I wonder, that we as a people, seem to accept without protest things that don’t really make any sense? Some of these things are small matters and while they may make us look ridiculous, do no serious harm. The messy hair look for instance – how in the world did hairdressers convince people that it is attractive to run around looking like you rubbed gunk in your hair and combed it with an egg beater? And there is the “all my clothes shrunk but I’m wearing them anyway” look. There was a time when having a blouse strain against its buttons was reason enough not to wear it. Now we buy them to fit that way!
On the other hand there are matters, of great import, that we go along with as if there is no choice. Such as acceptance of the idea that the sole purpose of a corporation is to make a profit for shareholders and the concept that a corporation is a person (albeit one that fits the profile of a psychopath) entitled to 14th Amendment protection. Acceptance of these beliefs has allowed the once mutually beneficial capitalism that built the prosperity of this country to become a predatory capitalism that benefits only a few and is undermining the very economy it built.
Just because those chosen few who benefit from these rapacious business practices spend millions on PR to convince people that this is the way it is supposed to be, does not make it so. It can only continue as long as people go along with it. We were asleep at the switch for a long time while clever but unscrupulous people with self-serving agendas whittled away at the protections that had been put in place to keep greed from destroying what the American spirit had built.
The very people who preach the evils of entitlement claim their own entitlement to all the benefits of corporate success as if they alone are responsible for it. They ignore the contribution of the workers without whom there would be no products made or services performed. They show little social responsibility to the communities and countries that supply their workers and their customers. Only when their image is under siege do they suddenly become philanthropic.
The strange thing is they seem unaware that in their greedy quest for more and more profits they are devouring the very market that produces those profits. As jobs disappear and wages stagnate, the great American market is shrinking. NAFTA was supposed to produce a new market in Mexico but here we are years later and the Mexican market has yet to materialize. Since a major purpose of moving production to Mexico was lower wages, the corporations do everything in their power to keep wages down. You can’t grow a market with people who earn barely enough to live. The emergence of a Mexican market seems to have simply been a manipulative creation used to sell NAFTA.
We can look back to the time when capitalism was mutually beneficial. The rich were still rich and their right to a profit is not in question. But unlike today, the workers also benefited and were able to build lives with hope for the future. Those were the days of real American prosperity. Now the corporations claim billions in profits while the workers sink into debt and poverty. And the economy of our country is sinking right along with them. It is a truism that everyone does better when everyone does well.
Gandhi once said the traits most spiritually perilous to humanity are: “Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality, and worship without sacrifice.
These traits seem disturbingly prevalent in today’s leaders of business and government.