Nonviolence versus capitalism

A whistleblower is someone who speaks out in the public interest.[15] The classic whistleblower is an employee who discovers corrupt practice or danger to the public and reports it to superiors, regulatory agencies, politicians and the media. One of the most famous whistleblowers is A. Ernest Fitzgerald, an employee in the US Department of Defense, who exposed vast cost overruns in which the US government was paying exorbitant prices to companies contracted to produce goods for the military.[16] There are police whistleblowers who report police corruption, pharmaceutical company whistleblowers who expose the dangers of certain medical drugs, tobacco company whistleblowers who leak documents about what the company executives knew about the hazards of smoking, church whistleblowers who expose sexual abuse by clergy, and a host of others from every occupation and walk of life.

Whistleblowers usually come under heavy attack from their bosses and by others who are threatened by the revelations. Whistleblowers usually suffer reprisals, including ostracism, threats, harassment, reprimands, demotions, punitive transfers, referral to psychiatrists, dismissals and slander. As a result of these sorts of attacks, it is common for their careers to be set back greatly and their physical and emotional health to suffer.

Most whistleblowers are remarkably ineffective.[17] The problem they blew the whistle on remains unchanged, but instead they come under attack in the classic “shoot the messenger” syndrome. Whistleblowers often seek redress through official channels such as grievance procedures, ombudsmen, legislators, anticorruption agencies and courts, but seldom with any success.

This outcome can be understood by thinking of an organisation as a system of power in which those at the top exercise control over those further down.[18]

A whistleblower is someone who challenges the hierarchy, for example by exposing corruption that is perpetrated or tolerated by those higher up. To support the whistleblower is essentially to support a challenge to the standard system of power. Instead of addressing the problem, the whistleblower is attacked as a heretic who threatens the normal operation of the system.

Whistleblowers have the greatest impact when they go public, getting their message to large numbers of people, often via the media. If they link up with social action groups, this is a potent combination: whistleblowers have inside knowledge and the credibility that goes along with this, while the outside action groups are relatively safe from the types of reprisals that can be visited on employees. For example, three nuclear engineers in 1976 spoke out about the hazards of nuclear power, giving an enormous boost to the anti-nuclear campaign.[19] Prior to that time, most insider experts had either supported nuclear power or kept quiet. By speaking out, the engineers punctured the apparent monopoly of expert support for nuclear power. When they spoke out, they resigned from General Electric, realising that their survival as employees would have been impossible. The impact of the GE engineers was great because of the existence of a broad-based antinuclear-power movement.

Employees who blow the whistle challenge the organisational hierarchy; in many cases they challenge corporate power, either as corporate employees or by exposing government connivance with corporations, as in the case of A. Ernest Fitzgerald. So there is a potential to challenge capitalism. In assessing this challenge using the check list, the most potent type of whistleblowing — namely, when it operates in alliance with social movements — will be considered.

1. Does the campaign help to

undermine the violent underpinnings of capitalism, or

undermine the legitimacy of capitalism, or

build a nonviolent alternative to capitalism?

Much whistleblowing reveals flaws in organisations, policies or individuals. It seldom sets out to question the purpose of organisations or policies, but rather is an attempt to get them working correctly, namely without corruption or injustice. Nevertheless, whistleblowing can contribute to a general undermining in public confidence in institutions. When there are continual news stories about massive swindles by wealthy entrepreneurs, often aided and abetted by governments, this undermines belief in the automatic beneficence of capitalism.

Sometimes whistleblowing can help stop expansion of corporations into new sectors of activity. Exposures of large-scale corruption by hospital corporations, for example — some companies have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for their transgressions — can be a factor in stopping expansion of corporatised medical systems.