Opinion: Corporate social justice programs don’t work

Hi, I’m star Parker. And I am here to tell you that corporate social justice programs don’t work. According to a new report from the Washington post, America’s corporations have committed at least $49.5 billion to the cause of racial justice since the George Floyd murder last year riveted our national attention on race. 

These corporate executives nationwide have concluded that they can justify taking huge chunks of their shareholders’ funds, an amount equal to the entire economy of the state of Alaska, and spend these funds in a way that will produce more racial justice.

It’s reasonable to ask why they believe they can achieve this because it goes against all experience that we have had with government trying to do the same thing.

The federal government has been spending trillions since the war on poverty began in the sixties, $20 trillion by some estimates, $900 billion a year. And the incidents of poverty over these years has hardly budged.

Apparently these corporate executives feel that they have some insight that has eluded politicians for all this time.  

A large percentage of the funds that they’re committing now are earmarked for loans and investments in housing and in business. 

According to the report, $28 billion flows from a pledge by JP Morgan Chase to move 40,000 families into home ownership over the next five years.

Didn’t we try this already? But again, special loans and grants to encourage minority home ownership are nothing new.  Government’s been doing this for years, causing much more damage than good. 

According to the research at the American Enterprise Institute, the financial collapse of 2008 was driven by this type of activity, driven by a bursting of a highly inflated bubble in housing prices.

The result was widespread devastation, and it hit hardest black citizens. These government programs to help those that can’t help themselves. Those that were designed to help the poor have disproportionately hurt everyone.

And especially when housing prices collapsed. This is not a great mystery. 

The great mystery is why the principles that have made and make this country great are nowhere to be found in the various ideas and programs that these corporates think that they want to fund. 

Why have so many corporate Americans signed off on left-wing dogma that American principles, principles of protection of life and liberty and property, are the problem rather than the solution. 

You know, part of the Census Bureau’s recent annual report — it’s called income and poverty in the United States — in the 2019 report, a larger percentage of black households, 29.4% specifically, were earning $75,000 or more, a larger percentage than the households earning 25,000 or less, because that was at 28.7%. 

It’s close, but it’s progress.

So rather than portraying the traditions of free enterprise capitalism that built corporate America, America’s corporations should be promoting the values of diligent work and personal responsibility, values that offer more justice and prosperity for all Americans, including all African-Americans.