Megaphones & Mufflers

This deep dive is our monthly love letter to the community. We keep it free for everyone because knowledge on commercial influence should be accessible. 

Here is a statistic that might permanently imprint itself in your brain.

In his book “Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Harms Our Health and the Environment,” Grant Ennis highlights a stark contrast: over US$6 trillion in annual global subsidies flow to unhealthy food, road, and fossil fuel industries whose products are associated with more than 5.5 million preventable deaths each year.

Let’s let that sink in.

Placed side by side, those figures amount to roughly a million dollars in direct and indirect public financial support for these industries for every fatality that public health has associated with them. 

And that’s only three industries. Ennis’s numbers do not account for other harmful sectors like firearms, Big Tech, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, and more.

How did we get here? How is it that business activities and products that harm people and planet are not only allowed but financially incentivized even well after their dangers become known? Why is it proving so hard to shift political systems so that they put our money behind economic models and businesses that help us thrive? 

We know it’s not impossible to regulate industry harms. After all, we no longer consume all sorts of toxic substances in our food, drinks, and consumer goods thanks to the U.S. Government prohibiting their use. So what do harmful industries do to stay over-subsidized and under-regulated?

Last month, Commercially Determined covered how harmful industries talk to convince us and policymakers to accept their preferred policies (and what to do about it). This month, we turn our attention to how industries spread their messages to policymakers and citizens. While the tactics and avenues of corporate political activity are many, they boil down to one simple principle: industries work overtime to make their preferred messages loud while quieting opposing views.

When you’re fighting for public health, environmental, or social policy that impacts big business, you’re not just up against opposing viewpoints or arguments. You’re up against a coordinated influence system that stacks the policy game in industry favor. The system relies on oversized access to policymakers and distorted narratives to stunt regulatory processes.