Peach Tree Times

A recent poll shows that most Americans agree with views recently expressed by political commentators, on the right and left, that corporate America should keep its nose out of charged political battles, especially those raging over voter reform measures currently moving in many states.

The results of a Scott Rasmussen survey conducted in early April found that 66% of adults believe companies should avoid taking positions on political issues. Another 8% thought it appropriate for companies to weigh in on topics related to their businesses. And (25%) believe it is better for businesses to clearly express their views on a wide variety of issues.

The survey further found that 72% of Republicans and independents believe businesses should avoid taking positions on political issues – as do 57% of Democrats.

Georgia experienced first-hand the effects of political battles and business when Major League Baseball decided earlier this month to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta due to the state's new election reform law.

WSB TV Atlanta reports that the Cobb County Travel and Tourism Bureau estimates that losses from decision total more than $100 million.

“This event would have directly impacted our county and the state, as visitors spend their dollars on local accommodations, transportation, entertainment and recreation, food and retail throughout the county,” Cobb County Travel and Tourism told the station. “This would have been a big boost to Cobb businesses and help with recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The results of the Rasmussen survey fall in line with an April 14 commentary by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, saying corporate opposition to voter integrity legislation in Georgia reminds the the board of when big companies like GM were signing up for new and costly regulations during the Carter years, much as its CEO had endorsed wage-and-price controls in the Nixon administration.

“These insights are gradually helping us to understand why the very biggest businesses are such unreliable allies in the fight to preserve a free enterprise economy,” Journal editor Robert Bartley wrote in 1979 commentary titled “Down with Big Business.”

The writers went on to further explain why their columns over the years have “distinguished between free markets and the interests of business.”

“We have supported big business, including Amazon and Exxon, against the depredations of big government,” they wrote. “We will again when warranted. But we’re under no illusions that big business is a reliable friend of capitalism. For that we’ll have to count on competition, and what we hope is still the common sense of the American people."

In an April 13 piece titled “Big Corporations Now Deploying Woke Ideology the Way Intelligence Agencies Do: As a Disguise” left-leaning columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote, “But whatever the motives, the dangers of growing corporate involvement in U.S. political debates are manifest. In its healthiest form, the way democracy would function is that citizens vote for the representatives they believe will best serve their interests, and those representatives then enact laws they believe their constituents favor.

“But when giant corporations use their unparalleled economic power to override that process — by forcing state and local governments to rescind or reject laws they would otherwise support due to fear of corporate punishment — then the system, by definition, far more resembles an oligarchy than a democracy.”