A Theology of Corporations

            Perhaps J. R. R. Tolkein's most salient contribution to theology is the doctrine he called the principle of "sub-creation."  By it, he meant that we make according to the principle by which we are made.  That is, like all things else, we were spoken into existence by a multi-personal God acting in unity.  We are the result of the powerful and creative words of a plurality-in-unity.  That implies three important things:  (1) language, (2) community, and (3) mutual love are at the core of all reality.  From them, all created things arise.

         In Genesis 1: 1, we read that "in the beginning elohim," a plural word, "created" (a singular verb) "the heavens and the earth."(KJV).  That is, a plurality acting as a unity made the world, and He made it with words.  He spoke it into existence.  The same principle re-emerges later in the same chapter when God says "Let us" (plural) make (singular) man in our (plural) image   So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them" (v. 27).

         Note that the image of God is something said about no other creatures but the human creatures, and that this image is distributed across both sexes.  While each human creature possesses it, no person has it in its fullness.  Without others, male and female, it is incomplete in us.  In order to make it more full, in order to manifest it more effectively, we are to be communal, to work in concert with one another, just like our Creator, and we are to work the way he works, by making things with words, by speaking things into existence, things personal and impersonal, and things that singular and plural simultaneously.  Corporations fit that description quite fully. 

         As God made the universe with words, corporations are made with words, in this case, the precise legal language of incorporation, the result of which is that many persons become one, that one being both personal and impersonal, much like the universe in which it exists, a universe filled with persons and non-persons.  A corporation is, as we all know, a person at law, a personal entity replete with rights and obligations, composed of multiple persons, acting in concert, a marvelous thing sprung from words.  To revert to Tolkein, we make according to the principle by which we are made.

         When God made us, He placed upon our shoulders what theologians call the "creation mandate:"  We are to have "dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (v. 26).  "Dominion" here does not mean reckless exploitation.  It means the prudent stewardship by which we are to "be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (v. 28).  It means transforming the entire earth from an uncultivated jungle into productive and well-sustained garden.  Corporations can be, and ought to be, part of that mandate, part of that stewardship of productive sustainability.  Corporations, being in our image, have the same obligations we have, being in God's image.  We are to make the best of things, to cultivate the world in ever richer and more productive ways, always with an eye toward our Divinely imposed obligations and our Divinely bestowed opportunities.  We are to "fill the earth," leaving none of it less habitable or less productive than is possible, not even the deserts in all their native hostility, which nations like Israel have turned into a garden, a city, a workplace, a school, and a resort.  Much of that subduing was the work of corporations, doing what they, and we, were created to do.

         One of the central doctrines of Christianity is the Lordship of Christ.  As Lord, He is not the Lord of merely some things, but of all.  If He is Lord of all things, then nothing is properly secular.  Therefore, anything pursued in a secular fashion is at least partly, if not wholly, mispursued.  Our task, then, is to bring his Lordship wisely and prudently to bear upon all that we do, including filling the earth, subduing it, and making it what it was meant to be.   It means running a corporation as if Jesus were its CEO, as if the One who turned water into wine were still at work, turning deserts into oases.

             

The Socialist -in-Chief, on his plans for American industry

Barack Obama, this week, at the Colorado state fairgrounds, in Pueblo:

“I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back and GM is number one again. So now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.”

These aren’t my words.  They belong to the Socialist–in-Chief

The Chrysler Bailout, the Triple Hit, and the Laws of Political Economy

It looks like American taxpayers will lose more than $1.3 billion in the Chrysler bailout.

That bailout and loss demonstrate that we have forgotten the first rule of political economy:  You get more of what you subsidize.  We subsidize failure.  We keep getting it.  This is now the second time we've bailed out Chrysler.

How many more times will we reward their failure?  How many more times will we send the message that, if you are big, you are safe -- no matter what mistakes you make or how much it costs taxpayers?

Why do we do it?

We don’t, unless by “we” you mean the self-serving politicos in DC.

They do it because they want to keep themselves in positions of power and privilege.  They do it because they don’t have to pay the freight; you do.  They do it because it keeps money flowing in their direction, money from big business, from big labor, and from you.

Because big business wants to stay safe, big business keeps pouring money into political coffers.  It wants friends in Washington, so it buys them and keeps them in place.  Because big labor craves privilege and advantage over unattached workers, big labor keeps pouring money into political coffers.   It wants friends in Washington, so it buys them and keeps them in place.  Politicians, of course, want to stay in place, so they take the money offered them and protect those who give it, thereby protecting themselves.

Naturally, those politicians don’t say that’s why they do it.  They say they are doing it for America.  They say they are doing it for you, even though you are the one who pays; even though you are the one who loses.  Corporations are safe; labor is safe; politicians are safe; you are not.

You take a triple hit: (1) When unions take advantage of the privileges that government grants them in order to gain more money and benefits for their members, the cost of labor rises.  When labor costs rise, prices rise.  You lose.  (2) When corporations must pour millions of dollars into lobbying in order to stay safe, the cost of doing business rises.  When costs rise, prices rise.  You lose.  (3) When the whole labor/business/politician scheme falls through and billions of dollars get washed away, the cost of government rises.  When government costs rise, the tax burden rises.  You lose.

Government doesn't trust you and hundreds of millions of other consumers to pick the winners and losers in the marketplace.  Government, business, and labor will do it for you, your marketplace choices notwithstanding.  When government chooses the winners and losers, it's called crony capitalism.  But crony capitalism is phony capitalism.  It's not the real thing.

That brings me to the second law of political economy:  Regardless of who they are intended to help, every pubic policy hurts someone.  In this case, that someone is you.    

Big corporations and big unions have big government by the throat.  Big government has you by the throat.  It's time to break free.  You deserve better.  You won't get it until you vote the profligate lackies in Washington out of office.

That’s the only way big business, big labor, and big government will realize that if you wanted Chrysler to have your money you’d buy their cars.

Tax the Unions

Perhaps you’ve noticed that while they howl for higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy CEOs who run them, and while they clamor endlessly for the rich to pay their fair share in taxes, Democrats do not howl for higher taxes on unions, which pay none at all on the money they take in.

A labor union is not a charity, not a church, and not a non-profit organization.  According to the IRS, a labor union is “an association of workers who have combined to protect and promote the interests of the members by bargaining collectively with their employers to secure better working conditions.”  Like the unions with which they must negotiate, corporations consist of persons who band together for their mutual benefit and advancement too.  It seems only fair, therefore, that if the advantage-seeking corporations with which the unions negotiate must pay taxes, then so also should the unions.  Like corporations, unions exist for their own and their members’ financial benefit.  If it’s fair to be taxed on the one side, then it’s fair to be taxed on the other.  Nevertheless, despite that fundamental requirement of fairness, one side is taxed and the other is tax exempt.

The reason for this obvious unfairness is not far to find:  Unions funnel many tens of millions of dollars each major election cycle to Democratic candidates across the nation.  In order to keep the money flowing in their direction, Democratic lawmakers grant unions a privileged tax status among the big profit makers.

They also grant to unions a privileged status among organizations with shareholders:  They grant them captive shareholders.  They do so by taking away the independent worker’s right to work.  If you want to make a living in a particular industry or in a particular business, you must buy the union product whether you want it or not.  If you don’t join, you don’t work.  Goldman Sachs, Wal-Mart, and Exxon-Mobil, for example, don’t have captive shareholders constrained to participate and to invest under force of law, but unions do.  Bought-and-paid-for politicians make it possible.

Bottom of FormIf you are concerned with the undue influence of big money on politics, then you should take a closer look at unions.  They spend many times more on the purchase of reliable politicians than do the financial institution, the big oil conglomerate, and the retail chain named above combined.  Unions are perpetual advocates for raising taxes on citizens and corporations alike, yet they are tax exempt on the money they make.  They want to prescribe tax medicine, but they refuse to take it.  Democrats see to it that when it comes to taxes, unions get a pass.

I’ll believe the Democrats are serious about reducing the deficit by making the rich pay their so-called “fair share” when they make the unions pay theirs.  I’ll believe Democratic rhetoric about “sharing the pain” when Democrats make unions hurt.  I’ll believe the Democrats are serious about closing tax loopholes the day they close the most flagrant loophole in the tax code -- union tax exemption.  When unions and their multi-billion dollars in assets and profits come under the tax code knife, things will have changed.  Until then, we know that such “change” is not something for which Democrats really “hope.”

With billions of dollars each year in membership dues at their disposal, unions can well participate in sharing the sacrifice.  But when Democrats talk about paying a “fair share,” when they talk about “shared sacrifice,” they don’t mean a sacrifice shared by unions.  They mean a sacrifice shared by everyone else.  They mean everyone ought to have “skin in the game” -- except the unions who fund Democratic re-election efforts. 

By maintaining this unfair tax exemption for unions, an exemption that puts more money in the hands of Democrats running for office and less money in the public treasury for running the government, Democrats are telling you explicitly that they favor personal advantage over public good.  Mr. Livinggreedy goes to Washington.  Mr. Unionfatcat buys the ticket.

Further, Democrats endlessly bewail the lack of sufficient funding for public education, yet refuse to tax unions in order to limit the shortfall.  They prefer re-election to better schools.

Partisanship, not civic mindedness, makes it happen.

It’s crass political advantage in return for shameless special privilege.


For the record, see:   http://www.laborunionreport.com/portal/2011/09/union-statistics-what-you-may-not-know/

Who Really Cares? The Five Most-Hated Corporations, that's Who

You hear a lot from the Occupy Wall Street mobs that corporations are greedy and evil, which can mean only that the Occupiers know as little about corporations as they do about politics, economics, history, and law. 

Habitually, the corporations that top the left’s list of the most hated in America include Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, Exxon, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.  They include, respectively, a big box chain started by an evangelical Christian, a financial and investment institution, big oil, and three major banks -- the left’s usual suspects.

For the record, precisely those five most-hated corporations happen to be the most generous corporations of all, both in America and in the world, based upon their 2010 giving:

1. Wal-Mart: $319,454,996
2. Goldman Sachs: $315,383,413
3. Wells Fargo: $219,132,065
4. Bank of America: $207,939,857
5. Exxon Mobil: $198,692,197

In other words, the five most-hated American corporations donated more than $1.2 billion just last year.  By any objective standard, that’s a whole lot of charity; that’s a whole lot of giving.  Yet even that is not enough for the OWS park dwellers.  I forget how how much they donated. 

Leave it to the Libs to hate the best and most generous, and yet to think of themselves as the measure of virtue. 

It’s what you’d expect from folks who lionize Barney Frank as a champion of the poor, but who excoriate Paul Ryan as a grandma killer.

After all, it’s not like the Occupiers are known for their clarity, their charity, or their ability to make a viable contribution to the economic health of the country.