Blog — Corporate Accountability Lab

Reynolds Taylor

Two Years On: Corporate Power Yields to Nothing, Not Even Democracy

Two Years On: Corporate Power Yields to Nothing, Not Even Democracy

Two years ago, US democracy was threatened when election-denying citizens and militias stormed the US Capitol, demanding that federal representatives overturn the results of a valid election. This insurrection, while ultimately unsuccessful, cost lives and called into stark question the future of American democratic institutions. In the wake of this deadly attack, companies across the United States, including many of the largest, pledged not to support members of Congress who fueled the insurrection and voted — in the early morning of January 7, 2021, mere hours after Capitol windows were smashed and Capitol police were beaten — to abandon the winner of an election that was unambiguously fair and free.

A year ago today, on the first anniversary of this anti-democratic attack, we wrote about the scores of Fortune 500 companies that funded election-denying members of Congress, even after making — and, no doubt, profiting from — public vows not to. At that time, we said that better politics and stronger democratic institutions depended on reimagining corporate power. Consider this our progress report.

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Ending Slavery in Some State Prisons is Not Good Enough. We Must #EndtheException for All.

Ending Slavery in Some State Prisons is Not Good Enough. We Must #EndtheException for All.

Yesterday’s election results gave momentum to a national movement to #endtheexception (led by the Abolish Slavery National Network). We urge everyone, as you wait for the balance of power in Congress to be decided, to contact your representatives and demand they pass House Joint Resolution 53 and Senate Joint Resolution 21, identical proposals to amend the US Constitution “to prohibit the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime.”

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FIFTY YEARS OF CORPORATE EXPLOITATION: THE STORY OF US MINING GIANT FREEPORT & PAPUA’S STOLEN SOVEREIGNTY (PART I)

FIFTY YEARS OF CORPORATE EXPLOITATION: THE STORY OF US MINING GIANT FREEPORT & PAPUA’S STOLEN SOVEREIGNTY (PART I)

The Grasberg Copper and Gold Mine, the largest in the world of its kind, is carved out of a mountaintop 14,000 feet above sea-level in the highlands of Papua, Indonesia. In fact, the open-pit mine is so large that the crater can be seen by astronauts in the International Space Station. It is estimated to contain $108 billion worth of minerals, but before the mountaintop was carved up for its wealth, it was the sacred mother of the Amungme indigenous community. They and many other indigenous communities have since been driven from their home by the American mining company and operator of the Grasberg mine, Freeport McMoRan.

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Corporate America's Empty Promise to Defend Democracy

Corporate America's Empty Promise to Defend Democracy

One year ago today, on January 6, 2021, after thousands of deceived Americans violently overtook the U.S. Capitol and delayed a critical procedural step in the peaceful transition of power, waves of corporations issued statements condemning the violence and promising to “reevaluate” their political alliances by ending donations to leaders of the insurrection. Many of these public pledges were then broken in less than 3 months.

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Google Breaks Its Promise On A.I.—Ethical IP Licensing Would Have Made That Very Hard To Do

Google Breaks Its Promise On A.I.—Ethical IP Licensing Would Have Made That Very Hard To Do

Three years ago, we blogged about the successful campaign by Google tech workers to persuade the company to withdraw from Project Maven—a United States Department of Defense program aimed at using artificial intelligence (A.I.) to rapidly analyze and identify drone targets. More than 4,000 Google employees signed a letter to Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, demanding that Google “not be in the business of war.” The internal revolt worked: Google declined to renew its contract for Project Maven and published a set of A.I. principles—including a vow that no future A.I. endeavor would be used for “weapons…whose principal purpose or implementation is to cause or directly facilitate injury to people.”

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