Philosopher views

EGALITARIAN CRITERIA OF JUSTICE IS BEST

1. THE CRITERIA FOR JUSTICE SHOULD BE THE CONDITION OF THE POOR AND OPPRESSED

Ralph Nader, political activist, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY, 1999, p. 56.

If someone were to ask how much injustice exists in society, how would you respond? The criteria for analyzing a just society is very primitive and unclear. The data one would use is arguably nonexistent. We are then at a point where such a question cannot be answered without a firm understanding of our past. I think that the level of injustice in our society is partly a reflection of expectation levels. Poor or oppressed persons are often downtrodden - having accepted their condition and resigned. If the larger society has a higher expectation level, then we become very uneasy with the state of affairs.

Ralph Nader, political activist, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF LAW AND POLICY, 1999, p. 56.

If the oligarchy controls the yardsticks by which we measure progress and justice, then they also control agendas and that is what is happening. When Alan Greenspan reports to Congress every few weeks on the state of the economy, he uses oligarchic indicators that imply the economy could hardly be better - profits are up, the stock market is up, inflation is down, and unemployment is down. If we were to use the people's yardsticks to report on the state of the economy, we would begin to see that twenty-five percent of children grow up in poverty and that this is the highest in the western world. Eighty percent of the workers in the bottom eighty percent of the job force have seen their wages decrease since 1973 when adjusted for inflation. There are a record number of consumers filing bankruptcies and living beyond their means in order to subsist, totaling record amounts of consumer debt. Homelessness and poverty are affecting large numbers of families and people than ever before; clinics, schools, and public utilities are in extreme disrepair. Yet, what Congress hears is that our economy could not be better.

CORPORATE POWER THREATENS THE PUBLIC GOOD

1. CORPORATE WELFARE SIPHONS FUNDS FROM OTHER PRIORITIES

Ralph Nader, political activist, CUTTING CORPORATE WELFARE, 2000, p. 13

Corporate welfare—the enormous and myriad subsidies, bailouts, giveaways, tax loopholes, debt revocations, loan guarantees, discounted insurance and other benefits conferred by government on business—is a function of political corruption. Corporate welfare programs siphon funds from appropriate public investments, subsidize companies ripping minerals from federal lands, enable pharmaceutical companies to gouge consumers, perpetuate anti-competitive oligopolistic markets, injure our national security, and weaken our democracy.

Ralph Nader and William Taylor, political activists, THE BIG BOYS, 1986, p. 521.

Adam Smith knew that the ideology of the “invisible hand” was an idealization quite removed from market reality. This is very far from the way modern corporations plan to reduce risks through market power and to get the public to help pay their costs through tax breaks and other subsidies. Smith’s “invisible hand” of 1776 has been joined two centuries later by the “invisible atom,” the “invisible gene,” the “invisible currency,” the “invisible pollutant,” and the “invisible bureaucrat.” Working at high levels of abstraction, pampered executives can distance themselves from everyday life, limiting their ability to deal with reality. The need for distance grows more insistent every day—the mounting challenges of doomsday weapons, mass famines, artificial intelligence, and genetic engineering are added to the stresses of conventional chemical, production, and marketing technologies. To introduce more managerial foresight and honesty, those at the peaks of corporate power need to have their thoughts and actions better known to the public. If people think more about how major business executives work, then those executives may think harder about how their work affects people.

GLOBAL FREE TRADE HAS HORRIBLE IMPACTS

1. GLOBALIZATION UNDERMINES HEALTH, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND WORKERS’ RIGHTS

Ralph Nader, political activist, THE CASE AGAINST FREE TRADE, 1993, p. 1

Citizens beware. An unprecedented corporate power grab is underway in global negotiations over international trade. Operating under the deceptive banner of “free” trade, multinational corporations are working hard to expand their control over the international economy and to undo vital health, safety, and environmental protections won by citizen movements across the globe in recent decades. The megacorporations are not expecting these victories to be gained in town halls, state offices, the U.S. Capitol, or even at the United Nations. They are looking to circumvent the democratic process altogether, in a bold and brazen drive to achieve an autocratic far-reaching agenda through two trade agreements, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade deal (formally known as NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement) and an expansion of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), called the Uruguay Round. The Fortune 200’s GATT and NAFTA agenda would make the air you breathe dirtier and the water you drink more polluted. It would cost jobs, depress wage levels, and make workplaces less safe. It would destroy family farms and undermine consumer protections such as those ensuring that the food you eat is not compromised by unsanitary conditions or higher levels of pesticides and preservatives.

Ralph Nader, political activist, THE CASE AGAINST FREE TRADE, 1993, p. 3.

Secrecy, abstruseness, and unaccountability: these are the watchwords of global trade policy-making. Every element of the negotiation, adoption, and implementation of the trade agreements is designed to foreclose citizen participation or even awareness. The process by which a policy is developed and enacted often yields insights into who stands to benefit from its enactment. Narrow, private interests inevitably prefer secrecy; in the halls of the U.S. Congress, for example, corporate lobbyists roam the corridors before a budget or tax package is to be voted on, hoping to insert a special tax exemption or subsidy in the dark of night and have it voted on before the public (or even most Congressional representatives) know it exists. By contrast, citizen-based initiatives generally succeed only if they generate public debate and receive widespread support.
3. GLOBAL FREE TRADE UNDERMINES LOCAL, STATE, AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY

Ralph Nader, political activist, THE CASE AGAINST FREE TRADE, 1993, p. 6.

Enactment of the free trade deals virtually ensures that any local, state, or even national effort in the United States to demand that corporations pay their fair share of taxes, provide a decent standard of living to their employees, or limit their pollution of the air, water, and land, will be met with the refrain, “You can’t burden us like that. If you do, we won’t be able to compete. We’ll have to close down and move to a country that offers us a more hospitable business climate.” This sort of threat is extremely powerful—communities already devastated by plant closures and a declining manufacturing base are desperate not to lose more jobs, and they know all to well from experience that threats of this sort are often carried out.