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Let the corporations speak!
Free speech for corporations? Yes
Dan Rottenberg
Is free speech for corporations a threat to democracy?
Most leading liberal voices presume that it is. After the Supreme Court's conservative majority decided this past January, in Citizens United v. FEC, that corporations and unions have a constitutional right to spend as much as they wish on TV election commercials, President Obama said the ruling "will open the floodgates for special interests— including foreign corporations— to spend without limits in our elections."
In the Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne warned that it "will give large business entities far more power than any individual, unless you happen to be Michael Bloomberg or Bill Gates."
Ronald Dworkin, writing in the New York Review of Books, pictured "an avalanche of negative political commercials financed by huge corporate wealth" that will "swamp elections with money" and consequently "will undermine rather than improve the public's political education."
As an editor who has spent much of his career fighting for free speech for everyone— even to the extent of successfully defending seven libel suits— I remain unpersuaded that unfettered corporate free speech is a threat to democracy or any other free institution.
Unhappy stockholders
Leave aside, for the moment, the fact that large corporations are not monoliths but must answer to thousands of stockholders who enjoy a specific sort of leverage: If they're unhappy with management, they can vote with their feet, selling their stock and thus driving its price down.
Let us also leave aside the rise of the "Socially Responsive Investing" movement, the fastest growing segment of the investment industry: a $2 trillion-plus market of aging ex-hippies and "cultural creatives" whose investment portfolios currently account for one out of every nine investment dollars under professional management in the U.S. This is the force behind the growing corporate democracy movement to pressure companies into thinking more about long-term effects on the planet rather than short-term profits.
Overlook as well the Internet's role in leveling the media playing field, so that a single small voice like Matt Drudge or even, God help us, Broad Street Review can wield influence far out of proportion to its financial resources. For better or worse, the cacophony on the Internet has bred a widespread (and, I would argue) healthy skepticism toward large institutions and traditional authority figures. It's also made it impossible for the rich to drown out anybody's voice.
You can even overlook Obama's revolutionary use of the Internet in his 2008 campaign to attract millions of small donations and consequently swamp the fund-raising efforts of his rivals, who relied more heavily on a small circle of fat cats.
All these factors should reassure us that, in practical terms, corporate free speech is nowhere near as threatening as many people think.
Do corporations have opinions?
But I would go a step further. Free speech for corporations actually benefits democracy.
Begin this line of reasoning with Emerson's insight (later embraced by most psychiatrists) that one's opinion of others is a reflection on oneself. That is, we learn more about other people by listening to them, even if they're dangerous. Especially if they're dangerous. If corporations are greedy and selfish, it behooves us to let them speak freely. It's one of the best ways to figure out what they're up to.
Dworkin and others argue that "corporations are legal fictions. They have no opinions of their own to contribute and no right to participate with equal voice or vote in politics." But if individuals choose to band together— for commercial, political, cultural, charitable, civic purposes or whatever— should they lose their right to speak collectively? Why? By what theory? Even if their sole purpose in banding together is to make money, should that make a difference?
In his exhaustive discussion in the New York Review (May 13), Dworkin cites the primary rationale for free speech: the need for an informed electorate. Electioneering by corporations, he argues, will undermine rather than improve the public's political education: "Corporate advertising will mislead the public…. because its volume will suggest more public support than there actually is for the opinions the ads express."
Slippery slope
But if misleading ads are the problem, why allow political parties or candidates to buy them? Why not ban misleading election ads altogether? Our political campaigns would be quiet and civilized indeed. For that matter, why not ban people from misleading each other in general? Dworkin has got himself on a very slippery slope here.
But Dworkin— and, to be sure, most defenders of free speech— overlook what to me is the primary argument for free speech for everyone, corporations included. It is not the right of the speaker that we should be concerned with, but the right of the audience. If you or I want to listen to Osama bin Laden or read Mein Kampf and reach our own conclusions, what right should a government that we freely elected have to prevent us?
Interrupted conversation
By the same token, if I'm curious to know which candidate the management of Exxon Mobil prefers in an election, and the Exxon Mobil management is willing to tell me, what right should the government have to interrupt our conversation?
Surely free expression for corporations is more honest and enlightening than the previous arrangement, when corporations bought "issue ads" that ludicrously pretended to be neutral ("Ask your representatives how they feel about high excise taxes…."); the corporation's position could be deciphered only by reading between the lines.
Dworkin and others are no doubt correct when they argue that the five conservative justices decided the Citizens United case "on their own initiative, at the request of no party to the suit." Such a cavalier overturning of precedent could indeed pose a threat to democracy. But freedom of speech itself— even for the rich, even for corporations— poses no such threat, I submit. On the contrary, free speech encourages the speaker to come out in the open for all to see, instead of lurking behind legalistic gobbledygook.
Of course there's no way to be certain, since we're talking about the future effects of a court ruling. If you disagree with me, let's get together 20 years hence and compare notes.♦
To read responses, click here.
Most leading liberal voices presume that it is. After the Supreme Court's conservative majority decided this past January, in Citizens United v. FEC, that corporations and unions have a constitutional right to spend as much as they wish on TV election commercials, President Obama said the ruling "will open the floodgates for special interests— including foreign corporations— to spend without limits in our elections."
In the Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne warned that it "will give large business entities far more power than any individual, unless you happen to be Michael Bloomberg or Bill Gates."
Ronald Dworkin, writing in the New York Review of Books, pictured "an avalanche of negative political commercials financed by huge corporate wealth" that will "swamp elections with money" and consequently "will undermine rather than improve the public's political education."
As an editor who has spent much of his career fighting for free speech for everyone— even to the extent of successfully defending seven libel suits— I remain unpersuaded that unfettered corporate free speech is a threat to democracy or any other free institution.
Unhappy stockholders
Leave aside, for the moment, the fact that large corporations are not monoliths but must answer to thousands of stockholders who enjoy a specific sort of leverage: If they're unhappy with management, they can vote with their feet, selling their stock and thus driving its price down.
Let us also leave aside the rise of the "Socially Responsive Investing" movement, the fastest growing segment of the investment industry: a $2 trillion-plus market of aging ex-hippies and "cultural creatives" whose investment portfolios currently account for one out of every nine investment dollars under professional management in the U.S. This is the force behind the growing corporate democracy movement to pressure companies into thinking more about long-term effects on the planet rather than short-term profits.
Overlook as well the Internet's role in leveling the media playing field, so that a single small voice like Matt Drudge or even, God help us, Broad Street Review can wield influence far out of proportion to its financial resources. For better or worse, the cacophony on the Internet has bred a widespread (and, I would argue) healthy skepticism toward large institutions and traditional authority figures. It's also made it impossible for the rich to drown out anybody's voice.
You can even overlook Obama's revolutionary use of the Internet in his 2008 campaign to attract millions of small donations and consequently swamp the fund-raising efforts of his rivals, who relied more heavily on a small circle of fat cats.
All these factors should reassure us that, in practical terms, corporate free speech is nowhere near as threatening as many people think.
Do corporations have opinions?
But I would go a step further. Free speech for corporations actually benefits democracy.
Begin this line of reasoning with Emerson's insight (later embraced by most psychiatrists) that one's opinion of others is a reflection on oneself. That is, we learn more about other people by listening to them, even if they're dangerous. Especially if they're dangerous. If corporations are greedy and selfish, it behooves us to let them speak freely. It's one of the best ways to figure out what they're up to.
Dworkin and others argue that "corporations are legal fictions. They have no opinions of their own to contribute and no right to participate with equal voice or vote in politics." But if individuals choose to band together— for commercial, political, cultural, charitable, civic purposes or whatever— should they lose their right to speak collectively? Why? By what theory? Even if their sole purpose in banding together is to make money, should that make a difference?
In his exhaustive discussion in the New York Review (May 13), Dworkin cites the primary rationale for free speech: the need for an informed electorate. Electioneering by corporations, he argues, will undermine rather than improve the public's political education: "Corporate advertising will mislead the public…. because its volume will suggest more public support than there actually is for the opinions the ads express."
Slippery slope
But if misleading ads are the problem, why allow political parties or candidates to buy them? Why not ban misleading election ads altogether? Our political campaigns would be quiet and civilized indeed. For that matter, why not ban people from misleading each other in general? Dworkin has got himself on a very slippery slope here.
But Dworkin— and, to be sure, most defenders of free speech— overlook what to me is the primary argument for free speech for everyone, corporations included. It is not the right of the speaker that we should be concerned with, but the right of the audience. If you or I want to listen to Osama bin Laden or read Mein Kampf and reach our own conclusions, what right should a government that we freely elected have to prevent us?
Interrupted conversation
By the same token, if I'm curious to know which candidate the management of Exxon Mobil prefers in an election, and the Exxon Mobil management is willing to tell me, what right should the government have to interrupt our conversation?
Surely free expression for corporations is more honest and enlightening than the previous arrangement, when corporations bought "issue ads" that ludicrously pretended to be neutral ("Ask your representatives how they feel about high excise taxes…."); the corporation's position could be deciphered only by reading between the lines.
Dworkin and others are no doubt correct when they argue that the five conservative justices decided the Citizens United case "on their own initiative, at the request of no party to the suit." Such a cavalier overturning of precedent could indeed pose a threat to democracy. But freedom of speech itself— even for the rich, even for corporations— poses no such threat, I submit. On the contrary, free speech encourages the speaker to come out in the open for all to see, instead of lurking behind legalistic gobbledygook.
Of course there's no way to be certain, since we're talking about the future effects of a court ruling. If you disagree with me, let's get together 20 years hence and compare notes.♦
To read responses, click here.
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