Letter to the Angry
The threat of communism was not only a call to arms during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, but it also kept corporate capitalism in check, geographically and philosophically.
As each piece of rotten economic news is revealed layer by layer, we’re terribly saddened by the lack of ethics that seems to have spoiled our prize onion on Wall Street. Peeling it back to find where the contamination ends has been a slow and agonizing process, so orchestrated, one assumes, to avoid a sudden, global monetary collapse – and perhaps to allow the better-informed to get out with their skins.
Blaming the young buck executives and high-paid CEOs may help illustrate unethical behavior, and blaming politicians and the SEC may help redefine their responsibility to the people, but I suspect, before these revelations are over, there will be more than enough blame for all of us. We let it happen. We were part of it.
We let ourselves believe in the purity of capitalism, its durability over communism, an icon that the world assumed would lead every nation to prosperity. But like any successful economic system, the potential for graft and greed flourishes if left unchecked – and as long as the machinery seems to be running well, no one bothers to look too closely.
We’ve had a pretty good run on credit and consumption for the past two or three decades, sharing corporate profits through 401Ks and IRAs, a perfect daisy chain where Everyman is a consumer, taxpayer and beneficiary of the State, but with the additional incentive to become a shareholder in Capitalism, or so we believed. Like buying a lottery ticket, the fortunes made during the dot.com and housing bubbles perpetuated ideals for success that no longer required long-term commitments to planning or work – that did not value a man’s reputation or word.
In this growing crisis, I would hope that we can get beyond the non-sequitur of the Democratic and Republican parties, that a sense of nationalism and respect for the working man, especially family farmers and ranchers, might unite us toward a more common good, a more responsible and substantive quality to life, perhaps even a legacy to be cherished by our grandchildren.