The (idiotic) corporate odyssey of the Left

Their seamless transition from loving large corporations to hating them to loving them again

There was a time not all that long ago—when George W. Bush was President, in the years after 9/11—when many self-styled liberals and progressives were celebrating with glee decisions from companies like Google to deny the government access to things like metadata, to deny the government general search info detached from actual individuals. This was followed by another time—in the age of Barack Obama—when these same liberals and progressives, by and large, were very angry with large corporations for not paying enough taxes, for being given legal “personhood,” for paying upper management ridiculous amounts of money. Now, we seem to have come full circle, to a time when once again large corporations are the heroes, the champions, standing up to government and doing their part to promote freedom and equality for all.

How can this be?

Going back to that first period, when the country feared another terrorism attack and when it was still coming to grips with the internet and all that it would entail (in terms of access to personal information and the like), one can almost see the sense of it: letting the government have information like search data (and other metadata) is giving the government access to our personal lives, letting them know who we are in ways that maybe they shouldn’t. Indeed, a professor of sociology at Duke—one Kieran Healy—wrote a wonderful piece on how metadata could have been used by the British to identify revolutionaries like Paul Revere as early as 1772.

This was a legitimate fear, one not limited to liberals, progressives, and others on the Left of American politics. Most libertarians and some conservatives—not nearly enough, in my opinion—recognized that granting the government this kind of access was indeed a bridge too far. Enter the hero: the still-adolescent Google (and others in Silicon Valley, to be sure) who said no to the government, who would not simply hand over such information, no matter the reason why.

There are several paradoxes here: first, there is the reality that we—as citizens—regularly hand over all kinds of information to various government agencies, information that can be quite personal in nature, though thankfully most of these agencies don’t know what to do with the information. Second, Google and other large companies had and have no problem collecting this information, using it themselves and/or selling it to other companies. One has to wonder if some CIA front couldn’t—or didn’t—simply buy the needed information from Google and others.

As time wore on, people seemingly forgot all about the dangers of metadata, as they lived out their lives on social media, freely providing personal details to any and all without a second thought. And following the 07/08 financial crisis, there was a renewed interest in corporate greed—led by Bernie Sanders and the OWS crowd—initially with financial companies, but soon encompassing large corporations in general. The Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in 2010 added more fuel to this particular fire, as it seemingly granted corporations full “personhood,” insofar as it found that the First Amendment protected the spending of corporations on political issues. And to be fair, once again not all of the anger here came from liberals and progressives (though certainly most of it did).

The anti-corporation articles, posts, and memes were impossible to miss. One of my personal favorites is the still-extant piece claiming that the “average CEO salary” is anywhere from 300 to 500 times that of the “average worker.” On messageboards and on social media, this is a claim that is still frequently made, though as it is usually presented, it is also absolute nonsense. There are thousands and thousands of CEOs out there who don’t make millions of dollars a year. To get the ratio claimed, one needs to limit the CEOs to just the largest 300 or 400 corporations (or thereabouts). But saying “these 350 people make 300 times more a year then the average person” doesn’t have the same ring to it, especially because many professional athletes and entertainers would fit the bill, as well.

And now—amazingly—we are back to liberals and progressives hero-worshiping large corporations, either because they espouse current social justice themes, or because they stand up to government, like in Florida, where the Disney Corporation—one of the greediest mega-corps to ever exist—is fighting in court with Florida governor Ron DeSantis because the latter had the audacity to sign into law an education bill that some people at Disney opposed. This led to DeSantis—perhaps unwisely from a political standpoint, yet probably correctly from an ethical one—to undercut special privileges enjoyed by Disney that made it akin to a self-governing polity on its Orlando properties.

Disney’s retaliatory lawsuit accuses the State of Florida of—I kid you not—infringing on it’s right to free speech. And in this regard, liberal and progressives seem to fully support Disney (so does Donald Trump, which should tell you something, if you’re a Trump supporter still, but I digress).

Forget the politics here, just for a moment, if you can. Consider the bigger picture and the inherent contradictions in the story line. People were upset with the government for trying to compile personal data and were happy that large corporations resisted handing over this data to the government. Slowly but surely, people handed over even more data than requested by the government on social media with no prompting, allowing some of these same companies to sell that data to essentially anyone willing to pay, while much of the data is also freely available to anyone with a computer (or cellphone) and social media accounts. At the same time, these people became outraged at the wealth being accumulated by large corporations and disgusted by how the government was granting such corporations rights and privileges, as if they were persons. Now, these people are actively applauding the greed of corporations, defending the rights and privileges the corporations have been granted by the government, and questioning the government’s authority to curtail the same. It’s enough to make one’s head spin.

Speaking as a Floridian, I don’t really care if Disney abandons the State. Disney’s corporate greed is legendary and omnipresent. Disney ruined the Marvel and Star Wars franchises. It ruined ESPN, where one has to subscribe to the streaming service to get watchable sporting events. Its theme parks are overpriced and overcrowded. And its CEOs’ compensation packages are exactly the sort that create the “300 times the average worker’s income” talking points. But I can accept a different opinion in this regard. What I can’t accept are the contradictions and blatant hypocrisy from people who once claimed to oppose corporate greed and corporate personhood. Pick a fucking position and stick with it.