Keeping faith with the faithless brings injury to all. In corrupt times the superior are despised, while those attempting to please the masses are preferred company. So says Richard Buskirk in Modern Management and Machiavelli.
Part two of this series, which ran yesterday, examined how the treatment of the Social Security fund served as a precedent for today’s corporate scandals. In this final part of the series, I take a look at our failure to address the “public interest.”
Liberals have been slow to acknowledge that new government programs have been paid for out of the pockets of an already stretched and highly taxed, working middle-class. Collectively, however, conservatives, progressives, and liberals alike have all failed to adequately address what, in today’s society, constitutes the public interest—the common good. This failure to validate the “common good” will continue to leave us all vulnerable.
Failing to acknowledge a growing discomfort with thoughts about the “public interest” among average citizens has left all of us more vulnerable than any actions on the part of policymakers and CEO’s. Defending the “public interest” has managed to become equated with defending drug use, criminal actions, and any other irresponsible behavior in this country. Nonetheless, should we fail to refine and address what is in the public interest, our vulnerability is going to escalate.
Fine-tuning the “public good” will never be addressed until members of Congress and other political leaders realize they are supposed to be public servants, not aristocrats. As public servants, their compensation for service should certainly be less than many a veteran who literally put their life on the line for their country. Some might even feel that the perquisites alone for holding public office are reward enough—especially when they result in a revolving door of “service” behind which lies even greater financial rewards for their access to Washington “insiders.”
The “public good” will never be addressed until shareholders recognize that “shareholder interest” does not equate with the “public interest.” The public good will diminish in value if it is the will of each shareholder that they be compensated in the short term at the expense of long-term investments in their communities and fellow citizens. In the meantime, history readily reveals that a fight between a moneyed elite and the public interest usually results in either a totalitarian government, a license for merchants to do harm, or the long shot-bet: a liberated people.
The merger and acquisitions mania “kick-off” we witnessed in the Reagan administration nonetheless “rocked on” under Bush, Clinton & Bush. And all the while we needed “better” and government, not “less gub’ment on our backs.” We needed a Congress to honor the Clayton Antitrust Act. We needed corporate law that protected CEOs against shareholder liabilities when they did attempt to do the right thing by employees, by local economies, and by other stakeholders. We needed “friendly global” policy and trade solutions, more ” global understanding,” and less “global competition.” We needed a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with teeth—and aimed at the worst abusers. We needed tax credits for the working poor and for the middle class, who desperately tried to send their kids to college. How much of the above do you feel we have effectively tackled?
It is easier for U.S. Congressional members to criticize Presidents than to initiate and coordinate a viable consensus model for Congressional committee decisions and resolutions. It is easier for the rest of us to blame lawmakers and CEOs than to implement consensus seeking attitudes and behavior among ourselves. Most consensus models expose hidden agendas of members in a group. Such models could be not only vital but refreshing in an era of tainted operations that have spread among institutions, business, and even individuals.
It is easier for a shareholder to assume they can equate their personal pocketbook with public, or national, interests than it is to attempt reflection upon global conditions and necessary solutions. It will always be easier to define one’s personal interest than to see the larger picture. In the end, however, it is always our values that determine our “system,” elevate leaders, and promote business. Frenzied “bargaining” has turned our political system into little more than a casino in which our democracy, our values, and our civil liberties have become nothing more than corporate markers. More attention to the issues via consensus models and less bargaining seems the most efficient way out of these troubled times.
It is consequently falling on the backs of private citizens all over the globe to temper the greedy among us, to temper pro-war activists, the Bin Laden coalitions, and the transnational corporate interests by becoming soldiers of peace. Soldiers of peace realize that our nation’s legacy is quickly becoming one of exploitation of its own hard working citizens. We haven’t learned our lessons about the Great Depression. We haven’t learned our lessons about the social and economic costs of war. We haven’t learned our lessons about the ultimate costs of toxic energy creation.
We don’t want a new deal—we need a New Reformation. Role-models and leaders from which to choose exist throughout history among the oppressed around the world. In America, showing up informed at election debates and the voting booth is efficient when compared to most events surrounding the oppressed around the globe. Especially in America, none of us are bound to keep faith with the faithless.
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