Corporate Polluters: Don’t Shame Them, Regulate Them

Down the Toxic Free Market Rabbit Hole

No Shame At Shameless Corporations

“The government does not need to stamp out dissent. The uniformity of imposed public opinion through the corporate media does a very effective job. … the problem and its parameters, create a box that dissenters struggle vainly to elude. The critic who insists on changing the context is dismissed as irrelevant, extremist, ‘the Left’—or ignored altogether.”” ~~~ Sheldon Wolin, quoted by Chris Hedges

The Thompson Street Halloween theme this year was Alice In Wonderland – a timely topic, given our increasingly cynical and dystopian politics.

The homes along Thompson Street in Bordentown put on an awesome display at Halloween, and this year was spectacular as usual – including a String Band. (I wonder if they realize that their collectivist community planning is closer to the Paris Commune than Tea Party politics?)

But reading a NJ Spotlight story this morning prompts this post – it made me feel like I hadn’t yet emerged from the Rabbit Hole I went down on Halloween night partying at the HOB (“Heart of Bordentown”, a local bar) Let me explain.

Naive and Destructive Premises Of Market Based Environmentalists

About 30 years ago, when the corporate funded backlash attack on traditional environmental regulation was beginning to gain momentum, a certain “third way” or “market oriented” “corporate accommodationist”  faction of the environmental community thought that market based tools were an effective supplement to shortcomings in traditional regulation.

That period is when we saw the rise of the market based pollution trading concept and all the ENGO campaigns seeking corporate greening and sustainable development.

One of the less well known tools of this corporate faction was disclosure of information – e.g. product labeling laws and “Right To Know”, et cetera – the premise was pure free market economics: consumers should know what they are buying and corporations see strategic and market value in their reputations with consumers.

If a corporation were forced to disclose publicly how much toxic crap they discharged, this thinking went, they would be ashamed or face market competition from consumer demand to reduce those toxic emissions.

At first, it seemed to work – the emissions appeared to come down sharply.

But much of that reduction was purely paperwork, not real (just consider air pollution permit “potential to emit” versus “actual emissions” to gain an understanding of this paper accounting unreal reduction in emissions).

Instead of market driven or corporate shame based reforms, research has found that any reductions were primarily the result of traditional regulation:

TRI induced public disclosure may have contributed to the decline in reported toxic releases, that alone has not been the cause of those reductions: the evidence is strong that changes in toxic emission intensity are a byproduct of more traditional command and control regulation of emissions of non-toxic pollutants

And since the early third way days, market tools have come not to supplement regulation but to dominate and often replace regulation. Unshackled and deregulated corporations are shameful and not capable of being shamed at this point.

The Third Way accommodationists were naive and ill informed, unaware that they were even involved in an ideological war and corporate backlash campaign.

But despite an horrific 30 year reign of error, this pro-corporate conservationist camp has not slithered away in shame with its tail between its legs, it is well funded and blindly charges on, using new slogans and environmental catastrophe’s to justify itself.

A typical ludicrous argument goes thusly:

“Instead of scolding capitalism, conservationists should partner with corporations in a science-based effort to integrate the value of nature’s benefits into their operations and cultures.”

And that argument is dismissed as follows:

It has not arisen in a vacuum, but is the logical culmination of 30 years of corporatization of the Big Greens, as enviros starting in the 1980s degenerated into a professionalized, business-funded interest group and began to operate like the businessmen they once saw as the adversary. Consider that the president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy today, Mark Tercek, is a former managing director and partner at Goldman Sachs.

We see hangovers of this misguided effort, even among progressives, in such campaigns like climate disinvestment, and among the still deluded, in efforts that target individual market consumer behaviors like buying a Prius or compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the world – both of which rely on market behaviors

(more to come on this topic with respect to NJ in a future post)

Alice in Wonderland today

As example of just how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone, consider today’s NJ Spotlight story I mentioned at the outset.

The origin of the Right To Know – Toxic Release Inventory programs was to target corporations to hold them accountable and shame them for their emissions of toxic pollutants.

That used to drive annual Reports by environmental groups – and blaring headlines – about the “Dirty Dozen” or “Top 10 Polluters”.

But check out this story – seemingly oblivious to this history, now, its the TOWNS that are targeted, as if THEY caused the pollution!

THE LIST: NJ LOCALES WITH THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF TOXIC CHEMICAL RELEASES

So, it’s bad enough that not only have market oriented tools displaced regulation, even the core free market accountability purposes of those tools have been twisted beyond recognition.

Toxic Tea Party