This commentary was drafted in anger when I learned that pig farmers are refusing to allow inspections to look for the microbes that are killing people. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed the filth of the meat-packing industry in 1906 and led directly to the Pure Food and Drug Act and the creation of the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. Now they want to undo a century of relatively clean food by claiming regulation is bad – yes, particularly bad for filth in the food industry.
This country’s reputation for honesty and responsibility long gave us a huge market edge. American institutions check on errors and misbehavior. That drove our legal and corporate culture. Now we’re inviting the world to ditch its confidence in us, and inviting each other to be cynical about business and political claims, threatening our economic power and democratic system.
Everyone has a reason why you can’t check on them. China is more honest about their meat than our pig farmers. Police refuse to allow information to be made public about their behavior because the people might realize who is trustworthy and who isn’t. The President denies Congress’ authority to get information from him. Even George Washington turned papers over. Trump is the first President since Richard Nixon to refuse Congress his tax information, lest the American people get an honest look at his economic behavior, bankruptcies and unreliability.
Republicans lump everything under the title of regulation and, making no distinction, claim all regulation is bad. Regulation is a problem because they might have to take responsibility for the poisons they want to emit, the toxins and dangerous bugs in the food they want to sell us, and the financial shenanigans they use to fleece us of our money. No one has the right to poison or injure anyone else. That’s irresponsible at best, legally tortious and probably criminal.
The so-called Supreme Court authorizes corporations to force us into arbitration with arbitrators the corporations choose so that the arbitrators are only beholden to the corporations, and anyway, they have no power to cure corporate misbehavior. Heaven forbid corporations should have to own up for their sins. Why should they – no one else does.
We have fussed about the bribery rampant in other countries because it prevents law from working to produce decent and proper behavior that justifies reliance. Preventing investigations is almost as bad. We’re now allowing corporate and political America to behave like the Mafia where there is only accountability for hurting each other – the purpose of the organization is to fleece the public, impose protection rackets, and, where people object, kill. In this complex world it is increasingly difficult to protect yourself from dishonest business.
But the President does it – shouldn’t we follow his example? He failed to fire Mueller but he fires everyone else who might insist on honesty and accountability. Now he’s now moving federal agencies halfway across the country to encourage the staff to quit rather than relocate. What a step forward.
There’s a stench in the White House but who’s left to complain? Too many corporate officers can no longer be watched because Trump destroyed the civil service. Who’s to complain about what they do?
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
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