A Song in the Night

by Bob Massie

  We also wanted to educate voters around the country about corporate power. I was initially given the responsibility of investigating the role of large corporations abroad—something I was naturally interested in because of South Africa—but increasingly my assignments focused on the behavior of a few large U.S. corporations and the role of aggressive business lobbying organizations, such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

  Eventually I became the national research director for a network of organizations that were behind what became known as “Big Business Day.” Modeled loosely on Earth Day, which had been established ten years before and in which many of my new associates had been involved, the idea was to hold teach-ins and demonstrations around the country to object to the increasingly aggressive influence of corporations on government at all levels. Though not all corporations took such a belligerent approach, we were seeing a surge in corporate campaign money entering politics, attacks on environmental regulations, soaring executive pay, slashed hourly wages, attempts to dismantle workers’ rights and labor unions, and fierce battles over consumer and product safety standards for everything from drugs to toys to automobiles. We also saw a refusal to consider energy efficiency and unquestioning support for right-wing regimes (like that in South Africa), where business felt it had a freer hand. Our effort was not simply a list of complaints but a campaign to provoke a deeper discussion about the relationship between economic power and democracy.

  Around Thanksgiving in 1979 I received a phone call from Ralph Nader himself, asking me to take on a particularly challenging task. Would I create an anthology of articles on corporations in America? Sure, I responded—when did he need it? Well, he said, it needed to be published the week before Big Business Day in April.

  “What?” I said. “That’s only four months from now! How can we gather, select, compile, edit, and print an anthology from scratch in four months? ”

  “I’m sure you can do it,” he replied.

  This was a much bigger task at that time than it would be today. There were no personal computers and no such thing as word processing. There was no Internet, no Google, and no e-mail. Everything would have to be done by hand. I immediately went to the Library of Congress, which had just invented a new cataloguing system that included a large number of recently published books and articles. One could gain access to the library’s ancient computer terminals only by waiting in a long line, and then one was limited to two hours at a time.

  For the next few weeks I lived there, entering a vast list of key words about corporate responsibility and printing out piles of sheets that had the waxy texture of early faxes. When my time ran out, I simply got back in line and waited until my turn came up again. While I stood in line, I checked off the articles that looked interesting, and every night I edited the list down to those that seemed the most promising. Fortunately I was able to attract a small army of volunteers, who fanned out across the library to make photocopies of the articles that might be included in the anthology. Every evening, working late into the night, I read the articles and assigned scores to them, looking at the appropriateness of the topic and the quality of the writing.

  Within a month I had just over a hundred possible articles for the anthology, and a month after that I had boiled the list down to fifty-two. By the end of March the book was ready for publication by Pilgrim Press, and it came out the week of Big Business Day, with Mark Green and me as coeditors. Organized under broad headings such as “The Corporation and Health,” “The Corporation and Natural Resources,” “The Impact of Multinationals,” and “Corporate Governance,” the book had strong, detailed entries on agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, mining, oil, and automobiles. We looked at controversies over toxic sites, asbestos, union busting, industry advertising in classrooms, plant relocation, corporate lobbying, and campaign donations. We chronicled specific battles being fought over unionization in southern textile plants, the marketing of Nestlé infant formula, the shipping of hazardous waste to third world countries, international consumerism, and investment in South Africa. We probed problems in the field of energy, including the dominance of fossil fuels, the distribution of ownership rights within solar power, and the risks of nuclear plants. We evaluated approaches that had been proposed or were being debated about the correct relationship among government, regulation, innovation, economic prosperity, and the protection of public rights. There were also thoughtful articles by major authors on how corporations are structured and managed, about board interlocks, mergers and acquisitions, executive compensation, market concentration, and political involvement.

  All in all, two things strike me, looking at the list thirty years later. The first is that the issues raised were comprehensive, important, and in many cases urgent. The other is that after three decades, many of these issues are still being fought—and in some cases, after twenty years of Republican presidents and aggressive lobbying by business associations, the circumstances have become worse. In 1980 it was still possible to imagine the United States Congress proposing, debating, and perhaps even passing a “Corporate Democracy Act,” which would have required a majority of board members to be independent, asked boards to oversee particular areas of corporate management (including audit and legal compliance), and prohibited board interlocks with other corporations. It was a bold move that, had it been enacted even in part, might have forestalled the financial manipulation and the distortions in corporate governance that damaged the economy over the following twenty years.

  Today many of the problems have grown greater, and have led to protests in the streets all over the world, including the United States. Corporate power continues to rise, bringing with it enormous changes and influence. The willingness to imagine new forms of accountability and new pathways to prosperity has, in the public realm, sadly shrunk. In the early part of this century, discussions about the next phase of capitalism and the redesign of the American economy have only just started.

  Though the timing of my year in Washington was precipitated by my mysterious illness, I had always intended to step back from divinity school for a while to consider my vocation. In most Christian denominations one must pursue two parallel tracks to being ordained to the ministry. The first track is within the church organization itself—one has to run a gauntlet of interviews, approvals, commissions, psychological tests, meetings with bishops or other church authorities, and chaplaincy training, all of which are designed to explore the underlying motivations and skills of the person who wants to be ordained. Though complex, these requirements make sense, because ordination authorizes a minister to speak not only on behalf of a specific church but for the denomination and even the whole faith. Because persons in congregations invest enormous trust in their pastors, the people chosen for those positions of leadership must prove worthy of that trust.

  The second track is the acquisition of a master’s degree from an accredited program. The Episcopal Church required steady progress on both tracks within a defined amount of time. I had to attend all the meetings and interviews set up by the denomination, concluding with one or more meetings with the diocesan bishop, who had the final say.

  After my year in Washington I realized that I was more committed to community leadership than ever, that I was growing in my faith, and that I was not just ready but eager to continue on the path. At the same time, I had been plunged more and more deeply into the world of business and economics. The topics I had studied in college and during my year in Washington went to the heart of the challenge of how a person should articulate and remain faithful to his or her core principles in the hustle and bustle of modern economic life.

  When I arrived back on the Yale Divinity School campus, my mind was buzzing with questions, ranging from the tightly practical to the broadly theoretical, many of them focused on economic theory and American business. I had seen from many angles that American business was an enormous engine of change—the most potent force in our cent
ury. Its impact on society rivaled or exceeded the influence of ancient kings, or the huge control exercised by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe for many centuries.

  The modern corporation had grown organically. The earliest corporate charters had been granted by the king, or by the government, for a limited period of time and with a specific public purpose in mind. A tiny number of corporations, such as the Dutch East India Company, became early multinationals, dispatching their vessels to all the corners of the earth, controlling large markets, and in some places, such as seventeenth-century America and South Africa, even hiring captains and ships to establish permanent outposts on distant shores. Both New York City and Cape Town were settled by expeditions authorized by European kings yet paid for by the Dutch East India Company.

  Because the modern corporation is relatively new, it never occurred to early political theorists to wonder what would happen if this particular form of human organization became so wealthy and powerful that it might rival governments for power. In the formation of the United States, the founders worried about many different forms of human aggregation that might cause trouble for the fledgling democracy, and they worried the most about “factions.” We can only speculate how they would have factored in the political power of mammoth corporations, some of which now control unimaginable riches, globe-spanning assets, and armies of employees. There are ample reasons to suspect that they would have had reservations about the legal fiction and political status of corporate “personhood,” because these “persons,” unlike humans, are both immortal and amoral.

  Everywhere I looked, I saw the effects, talents, and influence of business. Businesses took all forms, from the local corner store where I bought milk to the multinational behemoths that could reshape almost any place on earth. The bigger they became, the more breathtaking their capacity was; the largest firms, acting with broad legal rights and sometimes without legal constraints, could gather and apply hundreds of millions of dollars to any project of their choosing. In some ways they were amazingly effective: they had the capability to organize human cooperation across cities, states, and nations; they had figured out how to combine vastly different skills to attain a single objective; and they could identify specific goals and then implement all the steps necessary to achieve them.

  At the same time, some corporations took steps that were impossible to align with even the most elementary standards of human morality. Any action—and every action—seemed to be justified as long as someone somewhere could concoct an argument (no matter how tenuous) that it would be beneficial to the shareholders. Investing in destructive products or industries; trading with dictators on both left and right; corrupting democratic institutions and processes; manipulating markets toward monopoly; engaging in price-fixing, kickbacks, excessive pay, intimidation, firings, union-busting, and layoffs; distributing inadequately tested products and chemicals for business and consumer use; destroying forests, oceans, waterways, open land; devastating communities after plant closings—all of these things were justified by the supposedly self-correcting virtue of the free market and portrayed as necessary to human prosperity.

  I found the combination of business and politics particularly toxic. Politics, though a messy and imperfect field, was tasked—at least in theory—with the objectives of protecting and pursuing the common good. Many businesses agreed with this goal and asked only that they not be so smothered in regulation that they would be prevented from creating the jobs and investing in the products of the future. But other companies had very different objectives and much more aggressive tactics. They employed huge numbers of lobbyists to bend legislation to their advantage, either by inserting special benefits or by ripping out provisions that they didn’t like. They maintained stables of lawyers, both inside and outside the firm, ready to attack anyone who seemed like a threat. And some of them spent considerable money on political donations to make sure that their voices would be heard at critical—and often secret—moments.

  I arrived back at Yale Divinity School filled with new information and questions about wealth and poverty, cooperation and competition, political and economic justice, fairness and efficiency, and I wondered what my newfound field of theology and ethics might have to say about them. I had been exposed to the fascinating power of the modern corporation, and I believed that these entities raised complicated and important questions about the kind of world we want to live in. I looked forward to taking a few courses on the relationship between economics and ethics, or politics and social justice, or money and morality.

  To my dismay, I discovered that there weren’t any. Not only that, there were few people who knew enough about them to offer a perspective. I had a wonderful faculty, deeply schooled in the historical controversies of past eras. I could learn about the early church fathers’ attitudes toward the accumulation of wealth, about Martin Luther’s essays on usury, or about the role of religion in the perpetuation and then the abolition of slavery. There was even the occasional lecture on economic development in Third World countries or in inner cities, or about specific controversies like human rights or the sale of infant formula in underdeveloped nations. If I was looking for a clear, thoughtful review of America’s economy and of the functioning of the modern corporation, with special attention to how people of communities of faith or specific local churches should approach them, there was nothing.

  Equally surprising to me was that the institution that I was coming to know and understand well—the church—was also largely silent on many issues central to daily life. To my mind, many churches were often slow to identify new questions or injustice that might challenge long-held assumptions. Part of the problem was the result of the periodic swing back and forth between two visions of ministry, the prophetic and the pastoral. A prophetic ministry focuses on speaking about the world, pointing out the gap between reality and aspiration, and urging change. A pastoral ministry put the emphasis on personal interactions between people of faith, in which individuals encourage and support each other. I discovered while I was in divinity school that the pendulum of education had swung strongly toward the pastoral. The structural critique that had flourished throughout the 1960s was steadily being replaced in the 1980s by a focus on the needs of individuals and families. Though I understood and supported my many friends who devoted themselves to this role, I remained perplexed that one of the most important institutions in modern society—the business firm—was never covered in class, discussed over meals, or preached from the pulpit. It was as though certain structures in society had grown so prevalent and powerful that they became invisible. This was a mystery to me. Was it possible that one could be so close to something that one could no longer see it?

  This peculiar invisibility may have reflected an age-old debate within Christianity about whether Christians should consider themselves active parts of this world, in all its complexity and contradiction, or adhere to a set of values that were by definition radically different. Put another way, in what way should one’s beliefs alter one’s behavior? Even John the Baptist had been asked by a cross-sampling of his followers what they should actually do to put his message of repentance into daily practice. And Jesus had been understood by some of his followers to say that Christians should allow their daily and most conventional actions to be guided by faith in God while suggesting that the world was governed by false assumptions and would soon be replaced.

  Another possible explanation why people in seminaries did not talk about economic life is that they simply did not know much about it. How many divinity school students—or faculty—got up every morning filled with curiosity about what was going to be on the business page? How many divinity school students had a background in business or training in finance or management? When I was in school, the answer was very few. I immediately tried to increase the number of opportunities for the divinity school community to learn more about the corporate world. I organized a small discussion group called the Economics and Ethics Research Center a
nd even won a few small research grants to look at specific problems in Connecticut. I designed a course on corporate responsibility and somehow persuaded two faculty members to teach it with me.

  Faced with my intense interest, people sometimes marveled or objected. “But how can you talk about all these things when you don’t really know anything about business?” In one sense it was an attack on my credentials, and thus my right to speak. I have always rejected this point of view as undemocratic. Citizens should be able to discuss anything they want and apply whatever values seem relevant to them. If we start barring people from conversations because they lack professional training, our ability to talk about our collective choices will erode.

  At the same time, I recognized that there was an element of truth in my fellow students’ criticism. Despite my reading, my course, and my time in Washington, there were still many things I did not understand about business. If my intention was to become a strong and fair advocate for integrating economic creativity and political or religious purpose, then I needed to learn more. Within a year of returning to divinity school, I had applied for and was admitted to a two-year degree program at the Yale School of Management, which was to begin the following year.

  At this time I was also under the supervision of the Episcopal bishop of New York, Paul Moore, Jr. Paul was the model of a patrician clergyman, born on an enormous estate in Long Island and educated at St. Paul’s and Yale. He had become an officer in the Marines and was wounded in battle. When he returned to civilian life, he could easily have become an investment banker or a politician. But he chose the ministry and launched on a bold career as a leader for social justice, taking positions in poor churches, leading marches, and speaking out fearlessly. He led the national church forward on civil rights and was one of the first bishops to ordain women. Given his breeding and appearance—he was as tall as a flagpole, with silver hair and a gravelly bass voice—it was perhaps inevitable that he would become a bishop. Eventually he became bishop of New York, presiding over the largest diocese and the largest cathedral in the country, St. John the Divine. Because I was within his jurisdiction, I had been sent to him. He would make the ultimate decision about whether to ordain me.