Sleaze Not Limited To Hollywood
The critics have it wrong when they urge Bob Dole to back off his attacks on the trash peddlers in the movie, TV and record industry. If liberals had their heads screwed on right, they would salute the Senate majority leader and Republican presidential hopeful and urge him to extend his stated principles to corporate life.
What Dole is saying is something that liberals ought to recognize as one of their own basic beliefs: The morality of the marketplace does not in itself guarantee a good society. Seeking profits is not synonymous with being responsible.
Dole used almost exactly those words last week on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in explaining why he had criticized the makers of films, TV shows and records that celebrate violence and degrade women. “My goal in making that speech was twofold,” he said. “First, to point out the impact that these things have on children and, second, to point out to corporate executives there ought to be some limit on profits. When you debase America, debase society, there ought to be a line drawn.”
Earlier, during his presidential announcement swing, Dole had said repeatedly, “Society pays a price when the entertainment industry poisons the minds of our young people. We must hold Hollywood accountable for putting profit ahead of common decency.”
Here you have one of the most powerful voices in the Republican chorus challenging major corporations to get serious about their social responsibilities. Instead of questioning Dole’s motives - suggesting this is just a play for the religious right - liberals should be shouting, “Amen, he’s seen the light.”
It’s a light that has been shone by some of the most powerful conservative institutions in the world, starting with the Roman Catholic Church. The Catechism says, “Those responsible for business enterprises are responsible to society for the economic and ecological effects of their operations. They have an obligation to consider the good of persons and not only the increase of profits.” Pope John Paul II has written, “Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered, which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business.” The American bishops have echoed those views.
These teachings are familiar to William Bennett, the conservative former education secretary who preceded Dole in the assault on filth and violence disguised as entertainment. Talking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Bennett said that in challenging Time Warner for some of its offensive products, “we were appealing to their moral sense … to some sense of shame … to corporate responsibility.”
These voices are welcome because too much of contemporary conservatism has simply become an apologist for corporate power. The complex workings of a healthy civil society have been reduced to a few banalities: Profits good. Taxes bad. Business builds. Government obstructs.
Finally, Dole and Bennett are saying, at least in this instance, that business which profits at the expense of society should feel the scorn of the public. Shame is a powerful weapon. But it should not be reserved only for elements of the entertainment industry.
Targeting Time Warner is fine, but where were those voices of conservative conscience in 1991, when 25 employees of the Imperial Food Products Co. in Hamlet, N.C., suffocated after an explosion and fire in a chicken processing plant whose doors had been locked from the outside to curb what the company said was petty theft? In 11 years of operation, that company had never had a safety inspection. But many Republicans paused just long enough for the funerals and then went back to bashing government inspectors for making too many demands on business.
Where is the outcry from conservatives about compensation policies that have enriched the top 1 percent of Americans mightily in the last 20 years, while the earnings of most working-class and middle-class workers have stagnated or declined? When the issue is raised, too many of them cry “class warfare” and then block any increase in the minimum wage, which has lost 11 percent of its value since it was last adjusted.
And where were the cries of conscience last year when the minority of businesses that provide no health insurance for their workers helped block the bill that would have made such coverage universal? Bob Dole and others did their best to kill health care reform.
Don’t knock Bennett and Dole. Applaud them. Just ask them to be consistent.
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