There are at least two other reasons for the obfuscation of corporate politics. In this telling, their positions are less acts of politics than of doing what comes naturally and spontaneously for people oriented toward profit-making as their raison d’être. And it ignores the “stands” that corporate leaders take on economic issues-regulation and anti-trust, for example. This perspective limits the boundaries of politics to “speaking out” on controversial social issues. Politics is about “taking a stand or adopting a cause,” as Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, told Gelles, “cause” being understood here not as capital gains tax rates, but as engaging in social issues. ![]() One answer is that both business leaders and pundits have emphasized business’s role in the culture wars while minimizing its role in the class war. The reality is that business “got political” a long time ago indeed, it has consistently been one of the most powerful forces in American political life. ![]() The assumption here is not only that businesses have been brought unwillingly into the political arena but that the innate purpose of business-moneymaking-is outside of the realm of politics. “Companies are naturally designed to be moneymaking enterprises,” writes Gelles. These commentaries suggest that businesses have been forced against their will into the political fray. ![]() “Companies got political only under duress,” Gelles claims. There is an emerging mythology around the involvement of business elites in politics-recent commentary marks it as a new phase of corporate activism, a radical break from the past. Business got political a long time ago indeed, it has consistently been one of the most powerful forces in American political life.
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