The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy
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“A bad system produces bad situations in which people act badly
without even necessarily knowing why . . . if enough people absorbed
this argument, we might find ourselves in a better polity . . . But,
alas, we seem happier with scapegoats than explanations.” (Philip
Zimbardo in The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil)
“We have dozens of codes of conduct, hundreds of ethics officers at corporations, trillions in social investing assets, and virtually universal business school courses in ethics. Yet ethics in business is worse than ever.” (Marjorie Kelly)
“The premise is that good people using the tools of ethical analysis will make socially responsible decisions. But moral individuals only take us so far when the rules they are legally bound to follow say they must put shareholder interests above all others. At some point you have to look at system ethics: what behavior does the system encourage or require?” (Marjorie Kelly)
“To rest our hope with ethical leaders is like waiting for the philosopher king. At some point you wake up and realize aristocracy itself is the problem–and you move to democracy–you don’t wait for justice and equality to show up in some noble leader, you build them into social structures.” (Marjorie Kelly)
“The aim is to educate people that the problem isn’t greedy executives or evil individual corporations like Exxon. The problem is the system design. The problem is state law that says corporations exist only to maximize gains for shareholders.” (Marjorie Kelly)
“Democratizing economics is no more unlikely a task than democratizing government-in a sense it’s only finishing the task. It won’t happen overnight, but it’s a good bet it will happen. Major system-wide change is possible. It happened when the monarchy fell, and it can happen again. The lesson of history is clear: democracy always wins in the end.” (Marjorie Kelly)
“We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Comments (1 - 2 of 2)
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When good people, potentially good, and not so good people get forced by circumstances of necessity into amoral, immoral, unethica , and in many cases just plain bad (victims rather than transitory victors) work situations, they compensate for their inner misery and the meaningless of their lives by surrounding themselves and engulfing their lives with material "things".
Thus the tragic vicious circle which has manifested itself in the decadent and immoral military dictactorship of the Capitalist world, which has reached its zenith in the United States of America, during the reign of George W. Bush. |
Following is a message that I posted to a Society of Friends discussion group just minutes ago:
The problem is the human heart and the structure.
The French Physiocrats of the 1600's posited that nature and natural
resources were the basis of all wealth. Marx added the labor theory of
value, which is consistent with the Physiocrats in that human labor (and
non-human animal labor) are natural resources.
The early cooperative communitarians of the 1600's from France and Middle
Europe had good hearts and cared about people and conceptualized, discussed,
and disseminated many humane ideas on a new structure for economic
relations. When interest in their ideas grew and realization became a hope,
they were oppressed, often brutally. Robert Owen, from England, in the 1700's added to the
cooperative communitarian ideal that the destitute, the needy, and the
infirm also needed care, and subsequently coined the term socialism.
Oppression of these movements continued. Thus, Marx gave recognition to the
"class struggle" then proceeded to campaign that such revolution was perhaps the
only way to "cast off the chains".
When the Soviets succeeded in their revolution, they did not forget their
ideals at least when it came to drawing up a Constitution. The failure of
their experiment is much more complex than the Capitalist propaganda that
"Communism doesn't work".
Being a Friend and Buddhist, and a realist in decadent Capitalist America, I
will never advocate violence. Violence begets violence, but St. John's
notion of continuing martyrdom and the Buddhist notion of selflessness are
evolutionary dead ends. The reign of the Capitalist bullies, led by the
so-called United States of America is almost over. It remains to be seen if
they destroy human and a maximum of other life on the planet before they are
through. Socialism is not completely dead, and is the hope of the world.
However, only a peaceful transition can be successful.
Please visit and participate in my web log at www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com .
With much love and care,
Mike Morin