To the editor:
It seems that people have always sensed that corporations are a danger to democracy. In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “I hope we shall crush … in its birth, the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
The contrast between Republicans and Democrats on this subject could not be greater. The GOP believes in the rule of the unfettered marketplace, a doctrine beloved by the corporations. Democrats believe in regulatory guardrails to prevent corporations from accruing so much power that they can defy the law with impunity. They understand that as a result of the corporations’ enormous size and immense wealth, they have the ability to interfere in elections and otherwise threaten democracy and the rule of law—so much more so as those corporations combine into monopolies.
The GOP has no problem with corporations running roughshod over our democracy. Consider the private meeting at Mar-a-Lago on April 11. Trump promised to deliver to the fossil-fuel industry a major chunk of its wish list: the elimination of Biden’s climate rules and the unrestricted opening of public lands to the extraction of oil and gas. In return, he expected a billion dollar donation to his campaign. Thus would Trump and the Republicans sell off our democracy.
The GOP’s corporate sympathies are revealed as well by the cozy relationship between its presidential candidate and Elon Musk, whose ability to fire his workers at whim Trump openly admires.
Democrats have been combating corporate overreaching and promoting the countervailing power of organized labor as a matter of course. Witness the creation, despite opposition by the entire corporate establishment, of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the brainchild of our own Elizabeth Warren. Witness too the opposition by the Biden administration to the merger of the Kroger and Albertson supermarket empires, in part because it may result in the loss of seniority and pay for unionized workers. Lastly, consider the suit Biden’s Department of Justice is bringing against Apple for violating antitrust laws. And let’s not forget candidate Kamala Harris’ opposition to corporate price gouging.
Want to put a brake on corporate power grabbing? Want to start shifting power back into the hands of America’s working people, its wealth creators? Vote for Harris and Walz for president and reelect Senator Warren in November.
Frank Farkas
Pittsfield
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