Abstract
Edward Lorenz provides a comparative history of how different communities respond to corporate misconduct in the neoliberal age. The book closes with a call for community/university partnerships that promote civic empowerment. Lorenz’s thesis is that corporate structure has evolved from integrating products across a supply chain, to acquiring unrelated industries to subsidize the parent company, to the displacement of any mission other than profit. He argues that such a process holds community in contempt, but offers constructive examples of how civic empowerment through university/community partnerships can hold corporations accountable and make government enforce laws.
On the theme of civic empowerment, the book opens with the bold suggestion that the Pine River is one of the most important sites of the global environmental struggle. Indeed, Lorenz explains how Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a landmark popular work published in 1962, focuses on the damage done by DDT, an insecticide made by Michigan Chemical, at a plant on the Pine River in St. Louis, MI. In response, the public relations professionals of the chemical industry orchestrated a criticism of the book that continues even today. After governments banned DDT, Michigan Chemical diversified into fire retardants and nutritional supplements for cattle. In the 1970s, the company accidentally contaminated Michigan’s meat supply with fire retardant by mixing up bags of the two products in the St. Louis factory. The State of Michigan negotiated a plant closure in exchange for shielded liability and a federally funded cleanup. Over a decade later, St. Louis formed a community advisory group (CAG) to serve as a liaison between the community and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). CAGs are designed by Federal law to provide a venue for citizen enforcement of environmental law.
Lorenz describes how in 2005, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal argued that the ban on DDT kills people when they die from malaria and called for lifting the ban on DDT. In response, Lorenz and the St. Louis CAG organized an international academic symposium on the subject at Alma College and drafted the Pine River Statement, which cautioned against the use of DDT for malaria control except as a last resort. Lorenz argues that this document, crafted by a community/university partnership, persuaded the United Nations/World Health Organization to recommend caution regarding the use of DDT to control malaria.
The second major theme of the book, corporate greed, offers an in-depth, theoretically-informed argument about the problems of profit maximization at the level of the firm, rather than the establishment. Part of his argument is one of information asymmetry. Lorenz argues that if the CEO does not understand the industry, and promotes marketing executives over the technical core, leadership will not have the capability to manage environmental risk or have any accountability to the communities that built a long term, high quality, intergenerational business. This argument is illustrated by detailed analysis of the changing ownership of Michigan Chemical and related companies. First, it was purchased by Velsicol, which was in turn held by Northwest Industries, a holding company owned by railway magnate Benjamin Heineman, patron of John F. Kennedy. Lorenz notes that his alma mater, the University of Chicago, benefitted from the philanthropy of Heineman, from money made in part from saving on environmental risk management.
The second phase of Northwest Industries detailed in the book involves the purchase of Northwest Industries from Heineman, by Bill Farley, a wealthy backer of President Clinton, using junk bonds. Because Farley had little money of his own, he made money by flipping companies’ assets while retaining some of the contingent environmental liability. He also shut down profitable U.S.-based textile plants and licensed the brand name to Asian and Central American manufacturers. For example, the book details the closure of a textile plant owned by Northwest Industries subsidiary, Fruit of the Loom, in Campbellsville, KY. Farley also closed plants in Toledo, OH and Bowling Green, KY, all while promoting a public image as a pro-labor CEO who cared about workers. While many lost their jobs when the textile plant closed, the CAG was eventually able to win a class action lawsuit against Fruit of the Loom because Farley took out environmental liability insurance from AIG before filing for bankruptcy.
In addition to sociologists who study social movements, globalization, and the environment, this may be of interest to those who study organizations. Sociologists might understand these struggles as competing strategic action fields. Under the rubric of civic empowerment, local governments partner with the university and the U.S. EPA. Under the rubric of corporate greed, a complex holding company works with an industry-wide public relations machine, the courts, and other levels of government for advantage. Some chapters may be of interest to those who study race and class. For example, Lorenz is conscious about the intersection of race and environmental justice, but centers the discussion on conflict between government and business. Indeed, an EPA officer suggests the CAG’s claims would be strengthened if they came from Native Americans. The CAG then involved the local tribal government, but participation did not continue when the tribal government changed. While there is brief mention of Velsicol dumping toxic sludge into the sewers of an African American community in Memphis, TN, the book suggests that companies will dump toxic and radioactive waste anywhere.
Although Lorenz presents a history of contemporary public affairs, he does not explicitly discuss his methodology. However, in the preface and conclusion there is indirect information suggesting that they are reading the results of participant observation as part of community-based participatory action research (CBPR). In addition to serving as the chair of the CAG, Lorenz was later appointed by the EPA to the National Advisory Council for Environment and Technology. The book wraps itself in the genre of objective historical scholarship when it could have benefitted from exploiting the services of a CBPR design.
The research presented in the work is copiously documented. Much is based on journalistic accounts and reviews of the environmental literature. While much of the information presented on environmental science is outside of the academic expertise of Lorenz, in the preface he notes receiving assistance from expert reviewers to ensure accuracy. The best sections are those about St. Louis, MI, in part because the level of detail is documented from a diversity of sources due to Lorenz’s first-hand involvement as a “post hoc” participant observer. Lorenz’s writing style is lucid, his subject matter compelling, and as a result, the book reads like an epic novel.
Lorenz pokes criticism at the university whose press published the book, Michigan State University (MSU), and accuses MSU faculty of complicity with Michigan Chemical, accusing the university of valuing industry grants more so than the community. Part of the argument of the book is that liberal arts institutions like Alma College are in a better position to form university/community partnership because they do not assume a certain level of grant funding in their business model. It is possible, however, that small liberal arts colleges engage in the very complicity that Lorenz criticizes.
Despite these limitations, this book would be an excellent supplementary reading for an upper division or graduate course in social movements, community organizing, business ethics, or environmental justice.