Is This the Best I Can Do?

Dear Mr. Marre:

I admire your thoughts and your committment to a better world. While it is nice to have the freedom to make choices (I truly treasure that freedom), I agree that to consider the greater good when making those choices would ultimately bring our lives greater satisfaction. I am stymied about how to make a difference beyond the minor, but I share your passion. Harnessing my explosive sense of injustice or sense of right and wrong is my biggest challenge. I often struggle with how to use it constructively. Your blogs encourage me to want to master it, because as you say time grows short.

Will,

I’m not sure what you’re talking about anymore. It’s starting to sound like classic social elitism. I’m glad that you had breakfast with an Executive from Intel this morning…most of us are lucky if we had breakfast before going to work this morning. The questions are great, sure. Could I do better? Should I do better? Whatever… I’m getting tired of hearing you ask the same questions and holding up “feel good” answers. Intel helping hospitals make less mistakes is a business plan, not a noble cause. Software engineers donating skills to not-profits is individuals volunteering. That’s great, but what are you trying to say? Giving is good? OK, sure. Acting responsibly is good? OK, I’ll buy that. But, duh? So what? The people who listen to you already know that.

My comments probably address both your last 2 essays (Is this the best I can do? and An evil way to make money?). I “get” the underlying theme of your essays being to empower the individual to make a difference. Personally, it’s uplifting and encouraging to me.

I think you may be living in the wrong country however. Our society has been on a slippery slope all right…it is so fixated on the individual. Individual rights, individual freedoms, individual success. We’d rather see thousands of guilty criminals go free on “technicalities” than have one innocent punished. (remember OJ?) Sure, there are plenty of “individual” causes out there seeking to better the planet, the neighborhood, the community.

In order for our society to reverse its course and start being about the “good of the whole”, we’d have to relax this notion that the individual is most important. That starts to sound like surrendering freedoms, communism, etc. We all have to start thinking about “us” instead of “me”. Good luck.

Look at societies where there is order and low crime. In Singapore it’s illegal to chew or possess gum, for example. The penalty for possession of illegal drugs is death, for crying out loud. Can you see this happening here??

In Denmark, held up as the happiest society around, women leave their babies in carriages unattended outside the store! (as seen on a recent PBS program) Millionaires ride bicycles to work. Workers make as much as doctors: people engage in careers not for wealth, (because salary is not dependent on scarcity or demand) but because it’s what they want to do. Result: most people are happy with their jobs and there’s little competition.

Everyone seems to have become their own “special interest group”. Politicians no longer are elected to make the best the decisions for the whole, but for their constituency (i.e special interest group). Imagine you are a congressman from a midwest state voting on some farm subsidy bill. Now it may be a terrible thing for the country, but you’ll vote to “bring home the bacon”. (See 9,000 pork-barrel earmarks in the current budget). Our elected officials recently overwhelmingly rejected the suggestion that there be a one year moritorium on earmarks. They couldn’t even handle one year of thinking of the country rather than pork.

I am a firm believer that we get what we deserve. Who was it that said “that the only thing needed for evil to prevail, was for good people to do nothing”? We are all guilty. What leader will stand up against the gun lobby, the ACLU, the Grand THeft Auto makers? (The mere title of that is salacious and obscene to me!)

America and the west in general are starting to get what we deserve. If it’s competition we want, there’s a couple of place ready, willing and more able to give us all we want. (India + China = 3 billion competitors.) In a recent documentary on oil (”CRUDE”) one scientist succinctly noted that if we think oil prices are high and pollution is rampant now, wait until the Chinese start driving like us”. We are already all a-dither about the ridiculous air quality in Beijing (coming to your community soon) and we’re demanding they do something about it. We are great at telling everyone else how to live (so that we can stay on “top” and maintain our disproportionate lifestyles, no doubt.)

I know, I know: I’m being negative. It’s why I enjoy your blogs and your efforts that make so much sense. I just have a problem seeing how a country where we are more incensed and intolerant of a cigarette than an automatic weapon will wake up and start thinking of something other than themselves.

God bless you. Sorry, am I allowed to acknowledge God in the land of the free? I might offend some “ONE”.

Werner

Before the last election, that tilted control of the Congress, it was reported that an owner of a small oil refinery, when asked about the high prices that occurred then, said that they were raising prices because they needed to make up for the losses they would face when the Democratic congress rescinded the oil subsidies and perks the oil industry currently enjoyed, even with record breaking profits. The rest of the Press reported that it was solely supply and demand and much more complicated than someone deciding to just raise prices for personal, political or other reasons.

Today we seem to have a repeat with prices hitting over four dollars, and, like every time this year, they will not go back down under a set mark.

When cooking a frog, instead of throwing them in boiling water, which they’ll splash and jump out, you have to bring them to a gradual boil, then they don’t realize they are being cooked. Like wise the oil industry plays a similar game.

The question is, where is the Virtue in corporate America?
The oil industry raises gas prices, gets questioned about it and ALL of the representatives of oil say it’s merely supply and demand. But what about the idea of virtue?

It’s supply and demand and “uninteresting figures”?
America struggles in the midst of a recession, the working poor, elderly, disabled veterans on fixed incomes are struggling to make ends meet and their are large oily chunks being taken from mid America’s pocketbooks, meanwhile the oil industry makes record profits. For them it is all about the profit and the race to the bottom line, but what about Virtue in large corporations? How far can they go before they have an obligation to pay back America for their great bounty, a great bounty that the American people have bestowed on to them?
How much do their customers have to suffer before they again include customer service in their business model?
The key word there is Service, service to the customer, we the people.

As seen in the questioning on the hill, their seems to be a removed corporate feeling of, so their customers are suffering from there high prices, what do they think we owe the people? What did the American people, our customers give us… besides their hard earned cash?

It is true that Shell and friends do not have to do anything, to invest back into their customers, to listen to customer feedback and concerns. They do not have to worry about what the customer wants or needs, they are interested solely in the bottom line and profit.

They also chose to display indifference to the US Congress, whom they are receiving some grand, breaks, benefits and subsidies unheard of in size.

What about Virtue? What about obligation to the country and it’s people who gave the bounty out of their hard work and sweat?

Being Memorial Day weekend I wonder why they don’t care about the elderly or disabled US veterans on fixed incomes, struggling to make ends meet, that fought for our Country so that Shell and similar companies may enjoy their bounty… and how do the oil executives pay our needing American Veterans back?

Where is the oil executives corporate responsibility to it’s country and costumers - We the People? Every person is responsible for taking part, serving their country. A corporation is considered a person under the laws, why are they shirking their responsibilities and duty to serve?

What if corporations like Shell had Corporate Social Responsibility that would allow those with good conscience and since of Virtue to work in good faith for such corporations without feeling the need to compromise there core values in order to tow the corporate line?

I am doing my part in meeting my responsibility in CSR, where is corporate america?

Of course we shouldn’t be picking on oil executives doing there job protecting their cash cow. After all, if all Americans simply stopped using so much oil there would not be the demand that is said to have led to the high oil prices… but then again, if there was not a large demand then the oil companies would need raise the prices even higher since there would no longer be a large demand for oil (think organic vs. non-organic produce) and so prices are raised higher to make processing more profitable, and to retain their current astronomical profit values. It’s all just supply and demand.

I like the breakdown of jobs in this post. But, like one other commenter, I think you may need to step up your message. You probably have a lot of great ideas, but I always see you promoting things that are somewhat vague, while commenters interpret your posts to talk about whatever their pet target is. I know we agree on social responsibility and people getting jobs they (and we) believe in. But get specific. Start pointing fingers.

Hi Will,

Sorry for the comment post, but I couldn’t find any email contact information on your blog. I agree that it’s very important to choose to work for companies who are actively making the world a better place. Sometimes people forget that it also matters where they choose to keep their money! I work with ShoreBank, an environmentally and socially responsible bank that is dedicated to protecting the environment and improving our communities. Right now, Shore Bank is offering 3.5% APY on their online high-yield savings account, and each person that funds an account with $500 or more will receive a sustainable canteen.

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Tracy
Outreach Manager - Swirl
tracy@swirl.net