The recent controversy and debate within the Republican coalition over H-1B visas and legal immigration have, more than anything in recent memory, highlighted the degree to which corporations and big business influence the way conservatives approach economic matters.
For corporate America, the H-1B visa program is a lifeline to cheap labor. As the Washington Examiner detailed in a recent editorial, the program has become an outlet for corporations to hire foreign workers who are willing to work for significantly lower pay than would be expected from an American-born employee.
The result has been twofold: First, companies are able to maximize their profits by paying less for employees. Second, Americans who could fill numerous jobs have been forced to compete with foreigners eager to move to the United States and willing to work for lower wages. To add insult to injury, large corporations, such as Disney and AT&T, would employ Americans at higher wages before forcing them to train their lower-wage H-1B visa recipient replacements.
But despite these egregious actions, the Republican Party has long aligned itself with corporations, believing that maintaining close ties with large corporations and Wall Street while granting deference to them is a key part of effective conservative governance. Businesses, the thinking goes, are what makes America go, and any interference from the government will stymie economic growth and prosperity.
But this is a misunderstanding of the ethos of conservatism as a governing philosophy, which is, fundamentally, to conserve a prosperous and fulfilling way of life for the people of the nation. It is a view that effectively subordinates the principles of conservatism to whatever increases the gross domestic product, maximizes profits for businesses, and creates lower costs for consumers. What was once a question of what makes a prosperous and fulfilling life achievable for all has become a question of what makes businesses prosper and grow.
The H-1B visa program is a prime example. Fundamentally, it is a corporate- and business-friendly program. By allowing corporations and businesses to hire foreign workers whose immigration status is incumbent upon their employment at a below-market salary, the productivity of the business increases, and so does the GDP. Overhead costs for employees, having thus been reduced profit margins, are then increased, and with larger profit margins, businesses can charge less for their product, increasing its appeal to consumers and thus leading to a growth in sales.
On its surface, increasing productivity and profits while providing lower costs for consumers is completely unobjectionable. But how a business or corporation achieves this goal matters. A best business practice can and does run into conflicts with the well-being of a society and a people.
It is for this reason that, especially as it becomes the party of the working class, the Republican Party and the conservative movement cannot treat corporations and big business as a partner in policymaking but rather as a party whose concerns and interests must be weighed against the concerns and interests of others.
As long as corporations are creating the circumstances for American workers to thrive, they should be lauded. As long as corporations are ensuring that the communities in which they reside are the beneficiaries of their economic activity, they should be praised.
President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election in no small part because he was willing to call out the excess deference that political leaders of both parties in Washington have granted to big business.
Every time Trump railed against unfair trade deals that were ripping off the U.S. and shipping jobs to China and Mexico, he was railing against the coziness that the political establishments of both parties maintain with corporations. He even bragged about how he and his businesses took advantage of the system that politicians in Washington had rigged in favor of corporations.
It was this populist message that helped catapult Trump to the White House in 2016 against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the avatar of corporate-friendly politicians. His promise to bring back jobs that had gone overseas resonated with a large swath of people in the Midwest who had seen their once-proud communities turn into drug-infested ghost towns as the industrial factories that had provided the economic lifeblood of their towns and cities were shuttered.
But as long as the Republican Party and conservatism are reflexively sympathetic to the whims of large multinational corporations, it cannot long carry the flag of the party that champions the working class.
A corporation can and should be a partner in uplifting the working class. But as the H-1B visa controversy has shown, a significant number of large corporations are eager to take advantage of the stability and commercial opportunities the U.S. has to offer while providing little in return to the communities that host them.
As long as Disney exists in Florida and California, it is an engine of economic growth stability for the community. But if, as it has done, Disney forces the Orlando natives it had initially hired to train foreign replacements who will work at lower wages, it is hurting the economic well-being of those who call Orlando home. Now without a job, the American citizen in Orlando is forced to compete with the foreign worker, not just in the workplace but also in the housing market.
It is not a conservative ideal to view economic growth as an end unto itself. A think tank expert or a politician can argue that a green line going up on a chart representing economic activity is a sign of prosperity, but if the person hearing it is struggling to put food on the table, it will fall on deaf ears.
Such was a lesson of the Democratic Party’s collapse in last year’s election. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and the other leaders of the party insisted that “Bidenomics” was creating prosperity and success. After all, the stock market was up, GDP growth was healthy, and unemployment was low. The executives of major corporations celebrated record-breaking profits, signaling a healthy market for consumer spending.
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But those numbers and lines on a chart masked the reality that most people felt. The record-breaking profits and GDP growth did nothing to make up for the wages lost through inflation that saw the price of everyday goods soar. A housing market that has become increasingly corporatized is so unaffordable that most adults starting their careers and families have little hope of ever owning their own homes.
If the conservative mandate that the Republican Party has secured is to last, it must recognize that corporations are not always friends to the economic well-being of the communities of America. It must hold corporations accountable for the role they have played in the hollowing out of the middle class and ensure that businesses serve the well-being of their communities rather than communities serving the well-being of businesses.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
