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Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

Luke Combs, politics and healing our nation's divide

A fictional, fanciful sign depicts the results of voter suppression through the unfair, partisan manipulation of district lines (gerrymandering).

The worst congressional gerrymanders of the 2020s

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Podcast: When business should take a stand

Podcast: When business should take a stand
Our Staff
By Our StaffJun 15, 2022
Our Staff
The Fulcrum staff.
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"There is one and only one social responsibility of business," Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously declared more than 50 years ago. It is “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase profits so long as it.. engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

Times have certainly changed, especially in the past two decades. Today, corporate leaders and brands know that they can't always follow Friedman's advice, and are expected to step forward and contribute to solving crises facing society. But there are often hazards in doing so. Walt Disney, Delta Airlines, and Larry Fink, Chairman, and CEO of BlackRock, have all faced harsh criticism for their public stands.

On this episode of "How do we Fix it," hosts discuss the hazards and opportunities for corporations and their leadership with the author, researcher, and facilitator Elizabeth Doty, Director of the Erb Institute's Corporate Political Responsibility at the University of Michigan. She suggests constructive ways for businesses to play a key role in countering hyperpartisanship and other divisions in society.

When Business Should Take a Stand. Elizabeth Doty

When Business Should Take a Stand. Elizabeth Doty

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Corporate political dollars spotlighted by new interactive database

The Center for Political Accountability recently launched The Barbara and Morris Pearl 527 Interactive Database, a user-friendly system created to shine a spotlight on under-the-radar corporate political spending in the United States.

This groundbreaking tool provides detailed and targeted access to information on contributions from publicly traded American companies to major partisan political organizations called 527s, for the section of the IRS code that governs them.

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Mark Zuckerberg, who is now worth more than $200 billion, shows off new wearabel tech at the Meta Connect developer conference in September.

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We have extreme inequality in America, and it’s getting worse

Cooper is the author of “How America Works … and Why it Doesn’t.”

Bloomberg recently reported that Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg is now worth over $200 billion. He’s not alone. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla founder Elon Musk, and LVMH founder Bernard Arnault are also worth north of $200 billion.

The news is a searing reminder of the uneven distribution of wealth in America. In the same country as Zuckerberg, Bezos, and Musk reside millions of people without a reliable source of food. (Arnault lives in France.) Redistributing just a small portion of the richest Americans’ wealth could alleviate tremendous human suffering.

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Like black holes, the largest companies have a reach seemingly exceeds human capabilities, writes Frazier.

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Corporate black holes prevent fair play in the U.S. economy

Frazier is an assistant professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University and a Tarbell fellow.

NASA defines a black hole as “a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out.” This celestial abnormality can even distort space-time. Though invisible to the human eye, a black hole is detectable by the extent to which everything around it is morphed to its will.

The same is true of our biggest corporations. The total reach of companies like Amazon, Meta and Google seemingly exceeds human capabilities. Yet, the extent to which our laws, culture and daily lives revolve around these corporate black holes reveals a hard truth: Fair play does not characterize our economy. The best ideas may never come to fruition and the smartest people may never realize their potential — they lack the escape velocity necessary to operate beyond the pull of the black holes.

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Members of Gen Z consume at an unsustainable rate: clothes, makeup, technology and every other imaginable product.

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Mass consumerism and the hypocrisy of Gen Z

Pruthi is a professor of entrepreneurship at San Jose State University, where she is a co-founder and director ofHonorsX, and a public voices fellow with The OpEd Project. Kharbanda is a senior at Presentation High School in San Jose, Calif.

California lawmakers recently approved two bills banning grocery and convenience stores statewide from offering customers reusable plastic bags. These bills are the next step in combating plastic waste, but what about the waste from mass consumerism that has come to pervade our lives?

Through the past decades, we have been trained to shop, purchase and consume products to solve our problems. While mending old clothing or refurbishing used goods have become things of the past, new products that are ubiquitously promoted are cramming our stores, screens, mailboxes and nearly every aspect of our lives.

Growing up in the digital age, Gen Z is the prime target for this consumerist culture. Their lives are catered toward finding flaws with what they currently own and buying the next best thing. In the process, our world lays waste, proving the disastrous effects of those spending habits.

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