OPINION
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Sen. Merkley offers
six more rules changes
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 2015
Conscience of a corporation — or not
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
S
o here is Walmart, insisting
that “our core basic belief of
respect for the individual” is at
odds with an Arkansas bill that
would allow religious-based
discrimination.
And here is Marriott, slamming
as “idiocy” similar measures in other
states.
And somewhere in there is the
family-run pizzeria, asserting that
Indiana’s new law allows them to
deny wedding day pies to people
whose choice of spouses they don’t
approve of.
AP Photo/Doug McSchooler
Opponents of Indiana Senate Bill 101, the Religious Freedom Resto-
ration Act, gather for a demonstration in Indianapolis Saturda to push
for a state law that specifically bars discrimination based on sexual
orientation or gender identity.
These businesses sell Chi-
nese-made consumer goods, hotel
rooms and rounded dough burdened
with pepperoni and extra cheese. ers were also told to look before
Since when did they start spouting taking a big leap into spiritual ex-
off about the deeply held convic- emptions for business. In a letter in
oo many United States senators don’t understand their tions guiding their corporate con- February, legal scholars warned of
FRUSRUDWLRQV¶FLWLQJUHOLJLRXVMXVWL¿-
own institution. Many times when Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom sciences?
You can blame last
cation for “taking the law
Cotton of Arkansas or other freshmen open their mouths, it’s year’s Supreme Court de-
into their own hands.”
cision
in
the
Hobby
Lob-
But, lo, look what
like they are at the high school student council, not inside the by case for unleashing a
happened on the way to
vaunted “world’s greatest deliberative body.” Cruz and Cotton herd of ponies that have
forcing religion into the
gone
off
in
quite
unpre-
marketplace: The corpo-
are acting like unworthy heirs to the chamber that was built by dicted directions. There,
rations — Apple, Nike,
Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.
in a partisan 5-4 ruling
Yelp, Gap, PayPal, Big
Pharma companies like
There are no campaign con- FRXOG EH GHHPHG FRQ¿UPHG DI- straight from Republi-
can fever nests, the court
Eli Lilly and the nine
tributors interested in mending ter 14 days following committee gave certain corporations
largest companies with
the Senate’s dysfunction. Trying approval unless 10 senators re- the right to challenge
headquarters in Indiana
Timothy
laws that they claim vi-
— have rebelled. They are
to improve the place is thankless, TXHVWÀRRUGHEDWH
Egan
olate
their
religious
be-
saying: No, don’t give us
but very important work. Oregon
Merkley would also remove
liefs. In that case, it was
the power to discriminate.
Sen. Jeff Merkley is having an- one of the most pernicious traps about contraception in the health We’d rather remain soulless purvey-
other turn at it. After having some ²WKH¿OLEXVWHUDJDLQVWDPRWLRQ care package.
ors of product to the widest possible
Let’s pause to consider this new customer base. Which is, I suppose,
success in the Congress that ended to proceed with Senate debate on
last December, Sen. Merkley has a bill. Debate on that would be entity — a moneymaking organiza- how capitalism is supposed to work.
tion no different from a lone human Bless the free market.
introduced a new batch of pro- limited to two hours.
being who feels conscience-bound to
Indiana’s law is “not just pure id-
posed Senate rules changes.
Merkley has been wise to break live a certain way because of a deep- iocy from a business perspective,”
In a nutshell, Merkley’s pro- his package into six parts, in order ly held relationship with God. Let’s said Marriott’s president, Arne So-
EHFDXVH ¿YH
renson, but “the
posals are about delay – when it to attract Republican co-sponsors. SDXVH
members of the Su-
notion that you
should be allowed and when not.
“My Republican colleagues preme Court would Exxon is just
can tell businesses
somehow that they
The most consequential of are shy about co-sponsoring rules not.
a
citizen
like
One
justice,
the
are free to discrim-
his six proposals would move changes,” says Merkley
irrepressible Ruth
inate against people
lower level presidential nomi-
But in the wake of the ma- Bader Ginsburg, you and me.
based on who they
nations forward more promptly. jor rules change made in 2013, warned of the con-
are is madness.”
sequences
of
giving
Not March Mad-
His most striking concept is that Merkley says, “There is virtually
corporations
a
soul:
“The
court,
I
ness,
but
political
lunacy,
of the type
nominees who are lower than no remaining substantial concern
IHDUKDVYHQWXUHGLQWRDPLQH¿HOG´ that’s been on display ever since the
D FDELQHW RI¿FHU RU MXGJHVKLS (about those changes).”
Ginsburg predicted that the Republican Party hitched itself to
court’s “expansive notion of corpo- the crazies who dominate its media
rate personhood” would invite prof- wing.
it-making companies to start using
But let’s not get too far ahead of
religion as an excuse to ignore laws ourselves. Walmart, which effec-
they didn’t like. And indeed, states tively killed the Arkansas bill a few
packed with right-wing legislators days ago, remains locked in poverty
who see phantom persecution behind wage mode, despite its recent boast
every new episode of Modern Fam- of raising pay to at least $9 an hour.
ily have clamored to give companies Apple, and most tech companies
a spiritual opt-out clause.
now strutting across the moral stage,
HEDWHVDERXW3DFL¿F1RUWKZHVW study. In other words, even small
So it is in Indiana. State lawmak- continues to do business with coun-
T
Tending the institution in an
era of Senate dysfunction
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for habitat restoration
Ongoing need for effective monitoring
D
salmon issues easily devolve
into the sort of “holier than thou”
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of the feistier Protestant church
denominations, but once in a while
some actual facts help illuminate
the validity — or lack thereof — of
restoration strategies.
Such is the case concerning the
argument over whether it is bet-
ter to restore habitat and permit
salmon to take reproduction into
WKHLURZQ¿QVYHUVXVUXQQLQJWKH
process ourselves in hatcheries.
Columbia Basin Bulletin reports,
“The average cost to produce a ju-
venile coho salmon through habi-
tat restoration in British Columbia
is about the same cost as produc-
ing a hatchery salmon, according
to a recent study.”
It costs an average of about
$1 to produce a coho smolt in a
hatchery, whereas restored habitat
can produce one for as little as 69
cents, even after taking into ac-
count the expense of making sure
that restoration projects remain vi-
able for at least 30 years, the study
concluded about work in British
Columbia and Washington state.
Projects that concentrate on pro-
viding specialized spawning habi-
tat can cost considerably more, but
projects that emphasize providing
young salmon places to overwin-
ter and grow are particularly cost
effective, the study found.
Even in situations where salmon
don’t reproduce in newly restored
side channels, smolts are able to
access these newly available areas
and overwintering survival was 40
percent. This results in an over-
all increase in smolt production
of 13.4 percent, according to the
projects add up to more salmon in
the watershed as a whole. In other
circumstances, off-channel habitat
projects increased coho production
by up to 34 percent.
Fishermen are individuals of
strongly held opinions and some
expressed skepticism about ef-
forts designed to relink marshes
and creeks to the Columbia River
and other salmon-bearing streams.
This study should help chip away
at these doubts. Though commer-
FLDO¿VKHUPHQDQGFKDUWHURSHUD-
tors might prefer full-out hatchery
production — and even taking out
some upriver dams — this isn’t
OLNHO\LQWRGD\¶VSROLWLFDOVFLHQWL¿F
and economic environment.
Advocates of wild-spawning
salmon, who have the attention
of policymakers in Oregon and
Washington, tend to regard hatch-
eries as a problem rather than part
of the solution. They will embrace
this study. But it has to be noted
there are far more restrictions on
catching unmarked, wild-spawn-
ing salmon, so the actual catching
and retention of salmon continues
to rely upon hatcheries.
On a philosophical level, most
seafood consumers don’t care one
way or the other where a local
salmon started life, so long as the
¿QLVKHGSURGXFWWDVWHVJRRG
The Bulletin¿JXUHVDERXW
billion to $15 billion has been
spent since 1990 on freshwater
habitat restoration projects in the
U.S. alone. Ongoing monitoring
is needed to test the effectiveness
of restoration projects, both to
hone future efforts and to main-
tain public support for such an ex-
pensive endeavor.
tries where a person can be executed
for being gay.
Their outrage is selective, and
calculated: In corporate America,
the branding conceit of the moment
includes just the right dash of so-
cial activism. A little environmental
nudge from your cereal, a talk about
race from your barista — it’s mostly
harmless.
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its journey from behind the grease
counter and back over gay marriage.
After condemning same-sex mar-
riage and becoming a culture-war
battleground, the corporate leaders
of a company that professes to run
on biblical principles now say they
will stick with chicken talk. Every-
one is welcome.
Good call. Nothing in the secular
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from free worship in private. For that
matter, nothing in the secular world
deprives any business owner of a law-
ful spiritual pursuit outside of the pub-
OLFVTXDUH7KHLUSUR¿WVZLOOULVHRUIDOO
because of consumer demand, rather
than which side of a biblical exhorta-
tion the chicken-eater may be on.
All of this, the free market in tan-
dem with the First Amendment, has
worked pretty well in a clamorous de-
mocracy such as ours. It’s only when
activist judges — thy names are Clar-
ence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samu-
el Alito, Anthony Kennedy and John
Roberts — have tried to broaden the
intent of the founders that we’ve got-
ten into trouble.
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the notion of corporate personhood —
giving companies the unfettered right
to dominate elections. After all, Exxon
is just a citizen like you and me. And
LQWKRVH¿YHMXGJHVJDYHFRUSR-
rations a soul, a further expansion of
business entity as a citizen. Well, they
tried to. As the saying goes, a corpo-
ration will never truly be a citizen
until you can execute one in Texas.
The trader who donates half his pay
within the reach of ordinary people
who simply donate a piece of their
income.”
Hm. Wage may be the only
att Wage was a bril-
liant, earnest student at ¿QDQFH JX\ ZKR , ZLVK FRXOG EH
paid more!
Princeton University, a star of
Wage is an exemplar of a new
the classroom and a deep think- movement called “effective al-
er about his own ethical obliga- truism,” aimed at taking a rigor-
ous, nonsentimental approach to
tions to the world.
making the maximum difference
His senior thesis won a prize as in the world. Singer has been a
the year’s best in the philosophy leader in this movement, and in a
department, and he was accepted book scheduled to be released in
for postgraduate study at Oxford the coming week he explores what it
means to live ethically.
University.
The book, The Most Good You Can
Instead, after graduation in 2012, Do, takes a dim view of convention-
he took a job at an arbitrage trading al charitable donations, such as sup-
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porting art museums or universities,
You might think that his profes- churches or dog shelters. Singer asks:
sor, Peter Singer, a moral philosopher, Is supporting an art museum really as
would disown him as a
socially useful as, say,
sellout. Instead, Singer
helping people avoid
I flinch
holds him up as a model.
blindness?
That’s because Wage
After all, an Amer-
at the
reasoned that if he took
ican aid group, Helen
D KLJKSD\LQJ MRE LQ ¿-
Keller
International,
idea of
nance, he could contrib-
corrects blindness in
ute more to charity. Sure
the developing world
taking a
enough, he says that in
for less than $75 per pa-
2013 he donated more job solely
WLHQW,W¶VGLI¿FXOWWRVHH
than $100,000, roughly
how a modest contribu-
because
half his pretax income.
tion to a church, opera
Wage told me that
university will be as
it’s high- or transformative
he plans to remain in
as help-
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ing the blind see again.
paying.
half his income. One
Even though he’s
of the major charities
one of the founders of
Wage gives to is the Against Malaria WKH ¿HOG RI DQLPDO ULJKWV 6LQJHU LV
Foundation, which, by one analyst’s skeptical of support for dog rescue
calculation, can save a child’s life on organizations. The real suffering in
average for each $3,340 donated. All the animal world, he says, is in indus-
this suggests that Wage may save more trial agriculture, for there are about
lives with his donations than if he had 50 times as many animals raised and
become an aid worker.
slaughtered in factory farms in the
³2QH WKRXJKW , ¿QG PRWLYDWLQJ United States each year as there are
is to imagine how great you’d feel dogs and cats that are pets in America.
if you saved someone’s life,” Wage The way to ease the pain of the great-
says. “If you somehow saved a dozen est number of animals, he says, is to
people from a burning building, then focus on chickens.
you might remember that as one of
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the greatest things you ever did. But it ethos of the effective giving move-
turns out that saving this many lives is ment, recommends particular charities
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
New York Times News Service
M
for cost-effective-
ness. Its top recom-
mendations at the
moment are Against
Malaria
Founda-
tion, GiveDirectly
(transferring money
directly to the very
poor), Schistosomi-
asis Control Initia-
tive (inexpensively
Nicholas
combating a com-
Kristof
mon parasite), and
Deworm the World
Initiative (deworming children).
Singer himself donates about one-
third of his income to charity, he says,
and I admire his commitment. Still, I
wonder about three points.
First, where do we draw the line? If
we’re prepared to donate one-third of
our incomes to maximize happiness,
then why not two-thirds? Why not live
in a tent in a park so as to be able to do-
nate 99 percent and prevent even more
cases of blindness?
I want to take my wife to dinner
without guilt; I want to be able to watch
a movie without worrying that I should
instead be buying a bed net. There is
PRUHWROLIHWKDQVHOIPRUWL¿FDWLRQDQG
REVHVVLYHFRVWEHQH¿WFDOFXOXVLWVHHPV
to me, subtracts from the zest of life.
Second, humanitarianism is noble,
but so is loyalty. So are the arts, and I’m
uncomfortable choosing one cause and
abandoning all others completely.
For my part, I donate mostly to hu-
manitarian causes but also to my uni-
versities, in part out of loyalty to insti-
tutions that once gave me scholarships.
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job solely because it’s high-paying —
even if the money is to be given away.
Bravo to Matt Wage, who says that he
relishes his work as an arbitrage trader
(now based in Hong Kong), but I’m
not sure this would work for everyone.
Still, Singer’s argument is power-
ful, provocative and, I think, basical-
ly right. The world would be a better
place if we were as tough-minded in
how we donate money as in how we
make it.