Greed is Eternal?

Comment: Over the years, I have noted an increasing movement in industry and social settings towards dysfunctional relationships and personality base character ethics. People no longer dialogue on important matters, value systems are moving towards a corporate morality, and companies are becoming politically centered. The movement has some eerie reflections on  horrors both real and fictional.  

Greed is Eternal?

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Most everyone is familiar with the term Gestapo which is short for the German term, Geheime Staatspolizei meaning Secret State Police. Most people in Nazi controlled territory lived in fear the Gestapo. Among the tactics of this organization was a subversive undercurrent in which unnamed persons reported other persons activities, nature, comments, and behaviors to the Gestapo who in turn investigated. As an outcome, people were reluctant to participant in the public sphere and democratic processes for fear of reprisals. In a similar manner, paranoid people, corporations, and governments in Western society utilize similar tactics of the Gestapo.  People no longer dialogue on important matters, debate, or undergo formal argumentation. When someone does not like something, they simply just report another person to HR, the boss, or provide tips to some other institutionalized system such as email tips, drop boxes, or hot lines. Then counter to the US Constitution and US Bill of Rights, one has to answer to some third party regarding the allegations without confronting the accuser. Often the reports are trumped up, unfounded, or partially based in a truth in response to an authority figure or a peer of whom someone finds issue with.  This erodes the status quo identity of the society as competitive identities leverage this method to advance self interest and selfish beliefs.

People within modern Western society often complain about political correctness and adherence to a social doctrine under which nearly every behavior and belief is tolerated to the chagrin of the status quo identity. If a society is to hold any identity then other identities are either not compatible, competitive, and/or hostile. There has to be boundary limits in order to maintain an identity. For example, if people are to be under a republic then socialistic, communistic, kingdoms, cast systems, and other identities are not compatible as well as any elements of those other identities. These different systems are known by their identity to which there are limitations before the identity erodes, becomes lost, or changes to one of the other identities. The issue goes deeper than just clashes of political systems and becomes much more complex when considering corporations that commingle personhood and governance.

In 1886, the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company the United States Supreme court ruled a corporation is the same as a living breathing organism. From this ruling is the notion of corporate personhood in which an organization legally becomes human-like and is the basis for corporate law in the United States.  Complicating corporate personhood is the emergence of the corporate governance that fundamentally changes and commingles personhood with governance. A corporation assumes under corporate governance, at some level, governing responsibilities. Among these governing duties the corporation has a moral, ethical, and economic responsibility to the customer and employees.  This has exacerbated over the years to the point that corporate rights, principles, morals, ethics, etc… now supersede human rights, personal belief systems, and compromise the US founding. Corporate employee policy manuals, codes of ethics, and even national leases in apartment complexes are preventing people from participating in democratic processes and rights. These corporations are advancing beliefs, political ideologies, and other systems often not fully consistent with the domain of commerce for the company.  The post Values Leadership touches on this issue.

In the past, people were adherents to principally one of the three monotheistic theologies but following the Post-modernist movement corporations have assumed the role that religion once played. Scriptural text are being replaced by Employee Codes of Conduct and waivers of rights. People continue to participate in an array of personal beliefs that have little impact on their lives and are more or less an activity in private as they assume the Corporate Code of Ethics in all their dealings. In fact, many policy manuals prohibit some employee activities 7/24 or hold employees accountable 7/24 but pay the employee from 9 to 5. The company policy manuals define the person more than a sovereign deity or god. 

In 1809, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to Larkin Smith, "The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.”

Perhaps Jefferson's concern was captured best by the fictional Star Trek characters, the Ferengi, who are known for their enterprising savvy to the point that they are con-artists. In the Star Trek Voyager episode “False Profits”, Figure 1, the enterprising Ferengi posed as gods and established their Code of Ethics based on the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, a Bible of sorts, that have principles of economic vanity. Are humans on Earth to become like the Ferengi on Takar?  Will the next tyranny be corporate demi-gods in a socialized economy after capitalism dies? 

Figure 1: Star Trek Voyager - False Profits

Greed is Eternal

Approach Your Gods

We are sort of Gods

Rules of Acquisition

The Unwritten Rule

On planet Earth, humans must come to terms with purpose and meaning of their existence. Living by Rules of Acquisition or strong economic vanity, like the Ferengi, reduces life to an economic venture, mere pennies on the dollar.  Humans should reconsider the meaning of work as a component of their lives but not the defining doctrines in their life. Economic influence, wealth, is not available to all humans. Most humans live a modest life and have other focuses.

Interestingly, Jefferson saw commerce as a source of good and a fabric of a capitalist society that lead to the sense of national happiness found in the Declaration of Independence. However, Jefferson stopped short of social justice and viewed merchants as having no loyalty to a country or moral system (Mayer, 1994, pp. 137-138).  America is at juncture. The question is will America retain the capitalist views of the founding or become some sort of socialized economic center of influence? Will our gods become enterprising tycoons and their sense of ethics? Will your ethics, morals, and principles be determined by your paycheck? How much control will you give your employer over you?

References:

Federer, W. (1996). America's god and country: encyclopedia of quotations.  Fame Publishing: USA. 

Mayer, D. (1994). The constitutional thought of thomas jefferson. University Press of Virginia: USA. 

Menosky, J. & Brozak, G. (Writer) & Bole, C. (Director). (1996). Star trek voyager: false prophets season 3 episode 5. Paramount Television

Values Leadership?

Recent unusual comments and social positions taken by numerous CEOs got me to thinking about the limits to which CEOs should support or reject social, political, or personal causes within the business environment.  Many CEOs on both sides of the isle seem to be over stepping the boundaries or at least what was thought to be a boundary.  How do we define those boundaries and what should be supported? 

Values Leadership?

In The World Is Flat the author, Thomas Friedman, outlines an overarching vision that people work for companies that embrace their social, political, and religious ideologies. Friedman went on indicating that governments deal with CEO's directly and the people indirectly. The idea is that people, the majority, would gravitate towards companies that hold popular beliefs and companies that hold unpopular beliefs would fade away or change. The political leadership then transitions from its current form to one of CEO politicians and aristocrats who oversee them. In a strange sensibility, political, religious, and personal views would be economically rationed and the government would no longer have elected leaders represent the people. In chapter four, Friedman points to comparisons between the Industrial and Information revolutions leading to a belief that the flattening could have been predicted by Karl Marx.

There has been trending in the direction that companies assume human like qualities. In 1886, the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company the United States Supreme court ruled a corporation is the same as a living breathing organism. The ruling has become known as corporate personhood in which corporate law has been built applying laws intended for humans to the corporation. Complicating this position of corporate personhood is the emergence of the corporate governance that fundamentally changes and commingles personhood with a governance. A corporation assumes under corporate governance, at some level, governing responsibilities. Among these governing duties the corporation has a moral, ethical, and economic responsibility to its people. 

Corporate governance which includes sustainability efforts institutionalized the infusion of political initiatives into business giving CEOs a venue to express their personal, political, and religious beliefs. CEOs from both sides of the isle have jumped on this supporting nearly every personal, political, or religious cause regardless of merit. Political leadership in the US has also pursued state owned enterprises, SOEs, which are also economic venues for advancing political ideologies. This has framed a debate to what extent should personal, political, and religious views of CEOs be infused into industry and business or should the people be empowered equally to follow their own personal, political, and religious beliefs as the United States founding documents guarantee.

Two companies recently embattled over the views of their CEOs are Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A. Their positions are diametrically opposite as are their approaches. Starbucks' CEO insists upon his personal views telling disenting shareholders to sell off shares - leave. Whereas, the CEO of Chick-Fil-A speaks to principles and values that his company holds. The difference is one threatens dissent and the other sets principle based values for the company. I need to pause here and frame the discussion. The merits of any specific social debate is not part of this discussion. This is a discussion about leadership style and the extent to which a CEO's personal value system should become part of the business.

The paramount question that must be addressed is what criteria applies to determine if a social concern is applicable to a business. The traditional purpose of business is a value added process in which there is a redistribution of wealth in return for productive work and risk taking. In short, labor is compensated for productive work and business owners are compensated for taking risk. Business puts money in the pockets of people. An ancillary debate is under what system does this perform best; capitalism, socialism, or some other system which is not part of this post but is discussed a little in the post Reflecting on the Character of Business and Economy. A social concern must somehow couple to, at a minimum, optimizing risk and/or improving the workforce of a business. Most companies are connecting social concerns to sustainability initiatives that assure long term profitability. For example,

• Sustainable work forces
• Sustainable resources
• Sustainable markets
• Sustainable environments

The book Collapse: How Society's Choose To Fail or Suceed discusses an operationalized view of sustainability in complex economies. The author, Jared Diamond, looks to capacity and capability of the ecology and economies. Diamond argues that societies that suceed make choices related to sage sustainability based on carrying capacity of the economies and ecology. For the purposes of this discussion, societies are treated as companies.  If work and resources are monetized then sustainability also applies to wise use of available currency in the economy or business.  In choosing social issues to support, CEOs must ask at least three questions:

• How does this assure long term profitability? 
• How does this optimize operations and the business? 
• Does support of this issue exceed the carrying capacity of the organization? For example, does supporting a social cause increase health care costs, result in the loss of the workforce, or place an unnecessary tax on the business such as to exceed the ability to support.

Many social issues do not advance profitability or optimize operations for the business. Both Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks have failed to demonstrate how their support for opposing sides the same social issue benefits the business. In fact, the Starbucks CEOs encouraged negative outcomes to the business limiting the prospective pool of investors (and customers) if people opposed his personal view that has yet to demonstrate business value.  Is that a wise business practice? Furthermore, there is little evidence that a CEO's personal, political, and religious views in support of a cause of the moment attract sustainable labor in the long run. Most labor is interested in two things; a reasonable paycheck and secure employment driven by natural causes as opposed to the perception of artificially held security. 

In the United States, the appearance is that religious institutions no longer drive one's personal moral code but instead a system of CEOs and aristocrats economically ration values to the workforces. Oddly, the workforces are forbidden to speak about personal, political, and religious views in the work place. Yet, CEOs are not only discussing these topics in the workplace but imposing personal, political, and religious views into business as a requirement for participation.  For example, a Tampa based mortgage management software vendor requires all employees to sign a document stating belief in Global Climate Change and green initiatives in order to be employed. How is this CEO's views connected to the business and grander than any of those working for the CEO? Somehow, stacking the deck with politically sympathetic employees is good business?

I wonder from where do these CEOs get these values and how do we evaluate its honest merit when it is economically rationed via a paycheck? Is that the measure of virtue, a paycheck? The truth comes down to the virtue of the value, principle, ethic, or moral code. There are methods to assess the virtue but those methods are independent of the business. A high degree of confidence in an unsupported  or poorly supported personal, political, or religious belief does not meet the test of virtue.

In the end, CEOs must use some sort of rule of thumb in selecting social causes to support. Whatever the cause, it should fit snuggly into a set of well known and understood criteria that has widespread support of not only the workforce but the customer base as well. In doing so, meaningful, productive, and reasonable outcomes are enjoyed that advance the business ensuring a long term survivability.

References:

Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How society's choose to fail or suceed. Pengiun Books: New York.

Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat. (1st e.d.). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: New York.