The business elite still believe the ‘greed is good’ fallacy — but this dark philosophy has brought them to the brink
Gordon Gekko found religion this week.
Gekko, the lead in the 1987 movie “Wall Street” about capitalism gone corruptly
amok, is most famous for his phrase: “greed is good.” On Monday, real-world
Gekkos - 181 corporate CEOs who belong to the Business Roundtable - signed a pledge
saying they think greed isn’t so good, after all. Instead of bowing at the
altar of larger corporate profits to hand out to executives and shareholders,
these CEOs declared that corporations must demonstrate some reverence for other
stakeholders as well: workers, customers, suppliers, communities and the
environment.
If corporations actually devoted themselves
to achieving this goal, it would be a return to the decades of the 20th century
between 1930 and 1970 when many corporations did, in fact, abide by these
values. The American middle class was more robust then, as pay rose in tandem
with productivity. Unions held a stronger position in the economy. And the
disparity between CEO and worker pay was dramatically smaller. But believing
the country will revert to those economic times without force is naïve. The
Roundtable’s announcement is nothing but a stunt.
Though the 181 Roundtable CEOs signed the
stakeholder capitalism document, practicing the principles is an entirely
different thing. And not even every member of the Business Roundtable came
around and endorsed the document. The “Statement on the Purpose of a
Corporation” says those who did sign “share a fundamental commitment to all of
our stakeholders.” They underlined the word all. And they wrote in the present
tense, as if they were already operating their corporations this way.
That, frankly, is ridiculous. Take, for
example, these signers of the document: Amazon, General Motors, Duke Energy,
Chevron and Honeywell. In 2018, they not only paid no taxes, they demanded
taxpayers give them money. Or take these signers: Pfizer, Johnson &
Johnson, and McKesson. They all face lawsuits alleging they contributed to the
opioid crisis that still kills 40 Americans every day. Or how about signatory
National Gypsum, one of four companies that agreed to pay $190 million to
settle a price fixing case? And there’s signer Duke Energy, which paid $102
million in fines and restitution after pleading guilty to polluting 70 miles of
the Dan River... read more:
https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/the-business-elite-still-believe-the-greed-is-good-fallacy-but-this-dark-philosophy-has-brought-them-to-the-brink/