We are a beautiful but flawed species. James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary … In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty is this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
This thinking, which originated with philosophers from Montesquieu to Locke, led to the creation of checks and balances in our government.
It must be stressed that the concept was not that men were inherently evil, but that men were not angels. Combine that thought with the famous statement by Lord Acton in 1875, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and we understand the temptation that even good men may succumb to.
Madison and other founders knew this. It was not that any of the three branches of government were inherently evil, but that if any one had too much power, they could succumb to the temptations of corruption.
Conservatives quote Thomas Jefferson as saying, “The best government is that which governs least.” The quote is misattributed. It was actually said by Henry David Thoreau in his 1849 “Civil Disobedience.”
It is true that Jefferson vehemently distrusted concentrated power in government, but he equally distrusted concentrated power in banks (which were the major corporations in 1800), referring to “the selfish spirit of commerce (that) knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.”
Jefferson and other presidents like Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt believed in the importance of checks and balances not only within government, but between government and business.
Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, whose farewell address was summarized as “Beware the military-industrial complex,” said “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Just as no branch of government is inherently evil, neither is the military or any business, including major corporations, inherently evil. But they are not populated by angels either. They need checks and balances in the form of regulations, oversight, and transparency. When all those are in place, we function at our best with private public partnerships.
But as Madison, Jefferson and Eisenhower warned, some corporations have become corrupt. And just as Lord Acton warned, the more powerful the corporation, the more corrupt it may be in using that power.
Unfortunately, I am not speaking theoretically. Corruption is upon us, corruption that has been used to strip away checks and balances, our very protection against those corruptions. Regulations have been systematically defunded and removed under the guise that regulations interfere with the efficiency of business.
The Supreme Court in the Citizens United case allowed for the rampant flow of “dark money” between corporations and politicians, under the guise of corporations somehow being people and somehow being granted the absolute right of privacy. The extreme wealth of corporations has corrupted judicial dealings by making it almost impossible to challenge them in court, and to punish lowly citizens if they dare.
That extreme wealth has allowed corporations to corrupt the legislative process by simultaneously getting subsidies from government while paying lower taxes. That extreme wealth has even corrupted large parts of the news media to convince people that the only alternative against business as usual is the evil “socialism.”
We cannot continue to function as a democratic society nor be able to face the massive problems of climate, pandemics, social and economic injustice if we continue “business as usual.” We must reinstitute checks and balances with big business. We must have regulations, funds to ensure that they are qualitatively and quantitatively enforced, and open transparency so that what business does is visible and clear to all.
We must limit how much business owns our government, our judiciary, and our press. We the people, must be Eisenhower’s “alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” unite, and take charge.
Michael Kalm
Michael A. Kalm, M.D., a Utah psychiatrist, has spent 40 years helping patients find the better angels of their nature.