Oklahoma Corporate Power Structure Versus Working Poor

(Read about Frederick Douglass and building strong children this week in DocHoc's commentary in Oklahoma City's finest alternative publication, the Oklahoma Gazette. Please vote Oct. 9 in favor of the bond issue to improve Oklahoma City schools.)

Imagine an Oklahoma City grocery store named “Dumb Okies." Its windows are filled with signs and advertisements calling Oklahomans “hicks” and “rubes.” The store’s employees—underpaid and without health insurance—berate its customers by calling them names and making fun of them. The store’s prices are exorbitantly high. It is a scene right out of The Grapes of Wrath.

Beyond the novelty of such a place for masochists, what would be the only reason to shop there? The answer is, of course, you would shop there if it was the only place to buy food in town. You would shop there because you were hungry. You would shop there if you had to shop there to survive.

The description above describes the entrenched Oklahoma corporate power structure, which has enormous political influence in the state. This includes corporate media outlets and energy companies, such as the Oklahoma Publishing Company, Devon Energy Corporation, and Chesapeake Energy Corporation. It also includes the local cable and telephone companies.

These monopoly companies and others in the state have no human connection to the people who live here. The Oklahoman sells its ads at some of the highest rates in the country because it has no competition. Whether you are poor or rich, you are going to have to pay high rates for natural gas to heat your home. You do not get to choose your company. Even if you are poor, you still pay the same amount as rich people for a gallon of gasoline. How many cable companies can you choose from in Oklahoma City?

This lack of connection to people is precisely why the state has a soaring poverty rate. What is in it for these big corporations to help improve living conditions here? Nothing. You have to use their products because they are the only game in town. The Oklahoman actually consistently harasses thousands upon thousands of Oklahomans—teachers and state workers—on its editorial pages by begrudging them health insurance and decent wages. Yet these people make up a substantial part of its potential customer base. The newspaper is a perfect example of the “Dumb Okies” grocery store that berates and overcharges its customers.

All this comes to mind because of The Oklahoman’s recent unsigned editorial on the state’s skyrocketing poverty rate. The editorial (“Our challenge: Easing poverty a second century goal,” September 2, 2007) argues: “To say the state doesn't care about its poor or its uninsured is hogwash. The state cares a lot and it spends a lot.”

But no one really argues “the state” does not care about its poor citizens. People argue the ideology that creates and sustains monopoly companies and right-wing initiatives, such as tax cuts for rich people, hurt the poor and is, indeed, uncaring. The editorial is disingenuous and only gives perfunctory lip service to an important structural problem in the state. Does The Oklahoman really care about soaring poverty here? Yeah, right.

Oklahoma’s poverty rate in 2005-2006 stands at 15.5 percent up from 13.2 percent in 2004-2005 and 11.8 percent in 2003-2004, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. An average of 537,000 Oklahomans have lived in poverty the last two years. Oklahoma County has the highest rate in the state with a staggering 22.2 percent of its residents falling below the poverty line. The U.S. Census Bureau's poverty line is around $20,000 or lower for a family of four.

Certainly, OPUBCO has been the source of money for donations to get the Gaylord’s family name on state landmarks. (The Gaylord family owns the company.) Thus, we have Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium and the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

As I wrote in previous post, “Do you want to go see the Oklahoma Sooners play football? Well, you have to go to The Gaylord Family Stadium. Cowboys fan? How about your Boone Pickens Stadium? Want to take in a RedHawks game, then buy a ticket into SBC Bricktown Ballpark. Want to go see a $100 concert? See you at the Ford Center or the Cox Convention Center? Or, hey, shall we go workout at the Devon Fitness Center at the Edward L. Gaylord Downtown YMCA. It goes on and on. It is suffocating.”

Unlike small businesses, monopoly companies have no or very little interest in promoting true economic growth in Oklahoma. They simply sell their products in other states that have more people. There are a finite number of people who do or who will live here. Everyone knows that, and everyone knows there is nothing intrinsic in the profit motive for OPUBCO or Chesapeake to improve living conditions for the working poor here. OPUBCO just starts another company in Tennessee or wherever. Chesapeake sells natural gas wherever it can. Unfortunately, these companies exert a huge amount of power on the political process here. They want tax cuts for rich people and corporate immunity from lawsuits. But, do not fool yourself, the very last thing they care about is poor people or the uninsured.