The Charlotte News

Wednesday, October 28, 1942

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page is here. Its reports continue stories on which we have previously commented.

The editorial page presents an article by Frank Graham, president of the University of North Carolina, warning that the institutions of society which Hitler would eliminate first were the church, the legislature, the corporation, the labor union, a free press, and the university. His prediction was well-founded on the experience of every country which Hitler had taken over since Germany itself in 1933. Each of these institutions, and the inherent freedoms in a democracy which enabled them to thrive, freedom of association, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech, represented definite threats to Hitler's form of government, not merely oligarchical, but a dictatorial theocracy in which worship of Hitler as the supreme entity from whom all authority derived and was delegated to understrappers, those in whom absolute, unwavering obedience to the divine ruler was primus inter pares among all other characteristics and qualifications, failing which, swift death became the penalty.

It should be noted that by "corporation", Dr. Graham did not mean any entity, no matter its practice, which is formed on a basic model whereby officers are hired and maintained at the whim of a board of directors, determined in turn by preferred stockholders who also direct the overall corporate policy, ultimately administered by the officers and board of directors. While that is the basic model for a corporation, Dr. Graham obviously intended "corporation" to mean, by his choice as example the original Virginia Company within the London Company, an entity run democratically, not just paternalistically for the supposed benefit of the shareholders with derivation of profit as its ultimate and only driving motivation and raison d'être; rather, operated under policies based on the desires of the shareholders with human service, not maximization of profit, given primacy. For the corporation, be it a public municipal corporation or a private corporation, will always turn a profit provided it offers service which human beings need, offered at a reasonable price, affording reasonable profit to allow sustenance of the same service and reasonable growth. Gouge the public, offer them a lousy widget at a high price for a quick buck, and the corporation will fail ultimately, even if able to fool the public with slick advertising in the short term.

Take as a current model for what a publicly owned corporation might become, the new General Motors Corporation, in which the American people as of 2009 are now 60% shareholders. Our first decision as shareholders ought be, for the benefit of all of us and the world at large, to govern GM in the direction of developing by 2015 an electric car capable of the equivalent of 100 mpg, with a re-charging time of one hour, and a range of 500 miles, all at a mass market price, with generous rebates for trading in a gas powered vehicle. A consumer option would provide a hybrid motor to run on alternative fuel during the hour of re-charging from the motor's generator while the vehicle continues to operate.

The technology for such a car already exists. The trick is to make the car both affordable and in a stylish box compatible with American consumer tastes, that is one familiar and appealing to the mass market, and as cheap as current gas-powered vehicles which GM now produces, across every category of vehicle, from cars to trucks, to big trucks and buses. Quickly, GM would become the most admired auto-maker in the world and tops in profit potential if not immediate profit actualization. Our company would become a world leader in automotive manufacture, as it should be. Let us build our company forthwith toward achieving this goal. The others will quickly follow.

Write your congressman, fellow shareholder, and tell him or her that such a direction for our company is the only viable option for the future of both the company and the world, to curb and eventually arrest global warming so that a future world worth inhabiting may exist for the next generation and generations to come, such that they will not say of us that we were the profligate generation, those born in the twentieth century, the ones who drove the world to ruin by consumption of all its resources, destroying its environment, the generation who talked the talk for forty years but, when push came up against shove, failed to walk the walk. Tell them that it is not only the right thing to do but the only thing to do, as surely as it was for the Virginia Company of London back in 1607 under the leadership of Edwin Sandys.

Incidentally, since the Virginia Company ultimately in 1624 failed financially and since Edwin Sandys as a British subject supported the concept of indentured servitude in the colony, we do not recommend it as a literal model, only its democratic ideal to which it strove, that which eventually gave us the core of our Founders including Madison, Jefferson, and Washington. One might therefore conceptualize General Motors from its founding a century ago as a model for growth toward a more democratic ideal in corporate America, where Adam Smith's formulations give way to those of Madison, Jefferson, Jay, and Hamilton, where undefined heuristic marketplace approaches to accumulation of wealth give way to defined democratic standards and ethical rules governing corporate will--where lying with impunity to the public to get ahead and maintain profits is no longer an acceptable practice.