It takes huge amounts of cash to run a political campaign, and corporate America has become the principal banker for anti-regulation candidates’ who shun public financing. Moreover, business does not have to disclose the sources of those funds. The Supreme Court has so ruled, thus dealing a major blow to transparency, so vital to conducting the public’s business.
Loss of transparency threatens the loss of democracy itself.
Transparency’s decline began at the end of World War II, with formation of the military-industrial complex, the beginning of the Cold War and liberal use of the confidential stamp.
Business fought against regulation. Government insisted regulation was essential because business failed to act on its own. But the tremulous 1960s promoted exchange programs that encouraged business executives to serve a year or two in government, and government officials to serve in business. The idea, said John Macy, then chairman of the Civil Service Commission, was to strengthen relationships between the public and private sectors. Companies loaned executives to the National Urban Coalition, the National Alliance of Business, and other groups in response to riots in urban centers, campus sit-ins and product boycotts railing against the war in Vietnam and championing civil rights at home.
Business and government worked together, in the open, sharing credit for helping to calm the nation. Legislation accelerated civil rights. Government desegregated schools and hospitals. Business adopted social marketing programs, hired minorities, purchased goods and services from minority-owned firms. Chief executive officers who had shunned Washington opened offices there, and testified before congressional committees, having learned to identify their own interests within the context of the nation’s welfare.
Many believed that the trauma of the 1960s had let the sunshine in and united business and government in a new and enduring partnership. That proved to be wishful thinking. When smoke cleared from city streets and students returned to classrooms, business backed away from the term, “social responsibility.” And pulled down the blinds. Yes, executives agreed, where business locates manufacturing plants and sales offices determines where new homes, schools and roads will be built. Companies will be good citizens. But, they complained, government is too zealous in its efforts to curb pollution, too intrusive in the private marketplace. They argued that the crisis had passed and business needed to get back to bottom line concerns. And, oh yes, to keep its plans to itself.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan did his best to dismantle Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, suggesting that private enterprise might pick up the slack. Business rejected the notion that any amount of private sector support could replace government funded initiatives. And took a quite different approach, beefing up its trade associations, hiring more lobbyists, and filling political campaign coffers. Executives found it was much easier to buy loyalty on Capitol Hill than to plead for regulatory relief. And they could do all it in the dark, too.
Government was complicit in the loss of transparency, restricting The Freedom of Information Act and making it more difficult for press and public to gain access to government records. The White House placed strict controls on communication, often muzzling executive departments and regulatory agencies, even White House conferences which are supposed to provide new ideas free of political pressure. The confidential stamp was used cavalierly to shield embarrassments and secret meetings, such as one attended by industry executives at the White House that set the nation’s energy policy.
Transparency is democracy’s requisite attribute. And its demise is inextricably linked to a dramatic change in business-government relations. Transparency might have saved us from near financial collapse. Even prevented war. Today it could reveal the true costs of military misadventures that savage domestic budgets. And restore common sense and common purpose on Capitol Hill.
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