Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

244 What To Make of ItEven if the road to more democracy in the corporationis not well mapped, some nations find it worth exploring.Many of the autocratic practices of the workplace are unnecessary,as well as obstructive to feasible popular controlover executives. Examples are racial or ethnic discriminationin hiring, discharge without sufficient cause, arbitrarywage differentials, excessive executive compensation, andsecrecy about workplace threats to employee health andsafety, among many others. Although some nations havecurbed some of the excesses of internal autocracy in thecorporation, people at the end of the twenty-first centurymay look back with astonishment on our era’s discrepancybetween democratic principle and autocratic practice in thecorporation.The Soulful CorporationDemocratic criteria call corporate philanthropy into question:contributions to education, research, environmentalprotection, the arts, and aid to the poor. Superficially, thereis no problem. One might believe that neither on democraticgrounds or for any other reason need the generosity ofthe corporation be regarded with anything but gratitude.Although consumers and stockholders in fact pay for whatthe corporation spends on philanthropy, they are not taxedto do so, nor need they be aware that they are footing the billand are not the recipients of corporate generosity. Confusedor inattentive, they welcome corporate largess in the beliefthat they are getting something for nothing.These areas of corporate activity raise the issue once discussedas the “soulful” corporation. Societies have a choice.They can hold corporations closely to the production ofwhat they sell and to the expenditure only of those funds