Almost 40 years ago, Oliver Stone made a movie that, unfortunately, became a kind of prophecy in the United States. It was called Wall Street.
A line from the movie forty years ago seems to have become US Government Policy of sorts, in every facet of America and its aspirations.
“Acquisition, not ethics, is all that matters, Greed is good in America.” This statement suggests that in the United States, acquiring wealth and resources through acquisition, whether corporate or otherwise) is prioritized over ethical considerations, and that a drive for personal gain, or greed, is seen as a positive force or even an essential part of the capitalist system.”
One can only blame the media and electronic media, in particular, for so long before it rings hollow. America, as a culture is built on an ethos of acquisition. Growth is good. It doesn’t matter the cost, especially if you’re so myopic that the only thing you see is a spreadsheet or Gantt chart.
In my life, I worked in the fire service for 43 years. I also taught college and a particular area of note, that today seems to have been almost forgotten or lost in the last several generations.
Ethics
I started teaching ethics in 1994 and continued to do so for twenty years until I retired from my chosen ‘sideline’. During that time, I noted a continuous degradation in students’ views towards the subject of ‘ethics’.
Students were witnessing the rapid growth in wealth by specific sectors, and the people who populated those sectors exhibited a particular attitude towards what they defined as ‘success’.
Success was simply about the acquisition of wealth, no matter how achieved. The more the better, and those who strove for achievement often felt ‘undercompensated’, whether personally, at work, or in business.
The mantra of corporations was, and is, simply about growth. Growth at all costs. Sustainability is just a word, no different than ‘ethics’.
The examples that students watched and became believers in, were simply about ostentatious wealth and acquisition.
Today, the world is more insular, and more impersonal with fewer ‘relationships’ than thirty or forty years ago. People spend inordinate amounts of time online, on social media, and among those of ‘like-mindedness’.
Not only is it unhealthy, it breeds contempt for almost anything that doesn’t result in instant gratification.
Whether one looks at teenage males and sex today, or the abuses that happen hourly in corporate, educational, or religious organizations, it’s all about power and instant gratification.
It is important to remember that the above statements about greed and acquisition may well be highly subjective and controversial. While some may see a drive for acquisition as a necessary force for growth and innovation, others may view it as a destructive force, leading to unethical practices, corporate greed, and ultimately, a decline in social well-being.
For those who build organizations, whether public or private, whether for profit or not, leadership matters. And equally, if not more importantly, the values, ethics, and morals of the leader set the tone for the organization, the company, or the country.
The other area of expertise I developed in my nearly fifty years of public education and organizational development dealt specifically with mergers and acquisitions, particularly the corporate culture of these occurrences and what was learned in hindsight.
Once again, ethics was central to the handling of two different groups, their aspirations, organizational power distribution, equity, and honesty.
Without truth, all else was irrelevant.
Corporations, educational institutions, and public organizations all attract and are measured by their objective truths.
“We say what we mean, we mean what we say, and we, as an organization, live our beliefs, — our ethics.
In almost every single organizational merger, the most successful rewarded truth and were led by a figure who was ethical and honest.
Mergers that failed, failed because of the lies exhibited within the organization that rewarded those who met the demands of the powerful over the ethical.
This brings us back, full circle.
What Are America’s Ethics and Objective Truth
America today is deeply divided, deeply unhappy, unfulfilled, and angry.
This isn’t a subjective analysis.
It is simply a fact.
From the roadway to the boardrooms of America, the same illness spreads like a plague.
The illness is that financial growth and the acquisition of power, no matter how acquired, is all that matters.
Gordon Gekko has become the symbol of America, and becoming one of the 1% is the only measure of success.
America, and Americans, don’t care ‘how you acquired’ what you have. It only matters that you did so.
Ethics? Morals? Truth?
Irrelevant.
And what has supplanted ethics?
Power.
America elected a man, who regardless of your political stripe, is untrustworthy. So much so, that he will sign an agreement, calling it the ‘best’, and then subsequently tear it up.
A man capable of continuous lies, pathological in nature, where saying anything to control others is all that matters.
Winning is everything, and winning only means that the means justify the ends.
Theft? No problem. Lies. No problem. Extortion. No problem.
Even the killing of innocents by raining bombs on them ceaselessly, —- no problem.
Sexual abuse? Been there done that.
And this man, LEADS America.
This man sets the example for what is right or just in America.
And at least half of America, dissatisfied with achievement through truth, honor, and hard work, now embraces power, greed, and financial acquisition at any cost.
It doesn’t matter if the cost is the environment or society’s mental health.
It doesn’t matter if hate, avarice, greed, and abuse are required.
So Why is America Unhappy?
The answer to that is simple.
Americans don’t value truth, empathy, rationality, logic, reason, or intelligence.
They honor wealth and power above all.
Enough is never, enough.
Today, based on American consumption of resources, we will need five planet earths.
We only have one, and it’s being destroyed by gluttonous, greed, ruthlessness, and hate.
That is America today.
That is innately inhuman and ultimately will destroy lives, sanity, peace, respect, and this planet.
Ethics matter.
Leadership matters.
Truth, above all, matters.
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