Don Blankenship: The Id of Corporate America

by Jason Mark – August 12, 2010Follow Jason Mark on Twitter

With the unemployment rate stuck above 10 percent, the economy struggling to shake itself out of a recession, and memories still vivid of the financial meltdown two years ago, corporate executives seem to have decided that the best thing to do is lay low. Gone, it seems, are the days of CEO swagger, when men like GE’s Jack Welch (“If it bothers you, yell at it. Kick it. Scream at it. Break it!”) and Citigroup’s Sandy Weil (who had a plaque reading “Shatterer Of Glass-Steagall” on his wall) imperiously ruled American business. Cockiness is out, humility is in. The best example of this might be JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who was so self-effacing in a recent interview with The New York Times that an aide had to prod: ““Jamie, how about mentioning a few of our positives, too?”

Maybe this is a good thing: After all, who wants to hear about the accomplishments and amazing talent of know-it-all Masters of the Universe? … And yet. The problem with today’s cautious and media-coached corporate executives is that one gets the sense they’re hiding something. They’re well rehearsed in the rituals of public apology and the play-acting modesty of hard-working managers, but we know their agenda remains the same as it ever was — make as much money as possible, and damn the consequences to workers and the environment. It’s just that, in an era of populist anger, they’re afraid to say as much.

Thanks God, then, for Don Blankenship. The head of coal-mining concern Massey Energy is like the CEO from Central Casting: Oversized and mustachioed, arrogant, cocksure, and bold. Among unionists and environmental groups, he’s something of a corporate ogre, denounced for his willingness to blow the tops off mountains to get at coal and cut corners on safety. Yet despite my green-left leanings I can’t get enough of him.

Because while other execs speak in polished sound bites, Blankenship tells it like it is — and in doing so offers a sobering peak into the mind of the American business class. Don Blankenship is the unedited unconscious of the country’s economic elite. He is the id of Corporate America.

A wonderful display of Blankenship’s signature style came a few weeks ago when the coal baron appeared at the National Press Club, his first major public appearance since Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in April that killed 29 men. In introducing Blankenship, Alan Bjerga of Bloomberg called him “one of the country’s most talked about CEOs, known for his conservative positions on unions, the environment, and coal production.” Blankenship didn’t disappoint. During an 18-minute presentation (delivered with just bullet point notes) and a 40-minute Q&A, Blankenship was discursive, rambling, and brutally honest, unafraid of acknowledging exactly what corporations are all about.

Things got off to a great start when Blankenship uncloaked the operating principle of capitalism: that companies will do anything, anything, to make a buck.

“Just to show you that I will try be fair in my criticisms and my thoughts,” he told the assembled journalists, “if you look at three things, you look at the 18th-19th century slaves, you look at immigration, you look at trade policy, they all have one common thread: It’s that businesses always try to have low-cost labor and to have a cost advantage. … And that’s one of the things we always have to be aware of. Many times the policies and the procedures that businesses come to are the thirst for competitive advantage to fulfill their obligations to making money.”

Did you get that? The reason we once kept people in chattel slavery, and today have so-called free trade policies, is to make sure that companies can keep their costs low.

Fifteen minutes or so later, in response to a question about whether externality costs should be figured into the cost for consumers, Blankenship admitted something that few other CEOs would: “The truth is, there’s hardly anything done that doesn’t have an externality cost.” He then went a step further, and said out loud the country’s great open secret: “We’ve got a $420 billion military budget, partially to keep the seas open for oil.” Actually, in 2010 we’ll spend $663 billion on the military, but you get the point — staying comfy requires a lot of bombs.

Blankenship was also refreshingly open in his scorn for environmental safeguards, which he sees as a waste of money, and his willingness to sacrifice whole landscapes for coal. “We’ve been surface mining for 80 years,” he said. “Despite all that mining, the environmental extremists still consider that area to be a pristine environment that deserves their protection.” And then, a few minutes later, “We’ve moved billions and billions of yards of rock. But it’s amazing how protected it needs to be today.”

The take away: We’ve already ruined and poisoned the land, so what are you so upset about?

(In another great example of his impatience with PR-speak, yesterday, in a blast against his industry’s own “clean coal” propaganda, Blankenship tweeted: “A friend asked me why I say CCS [Carbon Capture Storage] isn't practical. Answer: it isn't.”)

During his Press Club talk, a few topics kept coming up repeatedly that reveal a great deal about Blankenship’s worldview, and, by extension, the views of other corporate giants. In his presentation one could hear a strain of paranoia (“the environmental movement is big business”) and a sense of persecution (“the environmental extremism we’re subject to on a routine basis”) that seems to view any accountability as an infringement on his company’s rights. Looking out for the public interest just makes him feel put upon. The constant mentions of “Asians” and “the Chinese” spoke to a fear of a yellow peril that threatens American hegemony.

But what I thought was most interesting in Blankenship’s talk was his attack against how the US economy has become dominated by finance. If Blankenship is the id of corporate executives, then there’s some kind of psychic battle going on between the financiers (the Wall Street gamblers) and the industrialists (who still make some kind of product).

“We need to understand … why Wall Street and the stock exchange is not tracking the US economy, why that is,” Blankenship said. “I don’t know the facts of that, because they are not available. You have to wonder how much of the profit that’s on the New York Stock Exchange is made in American versus outside America. … How many American jobs have been created by these companies inside America versus outside America?”

Later he said: “ As Thomas Jefferson said in 1776: Merchants only pay loyalty to the country they make their money in. They don’t pay loyalty to the countries where they grew up or where they live. … That’s not an insinuation. I do think that American business need to be more honest than politically correct. It’s real important, in my opinion, that people understand the realities.”

So give Don Blakenship some points for honesty and all-American industriousness. The man at least makes things — even if that means destroying mountains.

Jason Mark, Editor, Earth Island Journal
Jason Mark is a writer-farmer with a deep background in environmental politics.  In addition to his work in the Earth Island Journal, his writings have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The Progressive, Utne Reader, Orion, Gastronomica, Grist.org, Alternet.org, E magazine, and Yes!  He is a co-author of Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots and also co-author with Kevin Danaher of Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power. When not writing and editing, he co-manages Alemany Farm, San Francisco’s largest food production site.

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