Platformer

Platformer began as a meditation on the inordinate influence of corporate lobbies in governmental functions such as legislation and oversight. This has long been acknowledged as a growing problem in some parts of the world. In most cases where reform is attempted, efforts focus on regulatory limitation of corporate influence. However, since the exercise of political power by corporations is so deeply intertwined with the rest of the economic ecosystem, there is almost inevitably an organic counter-response to any regulation—that is, when a channel of influence is closed off by new regulation, corporate interests simply develop new means of exerting influence that are not limited by laws. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the regulations limiting corporate influence are themselves targets of influence by corporations.

In any market-based economy, then, it seems inevitable that corporations will exercise tremendous power, over many aspects of political, social and economic life. But admitting this reality does not mean that we must consign ourselves to accept interminable postponements and reversals in ongoing efforts to extend justice, equality, human rights, quality of life and education to peoples around the world, in deference to profit-based motives of corporations that almost always defer higher aims to “later”. Instead, we might look at ways to harness the existing power of these corporations in the service of the people who, after all, ultimately keep them in business.

The de facto method of mobilizing for change has generally been the “grassroots” approach. When an issue has no organized advocacy, organization must start from scratch. In the case that no existing agency (political party, union, etc.) can be persuaded to take an interest in a cause, individuals must organize “on the ground” in efforts that often demand enormous amounts of time and energy. Each new cause must compete for attention in a world saturated with messages—most of which are consumption-oriented, not action-oriented. In a world full of entreaties to “buy and enjoy”, it is extremely difficult to reach enough people with a “join and take action” message in order to achieve even the simplest of goals. And for each person who is successfully recruited to a given cause, the pool of people available for another cause has likely diminished by one—most of us are simply unable to commit to more than one or two causes (and many cannot even dream of committing to a single one).

We do, of course, tend to think most readily of political parties when looking for ways to address causes of importance to us. But the political party system embodies a crippling paradox: almost always, the effectiveness of a political party is inversely related to the breadth of its platform. In other words, a single-issue party that draws passionate supporters, and may even enjoy wide membership, finds difficulty in effecting change because it must compete on a playing field with parties whose complex platforms involve them in a wide variety of issues, and thus provide numerous levers of influence. On the other hand, these larger, more mainstream parties, whose overall power may be much greater, have attempted to include so many constituencies that they cannot afford to pursue most of the causes under their purview with the energy that one would desire—and they often end up failing to represent any particular constituent adequately. This leads to apathy on the part of constituencies, and tends to make successful political parties stay successful by relying more on emotional appeals—on marketing, essentially—than on substantive, issue-based engagement.

The result is a weakening of the political system, in which prominent political parties fail to represent people’s interests adequately, and “fringe” parties expend huge energy just to try to be heard. Since many corporations cultivate expertise in marketing to thrive, they can offer this expertise to political parties in exchange for favorable representation in government. Corporate influence helps to keep the fringe on the fringe, and to preserve the status quo in government. To the extent that “consumers” (as corporations term human beings) may express dissatisfaction with a given regime, it is a small matter to incorporate “dissent” into the overall marketing portfolio. But in no case can one see an alternative to the paradigm itself.

Efforts to overturn this state of affairs—that is, revolutions—risk death in the cradle because, first, they can be coopted by the very same corporate-organic forces that attempt to assimilate any social foment into market-fed “culture”, and second, because explicit threats to the fundamentals of the established order are perceived with alarm, and addressed with efficient and thorough censure.