Ben & Jerry’s released this statement of support for the Occupy movement today. Our first corporate endorsement? Weird, but welcome.
We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity. The issues raised are of fundamental importance to all of us. These include:
- The inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral.
- We are in an unemployment crisis. Almost 14 million people are unemployed. Nearly 20% of African American men are unemployed. Over 25% of our nation’s youth are unemployed.
- Many workers who have jobs have to work 2 or 3 of them just to scrape by.
- Higher education is almost impossible to obtain without going deeply in debt.
- Corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people.
We know the media will either ignore you or frame the issue as to who may be getting pepper sprayed rather than addressing the despair and hardships borne by so many, or accurately conveying what this movement is about. All this goes on while corporate profits continue to soar and millionaires whine about paying a bit more in taxes. And we have not even mentioned the environment.
We know that words are relatively easy but we wanted to act quickly to demonstrate our support. As a board and as a company we have actively been involved with these issues for years but your efforts have put them out front in a way we have not been able to do. We have provided support to citizens’ efforts to rein in corporate money in politics, we pay a livable wage to our employees, we directly support family farms and we are working to source fairly traded ingredients for all our products. But we realize that Occupy Wall Street is calling for systemic change. We support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy.
— Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors
45 Responses to “Ben & Jerry’s Supports “Those Who Occupy””
I’m not sure you should give this publicity. They may just be trying to get themselves name-dropped in association with the movement as just another manipulative marketing scheme.
xo
I’m serious about this–Please don’t advertise support from companies under any circumstances… It’s disheartening to uncover specific, strategic reasons that corporations “sponsor” or “support” nonprofit organizations and good causes. They just want their name associated with the positivity. If I could propose this at the GA right now, I would.
to ignore it would be stupid.
but i agree we should be careful of anybody who wishes to speak for us.
I’m very supportive of OWS’s cause and think you would be insane not to utilize Ben and Jerry’s endorsement. They are a very well respected organization. It’s not merely a marketing ploy. Please take the time to learn more about them and you’ll realize that they have conducted their business in such a fashion that proves they mean what they say.
May I also suggest you contact Elizabeth Warren to come and speak with you to share her knowledge so that you might better be able to provide a focused message. Those who are against you say that your issues are too scattered and unfocused. May I respectfully suggest that the main issue is the unequal and unfair distribution of re$our$e$. Good luck!
Ben & Jerry’s recent corporate press release apparently fails to mention much about the “baby-boomer capitalist” firm’s 21st-century business connection to the Unilever transnational corporation. Yet on April 12, 2000, Ben & Jerry’s issued the following corporate press release about its $326 million business deal with Unilever:
“SOUTH BURLINGTON, VT — April 12, 2000–Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc. (NASDAQ:BJICA) and Unilever (NYSE:UN – news; NYSE:UL – news), have agreed to a unique and ground-breaking combination in which Ben & Jerry’s will join forces with Unilever to create an even more dynamic, socially positive ice cream business with global reach.
“The Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors approved Unilever’s offer of $43.60 per share for all of the 8.4 million outstanding shares on a fully diluted basis, valuing the transaction at $326 million, taking into account net cash and option proceeds. Ben & Jerry’s had sales of $237 million in 1999 with operating income of $13.5 million before a one-time charge.
“Under the terms of the agreement, Ben & Jerry’s will operate separately from Unilever’s current U.S. ice cream business. There will be an independent Board of Directors, which will focus on providing leadership for Ben & Jerry’s social mission and brand integrity.
“With this transaction, shareholders will be rewarded for their investment; Ben & Jerry’s employees will be protected; the current social mission of Ben & Jerry’s will be encouraged and well-funded, which will lead to improved performance in this area; and an opportunity has been offered for Ben & Jerry’s to contribute to Unilever’s social practices worldwide.
“In commenting on the transaction, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s, said: `Neither of us could have anticipated, twenty years ago, that a major multinational would some day sign on, enthusiastically, to pursue and expand the social mission that continues to be an essential part of Ben & Jerry’s and a driving force behind our many successes. But today, Unilever has done just that. While we and others certainly would have preferred to pursue our mission as an independent enterprise, we hope that, as part of Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s will continue to expand its role in society.’
“Both co-founders will continue to be involved with Ben & Jerry’s.
“`Unilever believes the super premium segment of the ice cream market will continue to grow and that the Ben & Jerry’s brand will lead that growth,’ said Richard Goldstein, President of Unilever Foods North America. `Furthermore, we feel that Ben & Jerry’s has a significant opportunity outside of the United States. Unilever is in an ideal position to bring the Ben & Jerry’s brand, values and socially responsible message to consumers worldwide. These opportunities strongly support Unilever’s stated strategy for expanding the ice cream category globally.’ Unilever is the world’s largest ice cream company, with such famous brands as Breyers All Natural, Good-Humor, Popsicle, Klondike and Wall’s.
“`Much of the success of the Ben & Jerry’s brand is based on its connections to basic human values, and it is our hope and expectation that Ben & Jerry’s continues to engage in these critical, global economic and social missions,’ said Goldstein.
“Ben & Jerry’s CEO, Perry Odak, will lead the management team during this important transition. The company will continue to be Vermont-based.
“The transaction will be structured as a tender offer for all of Ben & Jerry’s shares at $43.60 in cash followed by a merger in which all the remaining Ben & Jerry’s shares will be exchanged for $43.60 in cash each. It is expected that the tender offer will commence next week. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions.
“Security holders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc. should read the Tender Offer Statement on Schedule TO filed by Unilever N.V., Conopco, Inc. and Vermont All Natural Expansion Company when it becomes available because it will contain important information about the tender offer. Investors can obtain such tender offer Statement on Schedule TO and other filed documents for free at the S.E.C.’s website http://www.sec.gov.
“Ben & Jerry’s produces a wide variety of super premium ice cream, ice cream novelties, low fat ice cream, low fat yogurt and sorbet, using Vermont dairy products and high quality, all natural ingredients. Ben & Jerry’s is committed to using milk and cream that have not been treated with the synthetic hormone, rBGH. Ben & Jerry’s products are distributed nationwide and in selected foreign countries in supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, franchise Ben & Jerry’s scoop shops, restaurants and other venues.
“Unilever is one of the world’s largest consumer products companies with sales in excess of $45 billion. It produces and markets a wide range of foods and home and personal care products. Unilever operates in 88 countries around the globe and employs 255,000 people. In the United States, Unilever sales exceeded $8 billion in 1999. It employs 21,000 people and has 66 offices and manufacturing sites in 23 states.
More important is knowing what Unilever stands for. Apparently they’re interested in ethical business practices, which may be among the reasons they purchased B & J’s. This is from Wikipedia
Unilever claims that corporate social responsibility is at the heart of its business.[26] However, the transition to a responsible and sustainable company is ongoing and Unilever has attracted a variety of criticisms from political, environmental and human rights activists on not achieving the high aims it communicates on a number of topics.[27]
[edit] Environmental issues
Unilever’s stated goals are to decouple growth from the company’s environmental impact[28] by
* halving the environmental footprint of its products
* helping 1 billion people improve their health and well-being
* sourcing all of its agricultural raw materials sustainably
Palm oil
Unilever has been criticised by Greenpeace for causing deforestation,[29] Unilever was targeted in 2008 by Greenpeace UK,[30] which criticised the company for buying palm oil from suppliers that are damaging Indonesia’s rainforests. Unilever, as a founding member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), responded by publicizing its plan to obtain all of its palm oil from sources that are certified as sustainable by 2015.[31]
In Côte d’Ivoire, one of Unilever’s palm oil suppliers was accused of clearing forest for plantations, an activity that threatened a primate species, Miss Waldron’s Red Colobus. Unilever intervened to halt the clearances pending the results of an environmental assessment.[32]
On 4 July 2010, Unilever announced that it has secured enough GreenPalm certificates of sustainable palm oil to cover the requirements of its European, Australia, and New Zealand business.[citation needed] GreenPalm is a certificate trading programme, endorsed by the RSPO, which is designed to tackle the environmental and social problems created by the production of palm oil.
Rainforest Alliance
Unilever has committed to purchase all its tea from sustainable, ethical sources.[33] It has asked the international environmental NGO, Rainforest Alliance, to start by certifying tea farms in Africa.
Lipton and PG Tips will be the first brands to contain certified tea. The company aims to have all Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips tea bags sold in Western Europe certified by 2010 and all Lipton tea bags sold globally by 2015.:
Animal testing
Unilever states it is committed to the elimination of animal testing, and where it is a legal requirement in some countries, it tries to convince the local authorities to change the law.[34] Some activists[who?] argue that this is little more than an effort to gain good publicity and Unilever continue to use animal experimentation such as the LD50 poisoning test.
[edit] Social issues
Race and advertisements
Hindustan Unilever, had been showing television advertisements for skin-lightening cream, Fair and Lovely, depicting depressed, dark-skinned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin.[35]
The Austrian branch of Unilever (Eskimo) is producing and marketing an ice-cream under the name Mohr im Hemd. “Mohr” (moor), is a colonial German word for African or black people, has a heavily colonialist and racist connotation.,[36][37] “Mohr im Hemd” (moor in the shirt) is a traditional Austrian chocolate specialty which refers to naked, “wild” Africans. Unilever refutes any racist intentions and claims that it has tested the name in broad market studies in Austria without any critical feedback.
There’s more if you care to read more… Thanks Protestfolk for the research that prompted my own curiosity…
Corporate Watch site also has posted some interesting historical information on Unilever/Ben & Jerry at the following link:
http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=260
For example:
“5. Pushing the neoliberal agenda and spreading false information
Like all big multinationals, Unilever is a major advocate of economic liberalisation and privatisation; processes that will enable multinationals to take ever more advantage of business opportunities worldwide. Recently, at a meeting of the Economic Club of Washington DC, Unilever chairman Niall FitzGerald called upon his fellow CEOs to draw together in support of a new round of global trade negotiations. Since the WTO debacle in Seattle (September 1999), official trade negotiations have held back.
FitzGerald describes the growing resistance against the WTO and ‘free-trade’ as an ‘emotional backlash of passionate naysayers against globalisation’, ignoring the strong resistance and fact-based/sound arguments coming from many developing countries, NGOs, activist groups, scientists and well-informed people in general.”
Bravo !!!- so long as their actions match their words- this is how we hope all companies will behave and this is the way forward. This is how capitalism should function – and we as occupy supporters should embrace their willingness to acknowledge the current dysfunction in the way corporations and our government operate that is destroying both our democracy and the free market system. Thank you Ben and Jerry’s for your brave words and support.
I agree. Isn’t this about every voice being heard? We hope more companies will start supporting us and matching through actions. That’s the only way to affect change. More companies should join. Thank you Ben & Jerry for your support. We hope to hear that you are cutting some of the executive pay to share your profits with your employees and create more jobs. I encourage more companies to join in this cause!
Ben and Jerry, you guys aren’t very bright. I’ll leave your ice cream off my shopping list.
Um, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield left long ago. It is now a division of the British-Dutch Unilever conglomerate.
I understand not wanting them to possibly take over the movement, but I didn’t get the idea that was what they were saying. They were being supportive, and personally I thank them for the sentiment. I don’t buy their ice cream and I don’t work for them, in fact I am not working at all, but I have been aware for many years that Ben and Jerry’s has long been a supporter of environmental issues and workers rights. I believe a simple “thank you for your encouragement” would have been polite and acceptable.
B & J got where they are through capitalism. They need to publicly acknowledge that fact so the misguided fools out there protesting can be set straight! I’m done with Ben and Jerry’s.
your comment makes no sense at all.
Why did B&J feel need to BULLET POINT issues? B&Js great co, environ,etc, but one of 1000s.
“Boston Cream Occupie” to debut on shelves next month…..
Great, I hope people buy it and that they make more profits to share with their employees and give back to their community and their environment or hire a few more people to come up with new flavors – as long as it doesn’t all go in the pockets of a few…Isn’t this what this movement is about? If not please let me know and you will lose me as a supporter. I am an employed 40-something and want companies to succeed, but also to share with the 99%. Earlier I was defending the movement against the media, but as always the truth is in the middle and now I do see why the media is branding this as just a bunch of young folks who don’t even know what they want…
maybe they don’t have a concrete plan as to how to fix what they see is wrong with the society they live in. maybe they’re just a group of citizens who are tired of feeling powerless and disenfranchised in modern america and are uniting to devise a solution.
is that so wrong? i prefer to support a movement where a bunch of frustrated people gather together to work on a solution than to support one where a single individual draws a line in the sand and all have to choose a side.
i think what we’re seeing here is unadulterated democracy and i support it fully.
The situation is simple: The near entirety of the US government is corrupt and run by political Bribe-takers bought and paid for by people who have amassed the most wealth overall in this country (the top 1% of the U.S. population).
These politicians, now solely representing their funders and not the voters turn around and pass legislation that gives the Super Rich here every advantage possible, including free money (Quantitative Easing/Bailouts), lower taxes and zero accountability for their actions. In order to prevent revolts from the increased burden to the unrepresented in this country, the Super Rich have set up a bogus political party to siphon off and redirect the anger of the masses (The Republicans) and an ineffectual party (The Democrats) to cave to “Republican pressure” while pretending to care about the masses.
In addition, they have co-opted and bought out nearly all of the mainstream media in order to filter out any info that would lay the blame on the true culprit, instead leaving the majority of America divided and focusing their energies on decoy scapegoats and partisan nonsense. The super rich and those they pay for care not one bit about jobs or the welfare of the country they grew from. They merely care about having as many digits as possible for their bank statement balance. And if that means the middle/working class will eventually need to vanish, then so be it. The entire system is broken.
If you really want to end Wall Street greed, you have to FIX CONGRESS FIRST. http://www.fixcongressfirst.org
P.S. Please feel free to repost this message elsewhere if you agree. Part of the way to help turn the tide of this problem is by raising awareness to the reality of the situation.
Well put.
Huzzah to Ben & Jerry’s for making a public statement of support. To those who are worried, there is no issue of being co-opted through their statement of support. That very real threat is going to come from pandering politicians, and from those who attempt to be identified as the ‘leaders’ of OWS/OB or those who want to build their ‘brand’ by associating with OWS (e.g. people like Cornell West). It could also come from unions and other existing groups which may have agendas and priorities that diverge from OWS/OB.
go vegan or go f*** yourself.
Lame. Take that arrogance elsewhere, please.
This knee-jerk reaction to any corporation is ridiculous. Know who your real enemies are by their actions. We have more to lose from people like Moveon.org than from Ben and Jerry’s. Moveon.org is in cahoots with the Obama administration and the Obama administration has Wall Street written all over it.
I will now write in caps: DO NOT LET THIS MOVEMENT BE CO-OPTED BY THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY…
Um, for the most part, this move is the progressive wing of the democratic party. Certainly, it’s not ALL progressives, but I’d venture to say about three quarters are. Most of us are fed up with corrupt politicians, but I’d say a lot of us were once democrats. I see a LOT of progressive attitude in this movement (tax the rich, provide healthcare, stop letting the poor fall through the cracks etc).
Also, MoveOn is a great resource. Yes, they have supported the Obama campaign, but in my eyes, Obama was certainly the lesser of two evils, and he has done quite a bit, just not enough. Supporting Obama is not the worst thing in the world. Yes, I wish we had a fairer system, and that nominees weren’t basically chosen for us, but I don’t think Obama is all that awful, when compared to what we could have had, and what we’ve had in the past.
This movement represents a HOPE for Change, not Obama. Obama is just as bad or just as worse as Bush, etc.
Strengthening of the Patriot Act
Increasing Drone attacks into Pakistan
Increasing the debt with senseless stimuli packages
Packing his cabinet with Wall Street and Federal Reserve executives
Conning anyone who listens into believing that his administration is any different than any other on corporate and fiscal and military matters
Committing our troops to Libya
Not closing Gitmo
As for Moveon.org, they played a huge role in the Anti-War movement while Bush was President and the Anti-War movement fell apart as soon as Obama was elected. They are in his pocket, they are funded by Soros, and they represent the administration.. They didn’t back Obama, they were absorbed by him. Look at the contributors and think again about how culpable Obama’s administration is in this. He’s duplicitous and they will co-opt this movement. The Republicans did it with the original Tea Party. Any real grassroots movement in this country, sooner or later, gets co-opted by either Madison Avenue or some political party or personage.
We all have to wake up to the fact that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans on Fiscal, Military, and “Homeland Security” issues.
Obama is just the third term of Bush. There is nothing remotely progressive about anything he’s done. The war has intensified, he’s moved to dismantle social programs that Bush never dared to touch, and he’s back-tracked on all his promises re Guantanomo, net neutrality and the war on terror. It’s total futility to think that the democratic party is going to do anything for the people. They are just the centrist wing of the republican party.
moveon is a vile organization which co-opted sections of the left and channeled them into a pointless electoral campaign that accomplished nothing but electing another tool of the ruling class. They cannot be allowed into this movement at any cost nor can we get distracted into useless electoral politics. That is always the downfall of a movement.
lastly, if we come up with a new name for a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor do we get a lifetime supply of ice-cream for the entire 99%? I suggest “Whose Cream? Our Cream!” The pint graphic would be an anarchist fist with cream oozing out of it, and the ice cream would be cherry and chocolate (red and black).
How about Rocky Road Revolution?
I’m not sure that we should be giving any corporations extra publicity by hosting their statements of support.
I agree 100%. Knowing the seeds of this movement were planted by Adbusters just makes it that much worse. Publicizing the endorsement of Ben & Jerry’s is just giving them free PR. We can gracefully accept the endorsement but we should not publicize it.
I agree too. My knee-jerk reaction and comments above came from research I did on corporate sponsorship in the arts. For example, Phillip Morris specifically sponsored exhibitions of women and Native American artists because that’s their targeted audience, not because they supported the social empowerment of these groups. A lot of their marketing strategies are now available to the public.
That’s also why, as someone working in the fine arts, I’m all about this movement because now major banks are giving us dirty money to have their name associated with what we do.
So. This is clearly a touchy issue. On one hand, we could use all the material and labor support we can get, but on the other, we must be ever vigilant to avoid being taken over. I can’t say that I know exactly how we should handle these statements, other than to say that we must somehow acknowledge that while we appreciate the sentiment, we also acknowledge that talk is cheap, and that the sum total of the actions of an organization are what is important at the end of the day. Ben and Jerry’s is perhaps better than many, but as has been noted, they are a division of Unilever. If anything, I would suggest that welcoming the support of the individuals on the board of directors is fine, but that taking support from a group or company, as such, should be something we think long and hard about doing. From what I’ve heard, the Occupy Los Angeles group has adopted a policy of allowing anyone to come forward, but only as an individual, not as a corporation or other organized body. I’m not saying this is exactly what we should do, just bringing it up as food for thought as we move forward and decide how we are going to handle groups wishing to support us.
In any case, to the persons on the Board of Directors, I would offer gratitude, and express my deepest hope that you will come out to a GA and see what exactly it is that you just claimed to be supporting. Our hesitancy to extend our hands back would perhaps be more understandable to those who have had a first hand knowledge of how we are organizing and building. I certainly would be interested in having a dialogue on this matter.
Starr… I agree with you altogether on corporate sponsorship. Oil companies that fund PBS specials on the environment is another example. I do think that Ben and Jerry’s is at least an ethically minded corporation. If there’s anything I don’t know about B & J’s that I should, let me know.
As for “material support” it should start simply in our own backyard. There’s a sign at the entrance of the site that says: WE’RE NOT LEAVING UNTIL YOU GIVE US JOBS”… I’m not sure if that’s the exact verbiage, but I know that GIVE US JOBS is correct. This is an awful sign and shows no initiative whatsoever. Any relevant job is going to have to be invented and conducted in the spirit of wit. We need to be entrepreneurial activists and generate the income that is needed ourselves. Only self sustaining organizations will be free of outside influence.
We should welcome support from everyone. Getting support is different from letting someone speak for you. Such movements FORCE major companies to get on board, like how many companies have started putting out green products because the customers wouldn’t buy from them otherwise. I was under the impression that the aim of this movement was to wake everyone up, get the attention of fatcats and big corporations and show the government we mean business. If that is the case, then we want everyone supporting us.
Also, Ben and Jerry’s has proved themselves to be one of the best companies out there in terms of activism, environmental issues and fair trade. I’m glad to have them on board. Other major companies should be taking note.
Welcome support, but not indiscriminately.
Thank you Ben & Jerry’s!
Don’t hate the playa hate the game.
First of all, I think as a group you really need support from everything you can get. You will not get anywhere if this remains only largely unemployed disgruntled people camping outside. That’s how it started and it’s great and I REALLY support the movement and the effort put into it, but I think that if you want the movement to move forward, you will need some big names backing you up eventually (I realize that the line is very thin between having someone backing you up or having them trying to take you over, or use you, or speak for you… that’s a very slippery slope).
But I think that it’s important, for me at least, not to have a mentality like ‘all companies are evil’. There IS good companies out there, and they are necessary for any type of economy, even if the financial system gets a complete overhaul. Some companies are totally environmentally conscious, try very hard to have fair trade, do not exploit employees to have an extra bonus to the CEO at the end of the year, etc. Those are GOOD for the country, they’re not the problem. And from what I can tell, B&J falls actually in this category.
Just a suggestion like that, how about putting some sort of pledge out there to take for companies wanting to support the movement? It would have to be realistic (not something like ‘redistribute all profits to the poor’), but this would at least force companies to think before just trying to get free publicity out of it.
There could be restriction about environmental limitations, fair trade, etc. but also on the money side with things such as not using any tax loophole or having money sitting somewhere in fiscal paradises that prevents them from paying their fair share back to society. I’m not very good at how to word all of this, but I think that if there was some official pledge, it could be interesting to see who decides to take it. Honestly I wouldn’t even care if a company used it to make publicity for itself if it’s the kind of company that I WANT to succeed. What I don’t want to see is our jobs getting shipped overseas to people making 2$ a day because it allows them to make a higher profit at the end of the year that they will send in some fiscal paradise and end up paying 0 in taxes to the government at the end of the year despite making in reality billions in profit.
I agree with everything you are saying. It’s great you are making suggestions, but I feel like we are pissing into the wind here and making recommendations that I am not sure these organizers pay attention to. I also don’t think camping in tents will last forever and blogging endlessly also won’t produce results. If these organizers won’t mobilize and start some specific campaigns with CALL TO ACTION on various themes, this will not go much further. The themes for students can be LOWER EDUCATION COSTS then a call to action must be planned to do steps 1,2,3….concrete actions to be implemented for each theme during a specific timeframe.
1. Protest and March – check; they are doing that 2. Government – have all students send letters to our representatives 3) Media – all students to write letters to ‘pick a newspaper’ – look at the ‘strategy’ on the Occupy Wiki – blank for the last few days.
It’s time to craft that strategy then take action. It’s good that Students are getting more organized and mobilized, but I am not a student, I am a supporter among the employed and have no idea beyond writing this stuff here exactly whom to write my letters of support to and for what causes. The voice of one is not powerful, the voice of many IS. So the organizers need to organize and mobilize many ‘voices’ including those of the working folks like me – professionals who have nothing to do with the unions, the teachers, the nurses or the iron workers. My THEME is Job Creation / Decrease Executive Pay.
Oh, and by the way – I sent an email to their volunteer contact that was provided a few days ago and provided my email and asked how I can help and no reply so it’s hard to see beyond the tents and the blogging and the wikis how they are getting more organized…
I agree with the sentiments expressed above. We need not fear being taken over by any political party or element of same, as long as we are vigilant in maintaining our independence. We can do this, although, of course, it will be a very careful balancing act.
We don’t have to fear corporate involvement for the same reasons. If Ben & Jerry’s wishes to offer their support for our movement, then fine. That is not the same thing as being allowed a voice, or a directorship, in this movement. Not at all. I would, however, be very, very cautious at publicizing these messages at the start and I would be extremely skeptical of the majority of corporations whose sole purpose is to increase their shareholders’ profits. There is no place for these businesses in this movement and we must always seek to exclude them and their self-serving messages. They are not us. They have nothing to do with the 99% oppressed people in the nation. Their employees may be, the B of D’s are
not, and must be excluded.
As somebody who has not been down to visit yet (sorry about that), my admittedly inexpensive two cents go as follows:
The inherent structure of corporations means they are far more likely to skew sociopathic than communally-minded. Unlike a sole proprietorship or a partnership, which usually has limited geographical roots, a corporation can untether itself from a community it was active in as a smaller company, thus divorcing itself from the community and any communal obligations. This is why I generally mistrust many corporations.
The only basic goal of most corporations is to make money, preferably as much as possible. They share a goal of greed. Over the past several decades, many corporations that used to be at least somewhat more civic-minded have pared down their goals to this one basic axiom.
To keep it short, even with all this being said, even now not all corporations are totally and irredeemably evil. Some have limitations to the goal of greed built into their corporate statements, such as looking for sustainable sources or using fair trade certification or selling only organic foods or giving back money to causes. Ben and Jerry’s, even as an arm of Unilever, does have this built into its corporate mission statement.
You do not have to like the company, you do not have to like their ice cream, you do not have to make large statements about a Ben and Jerry’s endorsement; but the endorsement they have given to date, aside from touting their own long-term bona fides as considerably less evil than, say, WalMart, simply says that the company supports the efforts of the 99%. It does not say that they want to dictate terms. The very end, the kicker, says that they recognize that the Occupy movement is calling for systemic change and that they support both the desire and any eventual movement. They make no suggestions which way to go. That’s up to the movement.
If they wanted to push the agenda one way or another, or make any move to do so, that’s the best time to get annoyed at them. In the meantime, I for one appreciate and enjoy the irony of a corporation giving moral support to an anti-corporate movement that could very well shake the underpinnings of its own business — and I appreciate the fact that they did it at all.
ask the ben and jerry’s board of directors and the unilever executives if they’d like to come out and chat about it. mic check???
I think Ben & Jerry’s statement is a good thing. Their deal with Unilever is not relevant to whether they support the goals of the 99%. Sure, they probably considered marketing and brand reputation issues when deciding whether to announce their support, but so what? The % of people even within the 99% who think all corporations are inherently evil and should be dismantled is small. The problem is not capitalism, the problem is unregulated capitalism. If Ben & Jerry’s wants to — and does — walk that walk, they should be applauded.
If you check out the Corporate Watch website ( http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=260 ) , you’ll notice that the Unilever/Ben & Jerry’s transnational corporation apparently wasn’t into regulating capitalism in the interest of consumers and working-class people a few years ago (although Unilever/Ben & Jerry’s might now be more into “regulating capitalism” in the interest of perpetuating transnational corporate domination of the U.S. and global economy in 2011 by “the 1 percent”.) See following excerpt, for example:
. Promoting unsustainable agriculture
“Corporations control virtually every step of the food production and distribution system, which is riddled with ecologically unsustainable practices. E.g., just 20 chemical companies account for the sales of over 90 percent of all the world’s pesticides. These agricultural chemicals are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, and at least a million more farm worker poisonings every year. Global giants such as Phillip Morris, United Fruit, Pepsico, Cargill, Unilever and Nestle oversee vast portions of international agricultural production and trade. In fact, multinationals either directly or indirectly command 80 percent of the land around the world that is cultivated for export crops such as bananas, tobacco and cotton. Such agro-export “development” patterns regularly displace farmers producing food for local consumption, pushing them into situations where they must overexploit the environment to survive.
“Unilever claims to be ‘among the world’s largest users of agricultural raw materials, such as tea, vegetables and vegetable oils.’ It thus has a huge impact on the shaping of global agriculture. Unilever claims to be open to different alternatives (’all agricultural systems have something to offer and we want to find out what works best under differing circumstances’), but the company believes it is the market mechanisms that will decide what system works best. ‘Our belief is that market mechanisms stimulate performance improvement and efficiency along the supply chain and raise quality standards to meet consumer needs and expectations.’
“‘Ultimately, we want the market to work for sustainable development and to encourage fully sustainable agricultural systems’, says Jeroen Bordewijk, Chairman Unilever Sustainable Agriculture Steering Group. Why do you think Unilever considers sustainable agriculture so important? ‘Because’, as the company claims, ‘we have a clear obligation to our shareholders and consumers to ensure that we continue to have access to supplies of natural raw materials.’”