Category: Commentary

Here in the U.S., there is a scandal: it has been revealed that wealthy people cheat. They paid money – lots of it – to arrange to get their kids into prestigious colleges and universities. The fixers paid bribes, falsified test scores and doctored photos to get the sons and daughters from wealthy families – many from Wall Street and Hollywood – into college on false pretenses.

This has enraged many ordinary families who play by the rules.

But it would not be news in so many countries where corruption, favoritism and use of social status and money knows no bounds. In some countries, even judges are swayed by more than the evidence of right and wrong. As Shakespeare’s King Lear noted: “Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks. Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.”

So what is the cause? Unjust social systems? Wealth itself? Racism and other identity politics sins? Classism? Fear of being left behind?

I would say the underlying cause is bad values.

In large institutions and social systems, organizational norms and practices are important but how they are used by individuals in any given case can make all the difference.

Self-interest is powerful but can be offset by traits of good character.

In the case of those American parents who cheated, it was their superficial values that made them sin. Many American parents today, the children of Baby Boomers, measure themselves by status symbols, not intrinsic goodness. Titles and money, connections and networking, the stuff of aristocratic one-upmanship, as applied to their children offset their insecurities.

The writer Peggy Noonan, who I believe has a keen eye for truth, calls these children “success robots” – morally vacuous, super-insecure, shaped by social media, extensions of their cell phones and computers. She reports that in one elite college, a very high number of students ask for and need psychological services. They are social capital basket cases being given entry to the American elite. They had been raised to be shallow and to see others just as commodities. Useless narcissism from one generation passed on to the next.

The challenge before America, then, is not a system of economics but a system of socialism – the socialization making for parental insecurity. It’s ironic that it exists so prevalently among the wealthy and the already socially powerful.

But again, where inculcation of good values is concerned, Lord Acton may have had the last word: “Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Thirty years ago on March 12th, 1989, the idea was born which made the internet possible. A young British researcher working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research proposed a method for one computer to exchange information with another. Tim Berners-Lee suggested a “hypertext transfer protocol” – http for short. A protocol is a point of transfer and engagement. It overcomes isolation by providing for networking permitting geometric growth in aggregation of raw data, useful data, knowledge, insight and collective opinion.

The first remarkable conclusion to draw and treasure from what Berners-Lee did is to note that ideas make a difference. They can be foundational. They are the genius skill set over the centuries of Homo sapiens.

Less substantial than gossamer, ideas nevertheless have power for good – but also, let us not forget, for evil too – as we just witnessed in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Today, because of what Tim Berners-Lee thought of, there are some 2 billion websites in the world and how many uses of the internet every second and how many bits of data stored in servers?

Without Berners-Lee, there would be no smart phones, social media or Amazon.

The second conclusion I suggest we should always appreciate is that it was capitalism, not government, which brought the internet to humanity and changed its way of living forever into the future.

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in northwestern Europe, it has been markets and private capital which have taken technologies, tested them, refined them and made them useful for customers. Money from customers happy to buy flowed to makers who grew new technologies to scale.

Thirdly, the internet revolution, like Guttenberg’s previous invention of moveable type – also starting with an idea, an insight, a brainstorm, a thought – has increased the importance and value of each individual person. The internet gives power to ideas by permitting them to expand anywhere others can access websites or engage in internet communications.

The internet has moved humanity beyond materialism as the principle source of wealth to intangible forces of mind and heart as the creators of wealth.

This means that we should invest in “human capital” more than ever before. People no longer need to contribute mostly labor to production. They can make themselves valuable to the system in many ways now. Marx’s proletariat has gone “mental.” Thus, the 19th century conception of social justice as a power struggle over cash – the “cash nexus” – which pitted the forces of capital against labor is no longer relevant. The zero-sum tug of war between capitalism and socialism has been dumped in the “dustbin of history.”

We need new “ideas” about how to achieve social justice in the internet age.

On Wednesday, President Trump overruled administrative officials to ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft. Trump was reported in the Washington Post to consider himself something of an expert on commercial aircraft, saying modern planes are just too complicated to fly safely.

Apparent loss of pilot control on two Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes in Indonesia and Ethiopia might justify Trump’s analysis of the cause of these two crashes.

Technology is the wonder of modern humanity, giving us modern civilization since the first days of the Industrial Revolution. Modern science – rational, logical and unyielding in its laws to human values – put technological progress into high gear. Homo sapiens became Homo faber. Homo faber went on to anthropocentralize our little part of the cosmos, remaking it after our own desiring.

Capitalism got its start with investing in practical uses of science and technology. Not only that, capitalism organized and funded the geometric advance of technology as the basis of human life.

But as in the fable of Dr. Frankenstein and the monster (written just 200 years ago), our skills with technology may outrun responsibility and prudence.

The Boeing 737 Max 8 is a commercial product, made by a commercial company to meet consumer demand. Negligence and liability laws have been imposed on free markets in order to promote prudence in the design, manufacture and use of technology.

Are they still enough to put proper restraints on the creation of super complex, computer-driven machines?

What if capitalism followed a set of laws like the periodic table of the elements? Would that guarantee good outcomes?

The great debate among ethicists is between Kantians – Deontology – and Utilitarians – interest.

Pure morality as an abstract form of thought true at all times and all places is juxtaposed against materialism and self-seeking in this world so fallen from a religious and idealistic perspective.

Business ethics and corporate social responsibility have been stuck in the quagmire of irresolvable irreconcilability between ethics and profit-seeking. How could they ever be integrated?

If one backs away from this confrontation of the intangible and the tangible, there is the approach of praxis – what works? Can a case be made that ethics “works” which does not slide all the way down into self-delusion and expedient rationalization of why what I want is the “right” thing to do?

Looking at what will work raises a perspective of science – say, laws of motion or chemistry which lead from here to there on a predictable basis.

Individual character – the ethos which drives our preferences and decision-making – might work as such a natural law. If I know your character, I can reasonably accurately predict your behaviors.

If you work for me and I know your character, I will have a sound basis for trusting or not trusting you to do what the firm wants and needs and not to get us all in trouble through your indiscretions and malfeasance.

Heraclitus said that character is fate or destiny. In the Greek, his point is more active: character is our daimon – our driving spirit, setting our course in life.

If we focus on character and if all people are helped to have good character, then the output of our social endeavors will be constructive.

The way to moral capitalism, therefore, might be through character education.

Oh, that’s just what Mencius, Aristotle, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius and Adam Smith recommended for living the good life.

Two years ago, Warren Buffet teamed up with Kraft Heinz to takeover Unilever with an offer to purchase its shares from owners. Kraft Heinz was a merger of two companies, each owned by 3G Capital in Brazil. 3G’s business model is to strip costs down, leaving only sinews and so boost short-term profits. The Buffet/3G alliance proposed to do the same to Unilever and so to maximize its profitability – survival of the fittest and no remorse for those deemed expendable in the drive to spend less and less.

My friend and our supporter Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, stood up to them, saying the Unilever strategy for sustainability would be better for shareholders in the long run than selling out to Buffeet/3G for a premium of 20% over the market price of shares (depressed due to a lower British Pound as a result of Brexit anxieties).

Well, on Saturday, it was revealed that Kraft Heinz has been forced by market prospects to write down the value of two of its brands by $15.4 billion, a hefty loss for its owners, 3G and Warren Buffet. Turns out a focus on cutting costs while ignoring shifting customer preferences has cut down the equity value of Kraft Heinz.

Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway investment company then had to book a loss as well – a $3 billion write down last year arising almost entirely from their equity interest in Kraft Heinz.

Polman’s moral capitalism business model has been vindicated. Unilever is better off – and its owners, employees and customers – under his stewardship than it would have been if Kraft Heinz were running it. Paul worried about all stakeholders first and foremost and how to make the company sustainable for the long haul.

Intense to the point of viciousness, cost-cutting does not invest in keeping up with the times, with responding to competition, new customer tastes or fading allure of old brand names. This is what I described as “brute” capitalism in my 2004 book, Moral Capitalism. Failure to invest properly compromises future ability to earn profits reliably, thereby lowering present discounted cash flow and company value.

The failure of the 3G Capital business model points to the need to re-think how we calculate the financials of business success over the long run.

The intransigence of American political leaders leading to the recent partial shutdown of our federal government shows intolerance of the views of others.

Stalemate in the United Kingdom between those who want their nation to remain in the European Union and those who don’t also shows narrowness of spirit in reaching out to others.

Thirdly, the rise of populist resentment and prideful visions of our own tribe as better than yours also reflects this constriction of empathy and care.

The Caux Round Table for Moral Capitalism’s Principles for Government call for government to be a trust for beneficiaries. This presumes a moral sense open to the needs, concerns and views of those reliant upon public power to do them justice.

In 1657 in the young American colony of New Amsterdam, Governor Peter Stuyvesant issued an edict proscribing Quakerism. In the small community of Flushing, now a part of Queens in New York City, citizens refused to obey the Governor. Their letter of remonstrance (PDF) makes the case for openness to those of good heart and goodwill.