Note: original publication in 2024 before elections
If you work, like me, already some time in corporate environments, you probably are aware of your company’s ethical charter. Employees often tend to consider this as boring stuff, but in fact it is the foundation of the company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) practices, translating its corporate responsibilities towards the society into concrete actions and policies. The company accepts that its sole purpose is not profit, but that it has a moral obligation to take responsibility for any impact it has towards the society and its environment.
That’s a good thing I guess.
But let’s face it.
We can reasonably assume that a lot of companies do not use their ethical charter as their primary guiding framework to grow their business on. There is greenwashing, pinkwashing (yes it exists!) or even bluewashing (claiming to adhere to some ethical standards just by associating yourself to reputable organizations or events). But nevertheless it remains important. The individual company cannot save the world, but it is already a good start to define its boundaries of the acceptable and how it looks at the broader world of which it is being part of.
The political context of the United States in the year 2024 where the presidential elections will take place, made me reflect on the evolution we saw in the waning hesitation of companies in their endorsement of Trump. It is generally believed that Hilary Clinton lost from Trump in 2016 by referring to Trump’s voters as deplorables. But if Trump wins in 2024, it might just be because of his strong support amongst the captains of industry.
Deplorables (in casu white males that lost their dominant status in a fast changing community where women, people of color and minorities climbed, in relative terms, the social ladder) have played a major role in Trump’s presidential victory in 2016.
White males in the rust belt that lost their jobs and their way of living in economical sectors that were in a steep decline, such as steel production & automobile manufacturing, and which seemed to be a pool of potential voters that has never been tapped in similar ways.
After Trump’s attempt to overthrow the democratic election results and initiating the storming of the Capitol, there was a very short timeframe where his old allies seemed to cut ties. Multiple companies ended funding the GOP, and some have not yet resumed it. For a very short period, it looked like the Republican Party would accept an impeachment of Trump, but Trump’s firm grip on the party prevented this from happening.
We are 4 years later now. Trump lost 60 trials where he defied the elections results. But also personally. There’s an official mug shot from Trump. He’s been convicted in several court cases for corruption and sexual assault. Multiple cases are still in preparation, and it is still not unlikely that he will end behind bars.
Although Trump’s involvement in his attempts to overthrow the results of the democratic elections in 2020 and his role in the resulting storming of the Capitol is clear, today it seems Trump is gaining and not losing allies.
Let’s dig further into that observation.
At the end of 2021, not even a year after the Capitol riots, the GOP had taken in more donations than the Democrats. A significant number of the Fortune 500 companies retained their support to Trump and the Republicans, including some that initially halted their funding after January 6th. Some companies such as Google restricted their boycott only to individual Republicans who objected to certify the 2020 election results. 147 Republican members have refused to certify the results of the democratic elections, and are referred to as the Sedition Caucus.
However, today corporations feel comfortable to reinstate their funding to the Sedition Caucus, for the sole reason that a large part of the Americans simply doesn’t consider them as seditious (anymore).
In other words they will not be punished commercially for funding what is not less than violent autocratic behaviour.
JP Morgan for example had decided to stop funding the republicans directly after January 6th, but today their CEO Jamie Dimon is candidating to become secretary of the Treasury in case Trump would win the elections. During the World Economic Forum Jamie Dimon stated that Trump was right about a lot of things. JP Morgan is the biggest bank of the US, and Dimon is considered as one of the top leading CEO’s in the world.
Another example is Palantir, an American big data software company. Although CEO Karper states explicitly he will be voting against Trump, cofounders Thiel & Lonsdale are donating massively to Trump. With the odds Trump winning the elections, the likelihood the Trump administration would increase size & number of contracts awarded to Palantir is real. More than 50% of Palantir’s revenues is governmental contracts driven revenue.
In most European countries we would consider such transactions as bribery, but the reality is different in the States and political financial contributions are considered 100% legal. The ethical dimension however can be strongly debated. Venture capitalist and Uber investor Shervin Pishevar said ‘the horror, the horror’ when Trump got elected in 2016, but 8 years and an attempt to overthrow the democratic elections later, Pishevar became a Trump supporter.
Why is that?
Contrary to 2016, Trump is not only backed by the ‘deplorable’ white males in their blue collars, living in the rust belt. Today the odds that Trump might win has flipped a lot of captains of industry living in the cities, including some in Silicon Valley. If Trump wins, it will not be despite but thanks to honourable boardroom executives in smart suites with tight ties.
This is plutocracy at its best. Economic powers are entering the political scene and backing up Trump in return for economic favours. This phenomena is also called pluto-populism: a behaviour of populism to reach plutocratic goals. And this is where the elections in 2024 will differ from the ones in 2016. Trump has won the 2016 elections thanks to the ‘deplorables’ but despite a lack of support of the economic powers. In the period between the contested election results end of 2020 and the upcoming elections of 2024, Trump first lost his support but is now ensuring the support of large parts of the industrial & technological market players. Despite some Republican voters backing off their support to Trump, Trump might this time ensure a win thanks to big capital.
The most explicit form of plutocracy we have seen in the last weeks, is Donald Trump promising the oil industry to reverse any climate policy implemented under the Biden administration, if the Oil industry would just donate him $1 billion to his 2024 campaign. How can this fit with any ethical business conduct?
We are at a point where American corporate organisations are shamelessly buying their market in a way that is far from any ethical business practice. We are at a point where corporations within the US do business as we would only expect in some corrupt African countries, China & Russia. The question arises if European companies should act according to their CRS policies, and restrain collaboration with some seditious American market players? Perhaps create a top 147 list of seditious companies?
I guess that will not happen. But it’s worth a reflection.
Just someone in the crowd 