Chamber Defections
I largely agree with Josh Marshall’s take on the recent defections from the US Chamber of Commerce:
It’s still only a handful, of course. But it’s an interesting illustration of the different dynamics of the global warming issue than say health care or other regulatory policy issues or labor relations — particularly for companies in the energy field and those involved in mass consumer marketing.
It’s not hard for instance to understand why a company like Nike, which markets overwhelmingly to a younger demographic and to some degree is in the business of marketing cool, would not like to be associated with anti-climate change science extremism. Similar things could be said about Apple, which markets to generally wealthier, more educated and I suspect — though I don’t know this specifically — generally more progressive people.
There’s simply mass awareness and politicization on this issue in a way there’s not about most high stakes political questions. I also wonder whether some companies may not be sensitive to the impact on their reputation on an international trade, those doing a substantial amount of international trade. But the mass politicization and company’s sensitivity to domestic brand damage strikes me as the key takeaway for now.
But I do think it’s worth taking this further. The fundamental problem the Chamber of Commerce is going to have on this is that they’re really really wrong. Not like how they’re morally wrong about, say, labor rights or workplace safety rules. They’re analytically mistaken about the interests of the United States business community. If we take action to avert ecological catastrophe, economic growth will still happen. Capitalism will march on. Big companies will be big, and people will earn lots of money managing them. Yes, the present-day owners of coal companies or manufacturers specifically wedded to unusually energy-intensive processes will be in trouble. But “business” in a broad and general sense will keep on keeping on. People will still want gadgets and furniture, will shop at stores, will buy and sell, and generally keep being customers for business.
The real risk is being run by doing nothing. It’s doing nothing that might end the party, and lead to various kinds of nightmare scenarios. And over time, more and more firms are going to see that they have no particular stake in underpricing pollution. One maybe of the Chamber board is a guy from Anheuser-Busch. A serious climate bill’s not going to put him out of business. Nor, to just pick board affiliated companies whose lines of business I recognize, is it going to put State Farm Insurance or IBM or AT&T or Pfizer or Accenture out of business. But the executives at those companies and their kids and their customers are all going to face all the problems caused by untrammeled climate change. And why, genuinely, should a pharmaceutical company or a telecom company be fighting to stop people from stopping an ecological disaster? It genuinely doesn’t make sense.
25 Responses to “Chamber Defections”
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October 7th, 2009 at 10:42 am
I’m sure this guy speaks up at the Board Meetings:
Don L. Blankenship
Chairman, CEO and President
Massey Energy Company
Belfry, KY
October 7th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Because some people are idiots? Or because some people think being an active contrarian and sticking it to the hippies is the way to go?
I honestly can’t think of any other viable alternatives.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Hippy kicking is this site’s raison d’etre. It’s hard to explain the reflexive neo-liberalism as an intellectually thought out belief system. Trickle down economics failed to make life better for most people. Globalization failed to make life better for most people. The entire argument for this site’s economic policy is “lets steal from normal people and give the money to rich people.”
A lot of us see that as every bit as harmful to the nations future as global warming. We don’t believe that you’re trying to make anyones life better. You’re not trying to make American lives better, that argument sank with three decades of stagnant or falling wages and massive income inequality. You aren’t trying to make the third world better, how can you be? Globalization accelerates the use of fossil fuels, accelerating the point at which globalization falls apart from lack of fuel.
No, your only purpose is to loot all the money you can right now and burn the country to the ground doing so.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:48 am
These companies pay high membership fees in this organization. So if the organization is not advancing their best interests, what’s the point?
October 7th, 2009 at 10:49 am
State Farm and other insurance companies should, if anything, be lobbying hard for the govt to do something about climate change. Katrina was not good for the insurance industry. Climate change will lead to more destructive weather events like floods, droughts, and hurricanes, that will lead to lots of liability for insurance companies.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:55 am
And that’s the American way! After arguing with people for the past decade, that’s pretty much what it boils down to. No one wants to actively prevent corporations from doing things because ‘they have the same rights as people’. Then they wonder why they can’t manage to flip a house after the market’s crahsed…
October 7th, 2009 at 11:01 am
The idea that this only affects coal-burning companies is ludicrous. Every company in America that uses energy in any way will be affected. And for what – to reduce the world’s temperature by 0.02 degrees in 2100? That isn’t going to avert any disaster at all.
It’s this type of nonsense that makes it hard to take Matthew seriously about climate change.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am
What, you didn’t recognize Randall Quarles of The Carlyle Group?
Does he speak on behalf of this fellow Blue Carlylians, Mac McLarty, Arthur Levitt, Charles Rossotti, William Kennard, David Marchick, or Chris Ullman?
October 7th, 2009 at 11:13 am
“If we take action to avert ecological catastrophe, economic growth will still happen.” I’m suspicious of Matt’s optimistic belief that doing something is better than nothing. There is at least some reason to believe that a) the problem is far past fixing through marginal adjustments; and b) that there is no way the world as a whole is willing to do what is necessary to make a real difference. Just check out this article in the New Yorker a while back: ” In order to stabilize carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, annual emissions around the globe would have to be cut by something on the order of three-quarters. So far, there’s no evidence that anyone is willing to take the necessary steps.” (Google Kolbert New Yorker and Hansen). I’d really like to know what Matt would recommend if we accept that nothing that is remotely politically feasible will do anything to curb climate change. Or alternatively, why that conclusion is obviously wrong.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Al, you’re right: that’s nonsense!
Of course, Matt doesn’t say that.
He says that companies not directly tied to particular types of high-intensity energy usage have more to lose to catastrophic climate change than they do to slightly higher energy prices, which will cost them some dollars but won’t eliminate the public’s desire for their goods and services. He does not say other companies are unaffected. He actually doesn’t come close to saying that. He doesn’t imply it. He doesn’t hint at it. He doesn’t suppose an alternate universe in which it’s true. I’d call it a strawman, but for that there at least needs to be straw. There’s really just nothing of the sort you suggest anywhere in this post.
But other than that: super analysis!
October 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Al, the use of the term “affected” is pretty clearly in Republican talking point memo territory. We’re all “affected” by pretty much any bill Congress passes, in at least a tangential way. This kind of scare mongering a la health reform is pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider that affecting energy use is exactly the point of the bill.
So essentially your point, like the famous healthcare line of argument before it, is “This will dramatically affect everything/Nothing will get done.”
Yeah, Matt is the one who is hard to take seriously.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:37 am
MY hints at a pretty important point. Most businesses shouldn’t care if energy costs go up. Everyone in a business sector will see the same cost shifts. From a CEO’s perspective, first you can shift most of that cost increase on to your customers. Secondly, to the extent that it hits your bottom line, it will impact everyone in the industry the same. So you won’t be fired or even penalized for under performance. On the other hand, in some of the worst case outcomes for global warming, the economic damage would be severe enough that many businesses would see entire groups of consumers disappear. It would be enough to negatively impact CEO pay, I believe.
October 7th, 2009 at 11:41 am
A surprisingly nice rundown of the various members of the Chamber: http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/you-want-to-throw-down-with-me-ese-are.html
October 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am
The Chamber of Commerce shows a clear sign of what I’m calling “K Street Capture”–when lobbyists’ fortunes (or their perception of their fortunes) are more tied to the success of a particular political party or political faction than of successfully advancing the policy interests of their constituents. Clearly, there’s always a back and forth here, but there is a tipping point, and I think the Chamber has gone over it.
At this point, the Chamber is making all kinds of weird calls on issues from healthcare to climate change that really advance the agenda of the Republican party much more than their members’ agenda.
For instance, the public option simply should not be receiving the kind of double-barreled hostility from the Chamber that it’s getting. If someone is paying lower healthcare rates, shouldn’t their goal be to get their members in on the deal? Really, there’s a lot of ways this could be built to work to their members’ benefit, and it’s simply not a provision that is best met with a scorched-earth response. Yet that’s exactly what it’s getting. And I don’t think how that could be any kind of calculation other than “well, the Republicans are asking it of us, and our political fortunes are tied to theirs.”
This K street capture is why you’re starting to see a backlash. The Chamber is working less for its members than it’s working for the Republicans. That is a huge problem if you’re the member who is bankrolling this kind of activity.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I would take #14’s point and compare it to the problem faced by many young evangelicals. Sure, they’re not Democrats in waiting, but they don’t understand why Christ wants war in Iraq or environmental degredation, and as such are beginning to dealign from groups like the Christian Coalition. I mean, seriously, why should the Christian Coalition take a stand on the estate tax unless it’s become a simple subsidiary of the Republican party?
October 7th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
#14 and #15 have the right idea. It is a combination of the narrow, short-term interests of a few energy companies but more the ideological predilictions of the Cheney wing of the GOP. It has always been a question what would happen when the GOP became too extreme for its business wing to stomach, and that is what is happening now. Plus, its just good business sense. Regulation is coming and they are better off trying to affect it than standing outside with their hands over their ears baying at the moon.
October 7th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
The odd thing is that the Chamber of Commerce would far better serve its members’ financial interests if it supported a climate change bill so long as it used revenue-neutral carbon taxes and not a cap and trade system.
Carbon taxes would be revenue neutral if they’re used to replace payroll taxes. What you tax, you get less of. Better to have less pollution and more job creation. Cap and trade is popular among Wall Street types, because it offers another financial market to game. As Matt Taibbi put it in his recent beatdown of Goldman Sachs:
If cap-and-trade succeeds, won’t we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe — but cap and trade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax structured so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap and trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private tax collection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it’s even collected.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine/print
October 7th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias on the reason handful of defections from the Chamber of Commerce: [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
You’d think an insurance company like State Farm would especially like to see climatic disasters limited.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
The fundamental problem the Chamber of Commerce is going to have on this is that they’re really really wrong. Not like how they’re morally wrong about, say, labor rights or workplace safety rules. They’re analytically mistaken about the interests of the United States business community… It genuinely doesn’t make sense.
Of course it makes sense. What’s the point of being rich if there aren’t some poor miserable bastards to look down on? Global warming will hurt everyone, but it will hurt the poor a lot more than the rich, which leaves them in comparison even better off than they are now.
October 7th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Good post. I don’t get it either. When the Canadian election suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a question about a “Green Shift” from income taxes to carbon taxes, I thought for certain that the Chamber and the “business wing” of the Republican party was going to eat this up. Sure, they would have to stare down James Inhofe, but most Republicans who aren’t from petro-states like Oklahoma would absolutely love a chance to lower income taxes for rich people and call themselves “green” for doing it.
October 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Business Forward, the blue version of K Street, stands ready to embrace ex-Chamber members. While Matt didn’t mention them, WR did:
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/10/05/we-can-lead/
October 7th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Business Forward is the blue version of K Street. Matt didn’t include a commercial for BF, but Wonk Room did earlier this week.
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/10/05/we-can-lead/
October 7th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
My apologies for the double posting.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Both Nike and Apple manufacturer their goods overseas in countries that have no intentions of bringing in any sort of carbon regulation. Does anyone here honestly believe that these companies would support W&M if they thought it would make their cost of production go up even a little?
In fact, Nike probably sees the regulations a good way to screw their competetor New Balance who does manufacture shoes in the US. But those plants will close if W&M passes.
We need to produce CO2 to keep our society going – this is a basic truth of physics that will not change until someone invents a cheap fusion reactor and high capacity batteries. Anti-CO2 regulations will do nothing but move CO2 emissions to countries that don’t care about them. If CO2 is really a problem then we will have to adapt. Migation is an expensive waste of time that just makes people suffer unnecessarily.