Lindblom - The Market System - Afghan Journalists' Committee

Enterprise Obstructions to Democracy 245necessary to the production of it. Or they can permit themto spend “public” funds without restriction, presumably forgood purposes that need the help of philanthropy. Societieshave tended toward the latter.Although corporations operate under market controlwith respect to what they produce for sale, they are littlecontrolled with respect to what they give to various causesand institutions. In the market system, a consumer canvote for or against the production of tomatoes or vacationcruises but neither for nor against a corporate contributionto the city’s orchestra, a corporate refusal to support researchon soil contamination, or a corporate program of private-enterprisepropaganda in the schools. In the absence ofcontrol over them, corporate executives are not democraticallypositioned to channel “public” funds and insteadsimply channel the funds into their own personal choices.What is more, like all groups, they are influenced by characteristicbiases, such as are displayed in their disinclinationto finance research critical of the business community.Philanthropy raises great issues on the competence and proprietyof corporate choice in democracy, similar to issues oncorporate political expenditure.Might, by definition, a more genuine democracy requirethat corporations be curbed not only in overt political andphilanthropic activity but also in institutional advertising—that is, messages that tout the corporation as an institution?Might it even forbid any massive advertising otherthan informative messages about products? To some observers,steps like these look like a democratic way for a societyto cope with a torrent of corporate communicationsthat obstructs the genuine competition of ideas long thoughtnecessary for democracy. To others, they go down a slipperyslope to the extinction of free speech. Democratic theory