Perhaps your mother told you (as my mother told me) that you should be honest and always tell the truth. Perhaps, also, she admonished you that if you lied, it would eventually be found out and you would have to reap the consequences (and you'd best believe that those consequences would not be pleasant). Mothers everywhere over the years have been dispensing such simple wisdom, but apparently few in power today listened to their mothers.
Business leaders have been playing a shell game with honesty, and the moral consequences have most decidedly caught up with them. The shells have been overturned and the house of cards is tumbling. Just like the Wizard of Oz, they have had the curtain pulled back and their bogus sorcery revealed. Unlike the Wizard of Oz, however, they are anything but benevolent. The kind hearted, but bumbling, Wizard of Oz meant only to do good. The financial industry wizards responsible for the perilous state of the economy have had anything but goodness in mind.
The simple reason that our economy is in crisis is that our society is morally bankrupt. Honesty is eschewed in favor of expediency. Half-truths and outright lies in business and government have become commonplace, and we simple, powerless souls have tolerated the misdeeds because we saw no alternatives or recourse.
Few of our business leaders are motivated to create public value. Few of our elected officials are motivated by altruism. In business and government, self-aggrandizement is the mantra. Greed is the guiding principle. Greed camouflaged by lies and half-truths is the primary modus operandi in the American brand of capitalism.
The Golden Rule has no utility in our "me first" society. Its morally uplifting guidance has degenerated to a vicious rationale: "Do unto others... before they know what hit them."
Until we insist on honesty in business and idealism in government, we will continue to flounder as a nation. Until we impugn the rascals and scoundrels and decry their vandalism of our ideals, we will continue to suffer economic indignations. Only when we run the knaves out of town and replace them with knights of unimpeachable integrity will we be able to resume our world leadership, reclaim our moral authority, and restore belief in the American Dream.
There is, however, a fundamental problem with materializing this vision. Honest men and women of integrity seem nowhere to be found. Oh, they exist, alright. But they are in short supply, and they have learned that honorable, benevolent service is rendered impotent by the slime and slurry of avarice that pervades American society.
The American Spirit is lifeless. The national conversation is vapid. Should we despair, or should we embrace the challenge?
Voters must take back the reins of government. Stockholders must insist on principled transactions, conducted with transparency. Ordinary lay citizens must eliminate the "me first" mentality. And everyone must decide to accept the maternal wisdom imparted to us at an early age.
It's a simple recipe, but it will work.
There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. --Robert G. Ingersoll
Business leaders have been playing a shell game with honesty, and the moral consequences have most decidedly caught up with them. The shells have been overturned and the house of cards is tumbling. Just like the Wizard of Oz, they have had the curtain pulled back and their bogus sorcery revealed. Unlike the Wizard of Oz, however, they are anything but benevolent. The kind hearted, but bumbling, Wizard of Oz meant only to do good. The financial industry wizards responsible for the perilous state of the economy have had anything but goodness in mind.
The simple reason that our economy is in crisis is that our society is morally bankrupt. Honesty is eschewed in favor of expediency. Half-truths and outright lies in business and government have become commonplace, and we simple, powerless souls have tolerated the misdeeds because we saw no alternatives or recourse.
Few of our business leaders are motivated to create public value. Few of our elected officials are motivated by altruism. In business and government, self-aggrandizement is the mantra. Greed is the guiding principle. Greed camouflaged by lies and half-truths is the primary modus operandi in the American brand of capitalism.
The Golden Rule has no utility in our "me first" society. Its morally uplifting guidance has degenerated to a vicious rationale: "Do unto others... before they know what hit them."
Until we insist on honesty in business and idealism in government, we will continue to flounder as a nation. Until we impugn the rascals and scoundrels and decry their vandalism of our ideals, we will continue to suffer economic indignations. Only when we run the knaves out of town and replace them with knights of unimpeachable integrity will we be able to resume our world leadership, reclaim our moral authority, and restore belief in the American Dream.
There is, however, a fundamental problem with materializing this vision. Honest men and women of integrity seem nowhere to be found. Oh, they exist, alright. But they are in short supply, and they have learned that honorable, benevolent service is rendered impotent by the slime and slurry of avarice that pervades American society.
The American Spirit is lifeless. The national conversation is vapid. Should we despair, or should we embrace the challenge?
Voters must take back the reins of government. Stockholders must insist on principled transactions, conducted with transparency. Ordinary lay citizens must eliminate the "me first" mentality. And everyone must decide to accept the maternal wisdom imparted to us at an early age.
It's a simple recipe, but it will work.
There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets. --Robert G. Ingersoll
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