Friday, December 31, 2004
Chamber of Horrors
Over at PSoTD today, an excellent post on a topic about which I know shamefully little: Chambers of Commerce.
Mrs. FLJerseyBoy operates what is currently a small business, although (I suspect) like many small-business owners she (well, all right, we as a couple) looks forward to its hitting the big time sooner rather than later. (The big time: you know, where there actual employees and stuff.) To my knowledge, she isn't considering joining The Chamber (as it's known, grandiosely init-capped like the Legislature, the Governor, and the High Court). Nor has she expressed any interest in signing up with the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB). On occasion, she has coveted their mailing lists. But there's been nothing like a strong pull in the direction of, y'know, joinerism.
Which is probably just as well, at least for our personal reasons:
It also reminds me of one of my hot-button issues, which is the whole notion that corporations should be treated as if they were persons in the first place. Regrettably, I have never been able to put my money where my mouth is, and to function nobly as a non-consumer (although I refuse to buy books from Wal-Mart, it doesn't stop me from shopping for DVDs there). But there's something vaguely obscene about the whimpering of a corporation when its right to do whatever it wants is threatened, or rather "threatened," by an actual flesh-and-blood opponent. Because, y'know, what's good for General Motors (or any of a hundred more recent counterparts) is good for the country, the state, the county, the city, the neighborhood.
The thought of dozens of these "members" of the Chamber banded together in common cause is a truly creepy one.
Mrs. FLJerseyBoy operates what is currently a small business, although (I suspect) like many small-business owners she (well, all right, we as a couple) looks forward to its hitting the big time sooner rather than later. (The big time: you know, where there actual employees and stuff.) To my knowledge, she isn't considering joining The Chamber (as it's known, grandiosely init-capped like the Legislature, the Governor, and the High Court). Nor has she expressed any interest in signing up with the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB). On occasion, she has coveted their mailing lists. But there's been nothing like a strong pull in the direction of, y'know, joinerism.
Which is probably just as well, at least for our personal reasons:
In short, pissed-off small businesses have a hard time leaving a Chamber of Commerce over policy issues because they make themselves captive to the Chamber as a vendor.Sounds like a capitalist version of fourth-grade bullies extorting "milk dues" from the eyeglassed majority on whom the bullies nonetheless rely for help with their homework (and never mind the suspiciously elegant penmanship).
The Chamber is allowed to use their profits of the small business membership for their purposes. Their purposes are largely defined by their larger members. Small businesses are spending money AGAINST their own interests but don't see any options to get out of it.
It also reminds me of one of my hot-button issues, which is the whole notion that corporations should be treated as if they were persons in the first place. Regrettably, I have never been able to put my money where my mouth is, and to function nobly as a non-consumer (although I refuse to buy books from Wal-Mart, it doesn't stop me from shopping for DVDs there). But there's something vaguely obscene about the whimpering of a corporation when its right to do whatever it wants is threatened, or rather "threatened," by an actual flesh-and-blood opponent. Because, y'know, what's good for General Motors (or any of a hundred more recent counterparts) is good for the country, the state, the county, the city, the neighborhood.
The thought of dozens of these "members" of the Chamber banded together in common cause is a truly creepy one.
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Thanks for the post and link. I guess I wouldn't look at as bullies, quite, although when you watch a Chamber lobby at the state level you can sometimes get that sense.
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