How Can We Prevent Powerful Corporations From Lying With Impunity?

Great Debates
1

Sorry in advance about the long post.

I was listening to a review of Supreme Court cases, and one of the cases was Nike v. Krasky ( http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/02-575.pdf ). Now, I had never heard of Nike v. Krasky before, and if you do a Google search of nike krasky, you come up with 13 documents. Google advertises that they search 3,083,324,652 web pages, and only 13 have to do with Supreme Court case of Nike v. Krasky. CNN doesn’t have any articles, MSNBC doesn’t have any articles. Basically, no media outlet has mentioned this case. Of course, they all take Nike advertising dollars.

Anyway, some consumer groups started a campaign that tried to educate people (using op ed pieces and possibly letters to various athletic departments that bought Nike products) saying that Nike used child labor and paid workers in 3d world nations wages that were below those country’s minimum wage laws. Nike responded by writing its own Op-Ed pieces and letters to Athletic Departments (who purchase Nike products) that basically said that they don’t engage in any of those alleged practices.

Krasky, a consumer, used a california law to sue Nike. The California law allows private individuals to bring False advertising claims. Krasky brought the action, claiming that he could prove in a court of law that Nike was making false statements.

Krasky’s evidence has not yet been heard in court.

Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether Nike has a freedom of speech right to lie. They must decide whether this entity, which exists only on a piece of paper, has Constitutional rights that are equivalent to living, breathing, human beings. Basically, they must decide whether Corporations, who exist for the sole purpose of shareholder profit, can engage in political speech, or whether Op-Ed pieces and letters to Althletic Directors constitutes commercial speech, which can be more closely regulated.

One of the fundamental problems, as I see it, is that the “Marketplace of Ideas” will not bring out the truth. 13 documents on the Internet. When the marketplace of ideas is driven by a profit motive, there is no incentive to allow dissenting voices to be heard in cases such as this one.

Additionally, to what will be nobody’s surprise, Bush’s Solicitor General Theodore Olsen, argued on behalf of Nike.

What are your thoughts? Am I being too alarmist?

2

Well, first of all, there are THOUSANDS and thousands of documents on the Internet about this case. More than I could ever count. You didn’t find them because it’s “KASKY,” not “KRASKY.”

With respect to the Nike vs Kasky story and its coverage, I guess a rather important question is whether or not Krasky is telling the truth. If he’s a crackpot, so what? If he’s got a case, then it’s troublesome. But I don’t know either way.

As to the issue of Nike’s being allowed to lie, the simple truth of the matter is that lying, in and of itself, is not against the law. It’s against the law to lie in order to defraud someone, or to lie in orderto slander someone, but lying just to assuage your own guilty conscience isn’t against the law and it SHOULDN’T be.

IANAL, but here’s my understanding: If you read the case, what the courts are debating is not whether or not a “Corporation” has the right to lie; it’s whether the specific lies in question are commercial speech (in which case they have no such right whether they’re a corporation, a person, or a zebra) or non-commercial speech (in which case they can lie like dogs.) Nothing in the court documents even begins to suggest that the courts are considering giving corporations the right to lie. It’s all about whether or not Nike’s statements really do constitute false advertising. Read the lower court’s decision:

Nike’s argument is basically that “Even if we did lie, we weren’t lying about our products in a way that defrauds the customer.” If you run Pencil Pusher’s Sneaker Company and you told me your shoes were guaranteed to make me run faster than Maurice Greene, and you’re lying, that’s false advertising and not protected speech, because I and other customers were robbed of $100 we paid on the belief that the sneakers would make us run the hundred in less than ten seconds. But if you write a letter to the editor telling them that your sneakers are manufactured exclusively by nuns paid $60 an hour, that may be a stinkin’ lie, but you have not technically defrauded anyone into buying a product that won’t do something they think it will.

3

First, thank you about the spelling error. That does explain my difficulty in finding information.

I don’t really buy your argument. What if I only want to buy items that are environmentally friendly? Can a lawnmower company say, “Every time one of our lawnmowers run, our special exhaust actually repairs the ozone layer”? How is that different than, “Our company donates $10,000,000 every year to Doctors without Borders,” or “we do not employ anybody under the age of 18 in any of our factories”?

Yes, a human being can legally make any outlandish claim they want. But what about a corporation that exists only on paper? A corporation whose sole reason for existing is shareholder profit? A corporation that, every year, makes statements to its shareholders about the value of its name (“good will”)? What social purpose can it possibly serve to allow such an entity to engage in non-commercial speech?

4

p.s., my mispelling also explains why I didn’t come up with these two previous threads:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=152226&highlight=kasky

and

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155143&highlight=kasky

5

If the intangible corporate entity was the one lying, and not some marketing schmuck working for the intangible corporate entity, then I say the intangible corporate entity should have the right to lie.

However, it is the shmuck, and he has a right to lie too, so your question is moot.

Now, you may have a just claim if the lies are about facts and not opinions. Suppose Nike owns maquiladoras in guatemala:

Opinion lie: “We care about people.”

Fact lie: “We do not own maquiladoras in guatemala.”

Though not fraud, some may argue that the second proves a lack of good faith that a company should show the public, and therefore the gov’t should step in for protection of the public good.