Community or Corporation?

These entities are similar and dissimilar. Communities are people who live together, side by side and in organizations, work spaces, charities and churches. Also on the golf course or the ball field. Corporations are also comprised of people, just not from the same community. Their commutes may even bring them from far away towns and villages.

Corporations are also formed to fulfill a purpose different from a community: to produce a product or service and to sell it while making a profit to reward executive staff and investors. A good neighbor policy and program may extend the value of this corporation to local interests, but it is not its purpose. Such are public relations goals.

The community, however, finds its worth by way of its people. How they work together, play together and learn together. Getting to know each other and being involved in their lives is a core feature of a community. Accepting each other and enabling each other to develop in fruitful directions is another feature of a healthy community.

Local governmental units – city/village/town, library, park district, and schools – serve the needs of the community. Often they work collaboratively to meet community needs more fully. The community funds these units of government to do this work for the benefit of all those living in the community.

As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) states:

“People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance, they live, they love, and they die. And That Matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, We Run It For People.”

A corporation runs its ‘life’ for itself and its stakeholders. To be successful it needs to meet competitive standards in its marketplaces. One of those marketplaces is the community in which it operates. That may be many communities.

But it is not a given that the corporation will act as a person in those communities. And that is the point of today’s posting.

Often a community makes concessions to companies because they employ local residents, pay taxes to local governmental units, and generally contribute to the well-being of the community. Too many concessions, however, and the company becomes a net taker rather than contributor to the well-being of the community.

For the corporation, being a good neighbor has benefits: well educated students from the schools, well-adjusted youth from local healthy families, and a wellspring of good new labor for hire. The company may even provide involved employees in local charities, churches and volunteer agencies.

Such a company will certainly experience goodwill and loyalty from the community. This may lead to increased sales and corporate success.  One can hope this will be true and remain so.

Too often, however, the community vs corporation gets out of whack.

Normally this is on a national scale, possibly, too, on a state by state basis. With states competing for companies both as taxpayers and employers, sweetheart deals are made to steal companies from one state to another. The results lead often to regional desertions, empty factories, failing industries and dying communities. Think of Detroit and Flint Michigan as prime examples. But each rust belt city or town has felt the same tremors of despair at one time or another. And empty tracts of past industrial areas.

Warrenville, Illinois has lost BP/Amoco executive offices; so too, Navistar. But the community attracts many others to replace them and a whole lot of smaller businesses as well that hopefully will grow to be significant partners in the community.

Competitive pressures on corporations exist on a global, national and regional basis. National and state governments can try and help with those problems, but the local community has to minister to its own needs. They do not need to financially subsidize corporations. That task is too large. Meanwhile, however, corporations need help of a different nature.

They do not need conferring citizenship on them as natural persons. Such is an extension of influence and power far beyond the powers of individual citizens. A balance of power is needed. As Senator Warren says, we run the nation for its citizens, not its corporations. Communities need to be fair and good neighbors to the companies within its borders. So too the corporation needs to be a good neighbor to its communities.  All of them.

Balance is needed. We have to take care of our businesses and corporations. If we do they will provide resources to make and keep the community healthy. But the residents alone are citizens. The corporations are not. Their purposes are much different. And rightly so.

We just need to keep these two separate.

July 16, 2014