There has been no shortage of corporate enemies in the past few years. There appears to be an ongoing search for firms that can be targeted as representing all that is vile, evil and oppressive. There are some good companies out there, to be certain. For example, Ross Douthat (New York Times) describes one company that has been celebrated for its humane practices. The company
was hailed last year by the left-wing policy website Demos “for thumbing its nose at the conventional wisdom that success in the retail industry” requires paying “bargain-basement wages.” A retail chain with nearly 600 stores and 13,000 workers, this business sets its lowest full-time wage at $15 an hour, and raised wages steadily through the stagnant postrecession years. (Its do-gooder policies also include donating 10 percent of its profits to charity and giving all employees Sunday off.) And the chain is thriving commercially — offering, as Demos put it, a clear example of how “doing good for workers can also mean doing good for business.”
Of course, he is describing Hobby Lobby (“the Christian-owned craft store that’s currently playing the role of liberalism’s public enemy No. 1”). While Hobby Lobby appears to have taken the role of good corporate citizen seriously, one should not expect the empirical record to matter much.
One might argue that Hobby Lobby can’t assume the position of “liberalism’s public enemy No.1” because it is already taken by the Koch brothers. Kenneth Vogel (Politico) has an interesting piece on the behind-the-scenes calculations involving the ongoing attacks by the Senate majority leader. While Senator Reid’s wild claims (presented in 22 floor speeches since January) are described by staffers as Reid “getting out ahead of his skis,” Vogel describes
a highly unusual election-year campaign against a couple of relatively unknown private citizens whom Reid and his Democrats are seeking to make into caricatures of a Republican Party that, on issue after issue, caters to the very rich at the expense of everyone else.
For those who do not have Senator Reid’s expansive knowledge of Charles and David Koch, Politico has an interesting quiz that provides some useful and odd background information.
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