The Love They Fake

Composed today. Corporations like to point to the higher standard of living in Western countries with pride and credit themselves for it, but the reforms that have improved life for our common citizens came about in spite of corporations, not because of them. And for the last few decades, big business has steadily eroded the programs that guarantee our common citizens a degree of dignity in the absence of gainful employment or entrepreneurial success. If we owe anyone credit for the advancement of human rights since slavery was abolished, we owe Jesus Christ for it. It was church groups and church leaders who led the ultimately successful abolitionist movement against capitalists in the nineteenth century. And the charismatic Martin Luther King, who advanced conditions for minorities and for women, was strongly supported by his church. Today priests and pastors continue to remind their congregations of the folly of materialism and of consumerism and to remind us of our obligations to our fellows. Unions had to be fought for - violently. Were it not for the bravery and tenacity of union organizers in the early 1900's, employment standards here might have declined to the level of those suffered by developing nations by now. And while corporate broadcasts have all but turned the word 'communism' into a profanity, we owe our employment insurance programs, health care programs, social assistance programs, and improved public educations to Karl Marx. The current tact taken by prominent activists appears to be to highlight the financial profits of a good, solid social safety net. For instance, GM would not endorse public health care until it realized that it could dump the health care expenses of its employees onto tax payers through the program. To defend against layoffs, human costs, such as those posed by increased cases of mental illness among threatened workers may be argued. But this strategy does not reach far enough. We need a paradigm shift in this population. We need to look at profits in a new light, beyond the mere accumulation of money. Profits are not always financial. We need to start realizing the real value of socially responsible enterprises if we wish to avert the inevitable collapse of a system that depends on finite resources for the accumulation of wealth.
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© 2007, 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved.