Corporate Political Speech and Moral Obligation

While my focus here is on corporate political speech in the American context, many of the moral hazards will be similar in other contexts. I limit my analysis here to the United States because the American context is already incredibly broad; one article likely simply could not do justice to all of the potential legal and cultural dynamics of corporate political speech globally. Furthermore, the American context is also of special interest because it has recently changed to allow far more corporate political speech in a far more legally unfettered and unregulated fashion. Given that mangers of American business now have extensive leeway in making corporate political speech choices, they likely need more moral guidance in managing such a broad array of new options. For a comparison of the regulation of corporate political speech in the United States as compared to Europe see Hunker (2013). Ideally, as the scholarly discussion of corporate political speech develops, more will be written on corporate political speech in other national contexts.

While some might argue that the financial collapse ultimately only made the market stronger (and the populace who bore the price of the bailouts weaker), it is clear that this was only one possible outcome. Things could have easily gone the other way plunging the banking industry into chaos. Since my purpose here is to outline the moral hazards associated with political speech, merely noting that there was such a risk is sufficient to advance my argument.

Shareholder primacy theorists might argue that managerial duty does not extend beyond maximizing shareholder value and so the heightened obligations towards truth in political speech do not apply. Whelan, for instance, critiques political CSR for not taking profit as the most basic motive of every managerial decision (Whelan 2012). I would argue, along with both stakeholder theorists and political CSR theorists that this highly limited account of the moral duty of management is not morally justified given that shareholders also have moral and civic duties that extend beyond merely making a profit. But even if one takes a shareholder primacy view of moral duty, standard current policies of not even informing board members of political expenditures would not be justified. Even on the most narrow account of corporate moral duty, reforms are needed in current business practice.

I would note that Stark has also argued that corporate political expenditures should be limited to issue advocacy. He also allows money for building relationships with government officials, but I do not believe that this latter spending is likely justified given the inequality such special relationships confer upon wealthier members of the populace (Stark 2010).