The Case for Radical Change

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The earth and human society are perched on the precipice of disaster.  Our economic, political, and religious institutions are malfunctioning at the very time that we are in need of coordinated collective action to address global challenges.  I believe that we need a radical change in the questions we ask, the way we view and organize our institutions, and how we relate to ourselves and one another.  Over the next few weeks, I plan to write a series of entries that explore ideas about both our problems and potential solutions that we can use to address them.  Topics that I will discuss include goodness vs. purity, sustainability vs. greed, and pragmatism vs. ideology.  I hope you will join the conversation.

Owning Our Messes

Two years after giant Wall Street banks brought the global economy to the brink of meltdown, we are again witnessing the logical ends of anti-regulatory market fundamentalism. This time we are watching helplessly at thousands of barrels of oil pour into the Gulf of Mexico each day. In the June 3, 2010 issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Paul M. Barrett does a masterly job of discussing the connection between these two cataclysmic events. The upshot is that we have been hearing for decades from our leaders that industry and markets are to be trusted in ways that our government is not, because government doesn't work. This idea has led us to relinquish oversight of industry to the supposedly superior forces of the market, which led quite predictably to the situation in which we now find ourselves.

The logical flaw behind the story of the effectiveness of unfettered markets is so obvious that one wonders how we fell for this story in the first place. The fiduciary responsibility of a corporation is to its shareholders, not the common good. Markets exist to serve corporations and investors (again shareholders), not the common good. The anti-regulatory fundamentalists claim that this doesn't matter, because corporations and markets will act in their own long term interests, which are supposedly aligned with the common good.

However, people across our great land frequently and regularly act against their long term interest for short term gratification (e.g. running up large amounts of credit card debt). Why should we be surprised when corporate leaders do the same, often encouraged by their shareholders? The idea that markets can govern themselves is as specious as the idea of drivers in a city being able to get to where they're going more quickly and safely without any traffic rules or regulations.

The goal facing us now is threefold. First, we must articulate clearly the case for intelligent regulation. Such regulation should be as lightweight as possible, and should seek to align corporate and market incentives with the public good. Second, we must push our leaders to act deliberately and decisively to enact meaningful regulatory measures. The third challenge is longer term: we must articulate in ways that resonate with the public the fact that government is more trustworthy than corporate interests because it is accountable to the public via the political process. Of course this brings up issues regarding the elements that distort our political process, but I'll save those for a later post.

Let's get to work!

The Single Metric Society

We live in a society that equates success with monetary worth. This gives rise to serious problems, because it allows us to undervalue the importance of extraordinary portions of our life that don't have a direct or easily measurable dollar value.

When we hear someone say "she's very successful," it is almost always shorthand for "she makes a lot of money." We never stop to ask about the other dimensions of the person's life. Is she generous? Is she a good friend? Is she loving? Is she honest? The notion that a successful life is comprised of more than financial abundance is something with which almost all of us would agree, but the culture as a whole has reduced success to this simple measure. We have the same single-pointedness when we talk about institutions and organizations.

The detriments of this perspective are myriad. When value is equated with monetary worth, the pursuit of money becomes paramount. Prudence and moderation become bad ideas. The concept of "enough" vanishes. Greed becomes a good idea, because the person with the most money is most highly valued and "successful." Corporations that devour natural resources, spew out tons of toxins, and abuse human rights are admired because of their astonishing profitability. The culture hurtles forward, careening further and further off course in pursuit of money (and the power and fame that come with it.)

Stopping this reckless ride will require a dialog about our values and their true measure. It will be an upstream swim against our culture and the media that aid and abet the "money=success" mentality by providing us with an endless stream of information about the rich, the glamorous, and the powerful. But it can and must be done. Let's start the conversation.