We have created structures and institutions that allow the various abuses, scams, and outright frauds that give capitalism a bad name. I don't think we are actually any worse now than we once were, it is just more visible now. There were a LOT of shenanigans involved in the building of the transcontinental RR, for example.
We have created structures and institutions that allow the various abuses, scams, and outright frauds that give capitalism a bad name. I don't think we are actually any worse now than we once were, it is just more visible now. There were a LOT of shenanigans involved in the building of the transcontinental RR, for example.
The big problem is that we have a culture that often lionizes and celebrates these behaviors that can often be summed in the phrase... it isn't personal, it's just business. As though business should be free of the moral strictures that we apply to the rest of life.
And that's the rub--we do have the attitude that the moral aspect of business (and of businessmen) is rightly different--if not in word, at least in deed (meaning we will say things are wrong or bad, but do mothing substantive).
We do the same thing for politics.
I learned my first political lesson in middle school, running for student government. That lesson was to lie and tell people that you were going to do things that had zero percent chance of happening, to tell people what they wanted to hear, no matter how unrealistic or dishonest. I did not do that (being naive and honest) and went down to resounding defeat.
Dishonesty wins votes (so long as you appear sincere).. and the same type of dishonesty seems to garner investors, so long as your slide deck looks good.
We condemn dishonesty and corruption and yet vote for it--as though it was necessary, as though we had no choice. We abandon agency that we need not abandon.
Jeff Pfeiffer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business studied C-Suite executives and found that, on average, they rank higher on psychological testing instruments that measure sociopathic traits. As you say, the business press tends to treat this as a feature, rather than a bug.
American culture tends to treat it as a feature and not a bug--indeed, most capitalist societies do this.
It is interesting to note how attitudes towards "business" changed between 1300 and the present. Usury used to be a sin, for example.
There were obvious problems with the previous attitudes, but we seem to have gone overboard in the other direction. No moderate middle approach (in practice).
We have created structures and institutions that allow the various abuses, scams, and outright frauds that give capitalism a bad name. I don't think we are actually any worse now than we once were, it is just more visible now. There were a LOT of shenanigans involved in the building of the transcontinental RR, for example.
The big problem is that we have a culture that often lionizes and celebrates these behaviors that can often be summed in the phrase... it isn't personal, it's just business. As though business should be free of the moral strictures that we apply to the rest of life.
And that's the rub--we do have the attitude that the moral aspect of business (and of businessmen) is rightly different--if not in word, at least in deed (meaning we will say things are wrong or bad, but do mothing substantive).
We do the same thing for politics.
I learned my first political lesson in middle school, running for student government. That lesson was to lie and tell people that you were going to do things that had zero percent chance of happening, to tell people what they wanted to hear, no matter how unrealistic or dishonest. I did not do that (being naive and honest) and went down to resounding defeat.
Dishonesty wins votes (so long as you appear sincere).. and the same type of dishonesty seems to garner investors, so long as your slide deck looks good.
We condemn dishonesty and corruption and yet vote for it--as though it was necessary, as though we had no choice. We abandon agency that we need not abandon.
Jeff Pfeiffer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business studied C-Suite executives and found that, on average, they rank higher on psychological testing instruments that measure sociopathic traits. As you say, the business press tends to treat this as a feature, rather than a bug.
American culture tends to treat it as a feature and not a bug--indeed, most capitalist societies do this.
It is interesting to note how attitudes towards "business" changed between 1300 and the present. Usury used to be a sin, for example.
There were obvious problems with the previous attitudes, but we seem to have gone overboard in the other direction. No moderate middle approach (in practice).
'We abandon agency that we need not abandon.'
A very clear and succinct take on one of the most basic reasons for a lot of our problems. Props.