less ethereal level of crisp, descriptive journalism...

...Of (he various tactics employed in these undertakings, proxy resolutions have perhaps been the most effective Vogel believes that they have scored an "impressive" achievement True, no public interest resolution has ever come close to passing, yet several major ones were introduced without any expectation of success other than generating new attitudes And m that respect, writes Vogel, public interest proxies have on the whole been successful, for they have increased "the public's awareness of the nonfinancial dimensions of the performance of business ". In addition, two-thirds of the 66 shareholder resolutions submitted in 1975 received better than the 3 per cent of the vote required to make them automatically eligible for resubmission the following year-an important symbolic defeat for management More concretely, Vogel points out that between 1974-78, 98 accountability proposals were withdrawn without a showdown after negotiations with management led to changes in corporate policy...

...Taking on Big Business Lobbying the Corporation: Citizen Challenges to Business Authority By David Vogel Basic Books 270 pp $14 95 Reviewed by Ernest R. Schell Department of History, Temple University The modern corporation is under attack Not only have the social and environmental drawbacks of economic growth brought into question the legitimacy of the corporation, but its ability to command vast financial, physical and political resources have led close students to describe it as virtually a government unto itself, more a public than a private institution Accordingly, many critics have held that the corporation should be made accountable to the public, should be looked upon as something other than a mere profit generator...

...The campaign to challenge the autonomy, and influence the policies, of business began in the '60s Completely avoiding reliance on government for redress, activists used a variety of strategies-several of which have survived into the '70s-to make corporations responsive David Vogel's Lobbying the Corporation is the lust book-length examination of this phenomenon And although the author (a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley) admits personal sympathy for the attempt to reform American business by public pressure, his account is levelheaded and perceptive...

...Vogel's theme is that the movement for corporate accountability is part of a much larger concern-greater accountability for all institutions He recognizes that direct confrontation between the public and business reflects a decline in confidence that the government can represent the general good Nevertheless, he feels that ultimately, "pressuring the firm is seen as a means of increasing the effectiveness and scope of government regulation of business ". Using material from the Corporate Responsiveness Research Group at Harvard, and from numerous activist publications, Vogel stakes out a middle ground between selective, in-depth case studies and a comprehensive historical narrative The many individual situations he discusses include the compensatory hiring campaign of the Congress for Racial Equality, the boycott against Dow Chemical Company for its manufacture of napalm, the campaign against Honeywell-highlighted by a proxy contest-to force the corporation to cease manufacturing antipersonnel weapons, "Campaign GM"-an attempt to make the General Motors board of directors more representative in the interest of the consumers, sponsored by the Project on Corporate Responsibility, the work of the Interfaith Equal Employment Opportunity Task Force, the Corporate Information Center established by the National Council of Churches, moves by various church groups to encourage American companies to cease operations in South Africa, Rhodesia and Angola, and to curtail the marketing of infant formulas in underdeveloped countries, and the effort of the American lewish Congress to discoutage American companies from submitting to the Arab boycott of Israel...

...When they do turn to government, why do activists seek redress at the Federal level-the Securities and Exchange Commission-rather than on the state level, where charter privileges originate and where much corporate activity is regulated...

...A further problem with the book is its lack of comparisons among the various activist tactics It would, for example, be interesting to know if pamphlets have been more effective than boycotts in raising the public's awareness Similarly, one is curious to know if domestic policy issues are more likely to engage consumer interest than those having to do with corporate activity abroad Admittedly, the nature of the movement makes such comparisons difficult, since the motives of the actors vary and their methods are so diverse Still, Vogel should have attempted some kind of systematic judgment...

...Are the dysfunctions in the American business system perhaps self-correcting over the long run, or are they symptoms of some basic and irresolvable problem with the system itself...