Influencing corporations
Every so often it gets to bugging me that corporations have such sway on our government. I mean, they are the ones with the money and the power these days. I called several members of congress the day before the $700 billion TARP bailout to tell them that I was very opposed to the bailout. In fact, the whole concept sickened me and it still does. I actually think that most Americans are in fact sickened by the bailout, especially in retrospect when we see where the money has gone and what these banks are doing with their share of our money.
That said, I was encouraged by Ray Anderson, the former CEO of Interfact Inc., a company that makes carpets. Without going into too much detail, Ray Anderson came to a realization that his company was raping the environment for profit and he became determined to turn it around. Watch the youtube video for a more detailed explaination. The point I wanted to make here was that the thing that originally got them thinking about sustainability was that they started getting comments and questions from customers about the company’s environmental policies. As US citizens, we vote once ever 2 or 4 years for our leaders. As consumers and investors however, we vote every day by the products that we buy and the companies that we invest in.
The fact remains that companies will only change their behavior when it makes economic sense to do so. I have written several letters to Caterpillar in protest to them providing Israel with the D9R bulldozer which is a gigantic fully armored bulldozer specifically designed and produced to destroy Palestinian homes. As a company their obligations are to their stock holders (of which I used to be one), but I also believe they should feel a moral obligation to distance themselved from this despicable Israeli practice of knocking down Palestinian homes.
Caterpillar will not cut these business ties until they reach the point where they lose more money by continuing to sell these D9R bulldozers because of the backlash from the public. I have “voted” for them to stop selling bulldozers to Israel by selling my caterpillar stock and writing the board of directors a letter. The good thing is that in this type of voting, your vote will count far more than your vote for president. It’s a much more effective way to make your voice heard.