Serving Mammon

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Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Required reading for all patriotic citizens of the USA. From $5.99.

Corporations serve Mammon

I like the teachings of Christ because he was obviously a humanitarian.  I use his words here and throughout this site because they apply perfectly to the theme of this site. Jesus tried to teach us how to get along with one another in peace.  Whether or not you believe that Jesus actually existed and spoke these words doesn’t matter as much as understanding the message.  So, please don’t dismiss the message just because you don’t believe in the messenger.  Following is a case in point.   

Matthew 6:24, Christ says, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (money, materialism).”  (Jump over to Fundamentalism to read my views on religion, stay here for an explanation of why this Bible verse is important for the US citizen’s survival today.)  A corporation is legally bound to put profits above all other interests including human interest. Thus, in Biblical terms, a corporation is legally bound to serve mammon. If you are a “Christian”, Christ’s words should be enough for you to close the discussion right here, but if you don’t believe in Christ you’re probably thinking, “so, what is a corporation’s other ‘Biblical’ choice: God? That’s ridiculous!”  My answer to that is: serve the needs of human beings before serving the needs of profit.  To accomplish this corporate law must be re-written so that humans within a corporation are no longer legally bound to put profits ahead of humans.

Corporations exist for the sole purpose of making money, specifically more money, at all costs. This is immoral. From Christ’s view it is immoral because it puts profits ahead of God.  From a humanist standpoint it is immoral because it puts profits ahead of human concerns. Crushing poverty is acceptable within a profit-first mentality. Polluted water, polluted air, even death, are all acceptable by-products within a profit-first mentality.  Anything that helps a corporation make a profit is acceptable. This “mentality” exists because corporations have evolved to a level that cleverly takes the human element out of any decision-making equation. The bottom line is the corporation’s god and it must be obeyed without question or thought. The people within a corporation are legally bound to think this way. It removes emotion from decisions that adversely affect humans and their environment.

Economists are sophomoric. Don’t be fooled into believing that a system based on the stock market is good for human beings. Just because an economist can explain the system in all of its “glory” doesn’t make the system good or even morally correct.  We are people, we have hearts and emotions. Taking heart and emotion out of the equation may sound well and good, but removing those elements also removes common sense from the equation. Deleting the human element from business decisions is logical to an economist, but it forces business to serve mammon (profits) rather than humankind.

Economists want us to believe that the marketplace is a purer form of democracy than electing officials to represent us in congress. The logic is that you can tell when a corporation has made a decision that we the people are happy with by watching the corporation’s stock fluctuations.  If it’s up, we are happy with the corporation; if it is down we are unhappy with the corporation. Sounds stupid I know, but it’s the logic behind the concept of “let the market decide”; the so-called “free-market” the economists love to brag about. Here’s how the “free market” operates:    

Every new business wants to grow and prosper.  If the company is successful it grows big enough to incorporate and go public.  By going public of course we mean that the company has joined the stock market, it is publicly traded.  This means that the company’s fate now rest in the hands of gamblers.  We call them “speculators” because we are “civilized”.  By joining the stock market casino, the company must continually out-do its last quarter’s earnings or else it will die.
Once a corporation has reached this lofty status, there is one thing that its executives can no longer possess in order for their corporation to survive in the casino: a heart. For if a corporation quits making more money than it did the quarter before, its stocks will fall.  A person within a corporation is legally bound to turn a profit thus making all decisions easy. When a CEO has to decide whether to cut-jobs to reach a profit goal or keep the jobs and risk a down-turn in profits it’s a “no-brainer”.  The CEO clears his conscious by telling himself that it’s nothing personal it’s just business and besides, “I’m legally bound to side with profit.” 
However, there comes a point in every corporation’s life when profits hit a ceiling and there just doesn’t seem to be anywhere to turn to keep making more money than the last quarter.  But the gamblers in the stock market casino don’t care about that and the company stocks start to drop.  What’s a poor CEO to do?  Cut jobs of course!  And what happens? The stocks “rebound” on this news! The CEO is a genius! 
When you hear economists talk about the stock market being a bastion of democracy this scenario is to what they are referring.  The speculators love making money on the market; it is their way of life. To keep everyone playing at their game, sustaining their livelihood, they tell us that when a stock “rebounds”, as in the scenario above, it is us “the people” who are saying “yes, we approve of the job cuts”.  They actually believe, or rather want us to believe, that when a stock goes up due to a merger, or job cuts or jobs going overseas, that this is OUR will being done.  We are pleased with the CEO’s decision to cut jobs and that is why the stocks rebounded.  “The market has decided.” This is audacious, to say the least.
The “bottom-line” for any human being should be human beings. We should be asking, “How do corporate decisions affect humans?”  If the stock market was truly a “bastion of democracy” stocks would only rise if the majority of human beings benefited in some manner from a business decision rather than just benefiting a few speculators (gamblers).   It is easy to put profit ahead of all else because it removes emotion, but without emotion we are no longer human. We cannot serve two masters. Just because “In God We Trust” is stamped on our money doesn’t mean profit should be our God.   

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