Book Reviews

Arianna Huffington, Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2003). 275 pages. $22.00.

Reviewed by Scott B. MacDonald

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There is nothing better than a good double-barreled shotgun blast of moral indignation about corruption in corporate America. Indeed, throughout much of the 1990s, corporate America enjoyed excesses, which certainly went to the heads of a number of CEOs. The cases of Enron, WorldCom, Qwest, Adelphia and Tyco easily come to mind. Were these cases reflections of the overall nature of the U.S. business culture? Did they represent a dangerous, insidious force seeking to undermine and ultimately control America, much like the Dark Side of the Force in the Star Wars saga? Should we expect the horn-headed Sith demon face of Darth Maul among the photos of CEOs walking into the White House?

According to Arianna Huffington, herself in quite a huff in her book, Pigs at the Trough, the answer to all of these questions is a damning YES! The Dark Side of the Force has consumed corporate America and the souls of the American people are up for grabs. As she states in her chapter entitled “The Bloodless Coup: The Corporate Takeover of Our Democracy”: “The financial scandals of our time were made possible by an unprecedented collusion between corporate interests and politicians that, despite all the breast-beating about reform, is still going strong. Together, these two powerful groups tore down hard-won regulations that restrained the worst capitalist excesses, leaving in their place a shaky edifice of feckless self-policing and cowed regulators, powerless to prevent the corporate Chernobyles.”

She goes to say of Washington and lobbyists: “This is the nexus of corporate corruption; the source of all the swill. The unseemly link between money and political influence is the dark side of capitalism.”

Indeed.

Huffington provides an acid-tongue criticism of corporate America and its main political allies – of course, the Republicans and mainly President George W. Bush and his White House team. (No surprise that the Democrats receive a lesser tongue-lashing.) While much of the book is entertaining – to a point and she does score points in looking at the most blatant cases of corruption, the ultimate product is a highly distorted view of the business world and the people that run it. Yes, there were horrible excesses that occurred during the 1990s, much as they did in other business and stock market booms, both in the United States and elsewhere. Certainly the 1870s through the early 1900s represented a period of robber barons – also captains of innovative American industry. American democracy managed to mature and adapt, much as it is doing this time around.

The fundamental problem with Huffington’s book is that what she wants is innovation and economic growth without risk. Capitalism is hardly perfect, but it certainly beats the alternatives. And yes, capitalism needs some degree of rules and regulations. Some of her suggestions, such as lobbying law reforms, improving accounting standards and strengthening corporate boards all have merit and are being done. And there is an appeal to the Clean Money, Clean Election model, which limits access to funding beyond the government and the voter, eliminating hard and soft money and the endless dialing for dollars. However, Huffington clearly wants a heavy hand of the state to turn back the clock on such things as the end of the Glass-Stegall Act, which hobbled U.S. banking for decades. Her call to outlaw tax havens is hardly realistic, considering the international politics involved.

Ultimately the cure is for the American people to take back their political system, partially through becoming more active in the country’s political life – including more letter-writing campaigns. As she clamors: “Well, the time has come for the shoppers to leave the malls and take to the streets – to go from invigorating our economy to reinvigorating our democracy.” With unemployment over 6% and people concerned about their jobs, people probably are going to prefer to reinvigorate the economy. This book should be read, but only by those who have a degree of rectal fortitude.