Re: pro- foreign key propaganda?

In <4837296d$0$4034$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net> Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> writes:

>>>>>I think it only seems that way before one knows what metrics to use.
>>>>>Once one understands what to measure, everything becomes much more
>>>>>mechanical.
>>>>
>>>>Well, how do you tell a good metric from a bad one?
>>>
>>>A good metric, like ROA, reflects the goal.
>>
>> And how do you tell a good goal from a bad goal?

>In the private sector, that's easy. A good goal is one that maximizes
>shareholder value.

And here we have in a nutshell the now almost universally accepted core of free market capitalism, US style: the one dimensional optimisation of profit for the investor (which of course is just code for optimising the profits of the parasite classes who steal from the real investors).

No multidimensional tradeoff needed, no consideration of the personal, family, community, social, national, or environmental impact of ones business practices required. Need third world wage slaves? No problem. Leaving behind a toxic legacy for future generations? Fine, just make sure to effectively insulate the corporation from direct responsibility for the problem. Selling a product that harms people or panders to their lowest instincts? Just ensure plausible deniability of knowledge of the ill effects, and enlist the spin doctors to create a shiny corporate image that can hide the moral squalor within. Breaking the law? Just make sure the cost of being caught is less than the profit. Need to corrupt and sexualise little children to grow market share? Go right ahead, the government won't stand in your way, or if they try just buy enough of them off to forestall any intervention.

The worship of profit at any cost now so completely dominates modern US thinking that it is seen as a given, a natural state of affairs, to be accepted quite uncritically, perhaps even unconsciously. Even US churches now encourage personal aspiration to be selfishly rich, to have more, to consume endlessly without regard to the real cost. Europe and the rest of the western world is not far behind, as toxic US "greed is good/god" culture sweeps all before it.

Capitalism may have soundly defeated communism, but that doesn't make it the best possible system that could exist. It is quite literally destroying the planet on which we live. As the billions in China and India climb aboard the bandwagon, we accelerate towards a crisis of suffering and conflict from which some more enlightened system may eventually emerge. But how can we expect enlightened thinking from a world population that is either mindlessly supportive of the modern interpreters of ancient superstitions, or has been taught from near birth that it's good to behave as selfishly and greedily as possible?

We cannot return to the ancient gods, nor continue to prosper under the new gods of unlimited corporate greed and rampant consumerism. Democracy is an experiment that, like communism, has clearly proved incapable of keeping the scum of society from taking control and steering us down a road to nowhere. How many voters set aside their personal interests and vote in the interests of the greater good? The fierce pace and awesome complexity of the modern world renders us too stupid, prejudiced, narrow, distracted, spineless or unthinking to be able to identify where our collective interest really lies.

What we need is a new noble warrior class dedicated to selflessness, sworn to live a simple, meaningful and effective life serving not bosses or nations but the entire world, acting locally and directly to destroy those who would prey upon us and it. Self-regulation of the human swarm, emerging not from mass individual selfishness, but from the courage, watchfulness, humanism and sacrifice of a few. Received on Sat May 24 2008 - 08:32:53 CEST