Corporate Greed. That’s it. The Michigan Supreme Court legitimized abusive capitalism in 1919 with the Dodge Motor v. Henry Ford decision that defined the primary objective of corporations is to maximize profit. Mr. Ford wanted to increase the wages for his workers so they could afford a car. Dodge Motor and the Court stopped him.
The inflation in 2023 is all corporate price gouging. They have record profits and still raise prices and freeze wages. Greed feeds on principles such as price increases that cost a corporation nothing, and are an effort to claim a share of your recently increased minimum wage. Workers will be kept beholden to corporate collusion by these corporate moves.
We seem to have forgotten that corporations only exist by consent and a license from the people – the laws our representatives make. We define corporate rules, and we can see that they perform to our benefit. It can be short-term for employment and long-term for the preservation of Earth, our only home.
Republicans are experts at naming things, making them sound good but actually evil. One of those is “Right to Work”. This allows corporations to pay poverty wages to workers to increase their profits even further. Businesses are moving to states that have enacted right to work laws so that they can better cheat their workers. Laws that are in place in these states value corporate greed over their citizens’ well-being. Years ago, unions fought corporate greed which in turn created the middle class, which is now disappearing because of the laws being enacted in greed-driven states.