IT'S NOT THEM, IT'S US
by Carol Johns
I know we are all unhappy with our banks. They double-charge us at our ATMs, they make us listen to recorded announcements, they hire people with only limited understanding of what services banks commonly provide.
And credit card companies! Tried to activate a new credit card lately? Yes, more recorded advertisements while the ``process is being completed.'' Plus, Visa and MasterCard prey on the overindebted with still more offers of still more credit cards. They're money pimps.
And the gas companies! People on the Net who have been silent on social issues for years are suddenly passing on mass e-mail suggesting National Gas Out Day. Prices at the pump rise as crude prices fall. Outrage!
Oh, and airlines. Narrow seats, lousy food, surly service, and what about those people who waited on the runway for nine hours as the toilets overflowed! One is sickened.
How about those slimeballs who call you at dinnertime to sell you insurance? How about those deceptive direct-mail packages that look like jury summonses or parking tickets or income tax refunds? How about the suddenly deregulated drug companies that lie in magazine advertisements until the FDA catches them, and then they pay a teeny fine?
We are besieged by villains!
Except, of course, in the stock market. We have been cautious, but we do have those 401(k)s and those IRAs and maybe the money that Grammy Oona gave us that we put into something safe, maybe a little Lucent and Monsanto and, heck, take a flyer on Amazon.com.
SEE, THE REASON THAT so many of these companies are doing well is that they are watching the bottom line. This is considered prudent management. Prudent management maximizes return on investment, which results in a rise in the stock price.
But you do understand, I hope, that the wonderful bottom lines of the wonderful companies that are causing you such joy are brought about by practices such as relentless, obtrusive selling; meaningless, unnecessary fees; deceptive advertising; use of banned pesticides; unwarranted retail-price increases; and the hiring of young dumb people to staff branch offices as more expensive employees are downsized to oblivion or Bolivia, whichever is closer.
You the stockholder demanding good earnings reports are the very same person as you the consumer whining about bad service and high prices. Perhaps only the consuming half would want to participate in National Gas Out Day; the stock-holding half might want a fill-up on a day when the lines are short.
We do not get to have it both ways. I'm sorry, what I actually meant is: We do get to have it both ways. We exercise selective memory techniques. We forget that owning stocks has consequences. The people who act as our agents, the mutual-fund managers and the large brokerage houses, they demand results.
And the managers of the companies, who also usually own a lot of stock and stock options, are happy to comply. Everyone wins, except when we order the chicken on the flight to Chicago or try to get the bank to explain what the $45 intraoffice processing fee is.
See, the money we are making is our money. It has merely gotten a face-lift. That's just the way the world works.
So, what might all of this mean culturally?What does it tell us about ourselves as a society right this minute?
Beginning with the Reagan presidency and the coming of the information revolution, we have seen an enormous degradation in the ethics of large businesses. Business has gone from "the customer is always right" to "the customer doesn't matter. Quarterly earnings matter." That is, while quarterly earnings were always "the bottom line," businesses in the past were guided by certain moral restraints in seeking them. Now those restraints, unless imposed by a law suit, are gone.
"The customer is always right" gave a basic moral understanding to the heart of our culture. If you can't trust those who supply your electricity, clothing, food and appliances, who can you trust? Consequently, now we see cynicism, massive sociopathy and a new immorality.
While the answer would seem to be a decrease in the search for higher and higher profits, that won't happen because no one cares anymore--including the corporations, the tech-slaves manning the wheels or we share owners. You see, the stock mart is just a symptom, no, a portion of our current disease called dehumanization-itis. Other parts of dehumanization-itis would be the internet, telephone-use-automation, the break-down of elective federal government, senselessly violent films and TV, previously unimagined violence in the real world and its media, economic reasoning that demands always increasing growth, and so forth. As someone said somewhere here, it's all a part of the season.