| Golden Rule
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November 2002
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He Who Has the Gold Makes the Rules
The New York Times Magazine just published a two-part story covering what the rest of us have known for quite some time, namely that the wealthiest Americans have grown even wealthier in recent years while everyone else was treading water at best. According to the paper that prints all the news that fits, this will have severe ramifications as time goes on. No kidding. It has been obvious for quite some years that democracy is dying a quiet death to be replaced by plutocracy.
Go back to 1992's presidential race. Gov. Jerry Brown ran a campaign that capped donations at $100 per donor in order to get big money out of politics. It was a failure. Bill Clinton and George Bush the Elder spent more than anyone ever had that same year. And where did the money come from? From those who could afford it. The last decade has seen the trend worsen.
It is more than just politics, though; the pursuit of wealth has become the raison d'etre of many Americans. There is nothing wrong with wealth, naturally; it is far preferable to poverty. But this service of mammon has led to corporate officers outright lying to investors. It has led to the plundering of pension funds. It is eroding the very existence of the middle class upon whose shoulders western society rests. But worse than all of that, more fundamentally, the idea of the CEO as hero is appalling prima facie.
One needs but picture the embodiment of all that is decent and right. Put a face to that, give that character in the mind's eye everything one would aspire to be. Create in the imagination the ideal of what one wishes for in a newborn babe. It doesn't look at all like Jack Welch, does it?