Eliteness, Greed, and Ethics

Don't you  hate it when situations are so complex that it's hard to  just go out and find the bad guys and  hang them.Let's be clear, I'm not having that trouble with Lehman Brothers, not as I learn how executives were awarded 20 million dollar bonuses (special payments) while the company was pleading for a government rescue. So the picture is clear: they grab their bags of big money, head off to one of several mansions while leaving the rest of us - including generations to come - to be taxed (dollars and dollars and dollars) for their failures. Talk about Wall Street and Main Street. Could the excesses of the Czars or Louis XVIth have been more outrageous!  No, I'm stuck this time. I'm missing the complexity that soothes as it invigorates. No sad stories about the high cost of high living, or soaring prep school tuitions, or the difficulties of finding a reliable nanny, or the outrageous berthing fees for one's yacht, not to mention  huge mortgages to be paid on mega-mansions. None of this would soften my heart. This is just the Elite, in their bubble, doing what the Elite do as the ship is sinking: taking care of themselves.  And my guess is, at the time these special payment decisions were being made, this just seemed like the right and natural thing to do. Don't we all agree? Yes we all agree.  Please, no more talk about the responsibility culture. After every scandal there is conversation about ethics and what are our business and law schools doing about teaching ethics. It might be more effective to teach about Eliteness and Ethics, and the special vulnerabilities and responsibilities associated with living in an Elite bubble.

 

Comments

[Tim Sullivan]

Great points. Now we've got the Big Three with their hands out.

The irony is that elitism is running rampant in a country that professes to cherish equality.

For a cross-cultural perspective (Japan versus US), check out the latest entry in my blog, "Can American Executives Manage Without Their Corporate Jets?"

http://japaninsight.wordpress.com/

Look forward to check into your blog again.

[zechariah aloysius hillyard]

These excesses are not unusual in history; a self-organizing system may right itself as its experience becomes so out of step with the actions of the Elite that the idea toying with the status quo becomes the hope of relief. With technology allowing transactions to pass so that those who are directly affected are mostly oblivious, it may take longer for the those surrounding the Elite to realize they the money being squandered is there own.

I simply hope the snap back is not as venomous and painful as that in previous centuries that decided to hold the Elite accountable for their shared role in allowing excess to flourish for the few at the expense of the comfort of the whole.