The Reality Of All Big Corporations
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/136h8r7/in_america_they_call_it_lobbying_everywhere_else/

The Reality Of All Big Corporations

Like small ones, their very reason for existence is to increase their profits and as much as possible create an environment most advantageous to their increased sense of security. The differences between the large corporations and smaller ones is the increased capacity of the large ones to direct significant amounts of money to parties that will increase their profits, extend their power and make their environment more secure for them. So, to start with, what are some of those parties?

Well, for sure there are the traditional outlets for advertising that we are all aware of. Then there are all those lobbyists that may be hired from independent organizations or come from departments within the corporations. Their tactics vary depending upon the needs of the sponsoring corporations. They may include dealing with legislators to encourage the passing of legislation that supports the corporations or head off legislation that is detrimental to the corporation. In either case, they serve 2 main goals, increasing profits and making for a more secure corporate environment.

This form of lobbying, defined by the lobbyists themselves as “influence peddlers” can be applied directly by dealing face-to-face with legislators or can be applied more subtlety by indirect means creating a groundswell from the public to put pressure on politicians to conform to the corporation’s goals. Politicians are vulnerable, being up for reelection always require financial support for their campaigns and they want to appear to support those positions that the public favors. A combination of these two factors makes many a politician highly sensitive to the needs of the corporations.

How to create that groundswell of support or adversity among the public? That too, is a function of the lobbyists. Buy favorable commentary from articles in major publications, interviews on widely watched media and the desirable spin from news outlets and the public consent the corporations want are often accomplished. There are innumerable examples of broad organized lobbying to thwart the actions the government would have exercised over large corporations to protect the public from anti-competitive monopolistic behavior that powerful corporation employ to maintain an environment of utmost security, expanding power and increasing profits.

Consider the failed efforts by the government to break up Microsoft and Google because their activities stifled competition. The government’s failure in both cases were not because of ineptitude on its part. The lobbying efforts by both corporations overwhelmed the facts on the ground and to make a long story short both corporations remain intact and with their monopolistic abilities barely touched. It should be noted that the publication of various articles praising both corporations came from authors that were supported by the corporations, facts that were often not mentioned by the authors of these articles.

The process is most obvious in the lobbying actions of the pharmaceutical industry where great efforts are taken to extend the patent protection of drugs that prevent less expensive equivalent products from entering the market reducing costs for consumers. Worse, pharmaceutical companies often introduce products that have the support of researchers who write favorable opinions on the drugs only to find that these authors are too often tied financially to their success, none of which is mentioned by the authors. Too often, the marketing efforts of pharmaceutical companies include a series of papers they would like to see published regarding either one of their existing products or ones to be introduced. They are in search of compliant researchers who for the right rewards are willing to lend their name to such studies, another service a well-connected lobbying firm provides.

It is far easier to determine whether or not fowl play exists than in decking it. What is in conflict with our innate sense of justice is that in the face of discovering that major corporations having distorted reality to their advantages and harming the public that these corporations have at their disposal endless means to obstruct and delay justice maintaining a behavior that continues to cause public harm without any prohibitions placed on their actions. At first you try to buy the regulators. If that doesn’t work buy the politicians that control the regulators. At worst, if the regulators don’t comply, have the politicians reduce their source of funding rendering them far less effective while sending a message to other regulators to go easy on the offending corporations or face the consequences.

These are not my personal speculations. Everything I write about is a distillation of highly documented studies. And I am talking about infinitesimal examples that are rampant throughout all of large corporate America. So, in my own little world of endodontics, while the major endodontic manufacturers are unlikely to have the financial power of the truly gargantuan corporations that dominate this country, they will to the best of their capacity attempt the same steps to increase their profits and make more secure and predictable the environment for their continued growth and success. In that light we can go through a list of their activities.

Do they buy exclusive entry to the student bodies to market their products? Check.

Do they sponsor research that supports the products they sponsor? Check

Do they sponsor non-research articles that expound on the benefits of their products?

Check

Do they further reward favorable researchers that are often not reported? Check

Do they work intimately with school administrations for their mutual economic benefits? Check

Do they prohibit the dispersal of any other alternative competitive information? Check

None of this behavior is consistent with the goals of increasing the critical thinking skills of the student body. There is a reason for that. Increasing critical thinking skills is exactly what the corporations don’t want when it comes into conflict with the future purchasing of their products. The major rotary manufacturers don’t have the resources of the true major companies, but they use whatever resources they do have to monopolize the market to the best of their ability. The schools evidently have no problem with those aims and any allusion to critical thinking is simply an abstract thought that cannot be allowed to actually happen under the conditions the school administrators have made with their corporate benefactors.

For anyone interested in a detailed history up to the present of the impact of corporate lobbying an informative book is, The Wolves of K Street by Jody and Luke Mullins.

Regards, Barry

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