Bad Management as Unethical: On Reckless Bus Drivers in Boston

The corruption of an individual manager or non-supervisory employee, or even a government official can be distinguished between the collusion of multiple levels, as I contend has been the case at least as of 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts in regard to the government and the Commonwealth’s most populous region’s mass transit system—in particular, its bus service. I contend that the government has been looking the other way as the management of the local bus transit has held off from firing reckless bus drivers, who thus sordidly feel entitled to ignore the training—assuming it is not deficient—by driving recklessly by riding the accelerator pedal before stomping down on the brake pedal at the last minute, literally, in stopping. With positions to fill, the company’s management treats such driving at best with a slap on the wrist, with the government looking on rather than divesting the management of its disincentive to fire even dangerous drivers. Such corruption is systemic in nature, and thus is much worse than the corruption of an individual. Ultimately, it is the public—which includes the electorate—which goes unprotected while bus riders have to put up with jolting rides.

With a pay rate of $30 per hour, a signing bonus of $7,500, paid commercial-driver’s license training, health benefits, and $10,000 for tuition reimbursement for college being the new labor contract for Boston’s bus drivers in 2023, better bus driving would theoretically follow as better candidates apply. In her State of the Commonwealth speech in early2024, Governor Healey announced that 2023 had been “the best year of hiring the T has ever had.” But the T includes subway and light-rail operators too, and as of the end of 2023, 415 bus-driver positions were still unfilled, and that is relative to the 1,452 bus drivers currently working—a net increase of only 2 since that August. 

The tan areas indicate the number of bus drivers working

 and the red areas indicate the number of unfilled positions.

The better compensation package seems not to have made a dent, and I suspect that the company's mechanics would probably admit in private that too many buses continued to make dents (as well as wear out brake pads, from braking hard, and even shocks, from driving too fast on roads in need of repavement). In general, aggressive driving means higher maintenance costs than need be the case. 

In other words, the “in theory” consequence of better driving failed to materialize. This in spite of Governor Healey having told bus drivers in a press conference announcing the labor contract, “We’ll be looking to improve working conditions as you improve the safe and effective operation of our public transportation system,”[1] the drivers were able to take the raise without improving the safe operation of the buses. Perhaps this was due to not only incompetent supervision by the management of the mass-transit of its bus drivers, but also enabling by the government. “Today you see a demonstration that we have your back,” the head of state of Massachusetts said during her press conference.[2] To be sure, the incentive that the management of the “T” has serially had not to increase the number of unfilled positions by firing even reckless drivers is likely the real driver here, with the government looking the other way rather than looking out for the public’s interests by providing a countervailing force to the bus company’s disincentive in getting rid of bad drivers, who in turn doubtlessly have felt both entitled to drive however they want with the air of impunity. This is literally dangerous.

On the evening of November 29, 2024, I was riding on a route 71 bus, having boarded the beginning of that route, at the bus/subway station underneath Harvard Square. In spite of the fact that I had submitted a complaint concerning the driver’s aggressive driving, which was uncomfortable to passengers and a risk to pedestrians and people driving near the bus, he still felt entitled to floor the bus’s accelerator, even in the tunnel out of the terminal at Harvard Square, where the speed limit was 6 mph, and to slam the brake pedal despite the harsh jolt felt by passengers. After speeding through the tunnel out from the underground station, he proceeded to ride the accelerator pedal on the street that winds through the crowded square so excessively that he had to stomp hard on the brake pedal to avoid back-ending the car that was stopped in front of the bus at the red light. Then the driver honked the bus’s horn at the car’s driver, who did not react to the now-green light fast enough for the harried bus driver working to extend his break at the end of the route. He proceeded to accelerate so excessively that had braked hard not to hit the three pedestrians who were in the middle of a designated cross-walk. Because they looked like they could have been three undergraduate Harvard students, I wondered whether the university administration might have some words for the mass-transit’s management. I immediately called the transit’s customer service line while the driver was once again riding the accelerator pedal only to brake hard at the first bus stop in spite of the fact that he could see several people well ahead waiting at the stop. At the very least, his judgment concerning how much to accelerate in a given distance and how to stop a bus (including some coasting seemed beyond him) was warped.

On the phone with a customer-service employee, I hurriedly exclaimed, “The driver almost hit three pedestrians who were in a crosswalk! And now he is quickly accelerating again! I have called in a complaint on that driver’s driving before, and yet he is still driving recklessly. I’m getting off and will wait for the next bus; he is too reckless.” So, I got off at the first bus-stop and will wait for the next bus.” In spite of the customer-service employee telling me that she would notify operations at “the garage” as well as her immediate supervisor, I had the sinking feeling that, like my prior complaints, that one would fall on conveniently deaf managerial ears.  

The bus driver continued fast as the bus approached a red light even though an ambulance was making its way through the intersection and thus caution was just common sense. 

Sure enough, the driver was driving the same route on the next night. He tailgated another bus part way through the tunnel out of the station, and then was able to easily surpass the speed limit by accelerating until just before he had to stop before turning onto a road. Then he accelerated on that road, and braked hard at the first bus stop. Somewhere in the middle of the route, he accelerated until a minute or so before braking behind a stationary car at a red light intersection even though an ambulance with lights flashing was trying to make its way through the intersection. Passing through the intersection, the bus driver applied a series of “fits and hard stops,” and this pattern continued when he approached two or three bus-stops ahead. 

The bus driver pushed his foot down on the brake pedal too hard just before stopping, without having coasted so the sudden braking would not have to stop so much motion. This can be seen by the standing passenger's loss of balance. Were he to have fallen and broken a bone, he could have sued the company.

The customer-service employee on the night before had said that the procedure when that department is closed and safety is at risk from a driver’s reckless, aggressive driving, is that I should call the company’s transit “police.” When I called that department just after I got off the bus, a stern woman stated, as if she could not be wrong, “No, you need to call customer service.” I told her that customer service was closed on Saturdays and that that department had informed me that transit police should handle cases of safety issues when customer service is closed.” “No!,” she exclaimed, “you have to call customer service when they are open.” I was stunned because I had told her that the driver had almost hit three pedestrians in a crosswalk the night before, and he slammed on the brake pedal just fifteen minutes ago behind a car at a light that had been red for some time. “We have to witness the incidents to do anything about them,” the corrupt woman said. Knowing this was incorrect (I had already stated that I was a witness) and thus that the "police" employee was corrupt. The pathetic excuses she used clearly indicated that she was willing to dismiss a report even of pedestrians almost being hit. Her crime was more than being inept and corrupt; she didn't care whether the aggressive driver might kill a pedestrian between that Saturday night and Monday, when customer service would reopen. So, I ended the call as she was obstantly denying that she was refusing to take and act on my reports. I called 911 emergency to speak with the local police department not only to report the driver, but the transit "police" employee too! Even though I told the employee of the local police department of the driver’s reckless driving both that night and the night before, and that he was still driving even though I had notified the transit company’s customer service department the night before that the driver had almost hit three pedestrians—likely Harvard students—he told me I had to contact the transit “police,” which prompted me to relay the last conversation with the control-freak who presumed that she could not be wrong and utterly dismissed my claims gained from the transit company. “The transit police would rather risk pedestrians being killed than follow the transit company’s policy that the transit “police” handles such reports when customer service is closed. It’s really just common sense not to wait two days before reporting (and the company therefore acting on) a report of reckless driving where safety is being compromised. He said he would call the transit police, but I did not believe him. I gave up. A report against a bus driver was being blown off yet again, and the driver doubtless was breaking traffic laws with a sense of impunity, which made him especially dangerous.

This is the bus driver who had almost killed three Harvard students in a cross-walk and, on the following night, braked hard behind a car at a red light. On both nights, he had enough time at the end of the route for a personal break, as shown here.  I contend that this is why he was speeding and waited to the last minute, literally, to apply the brake pedal before stopping so as to shorten the time of the route. 

Not a full week before that weekend, I had called in a complaint on a driver, also a Black male, who had been riding the accelerator and hitting the brake pedal hard when stopping, rather than coasting to a stop—as that would mean less break-time at the end of the route for him. “He almost hit a car standing in front of the bus; that car had its left-turn signal on, and that could be seen at a distance as it was dark outside. But the driver kept acccelerating until he got very close to the car. What if he had misjudged on where to come to a quick stop by slamming on the brakes? He is a reckless driver!” That driver might have been the same one. I had also called customer service to report a young black woman whose stomping on the brake pedal had rendered rides very uncomfortable. Yet she was able to continue driving without any concern for the comfort of the paid customers on the bus.  

I had never ridden on a transit bus in which the driver slamed on the brake pedal so hard (and even after I had asked him not to do so). Again, the pattern is the same: customers, and even company policies on driving don't matter. After I had called customer service to report him, I rode again on a bus he was driving, and his driving was just as hard and reckless. A bus is not a toy, and we are ALL subject to the law--even those people who disrespect rules and laws, yet while demanding respect from everyone else in spite of having a selfish and inconsiderate attitude.

It bears repeating that after I had called customer service a few weeks before and said, “One of your coworkers told me to call the transit ‘police’ to report reckless driving when your department is closed, but your company’s transit “police” have insisted to me that I call customer service. Apparently, they are just fine with letting a reckless bus driver continue to drive through a weekend and have riders wait until your department is open, which could be a day or two away.” Although the customer-service employee told me that I had followed procedures correctly, and thus that the transit “police” dispatcher had been wrong, and I asked the customer-service employee to have her supervisor contact the transit “police” supervisor, but, as I have already stated, there was no change in the script of the transit “police” when I called the transit police to report the driver who had almost hit three Harvard students the night before and could easily have misjudged when to stomp on the brake pedal behind a stopped car at a red light. 

In addition to the bus company having a disincentive to terminate even bus drivers whose driving could terminate people in cars and in cross-walks, the refusal of the company’s transit “police” to contact “the garage” to intercede on behalf of the public (and bus riders) to get a reckless bus driver off the streets until the driving could be investigated by an operations supervisor points to bad management not only in the transit “police” department, but also higher up, to the manager who is over both that department and customer service and was thus responsible for making sure that reports of dangerous driving do not fall between the two departments, as when customer service is closed and yet the transit “police” insist that customer service be contacted when it opens.

Whether because my paternal grandfather rose from being a trolley driver to being the president of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin (then Des Moines, Iowa) mass transit company, or because I have worked in public accounting and have a B.S. and M.B.A. in business (with an emphasis on organizational studies because systems theory intrigued me), I have called the customer service (and transit “police” departments) to report uncomfortable and even reckless bus driving even though most riders would not bother, or even suspect that the problem is systemic both among the bus drivers and even including their supervisors. So, in response to one customer-service employee, who had told me that the company looks for reports from many riders before taking action, I said, “It is a fallacy to assume that there is not a problem unless many people report it, because, frankly, most people figure, why bother, nothing will happen, and some people may even expect bad driving because it happens so much.” Yet how many companies stick to this fallacy! The macro-culture of democracy may be erroneously projected on business management in assuming that a majority is needed for a complaint to be valid. The assumption ignores the fact that few riders may actually be able to “connect the dots” and be willing to call in a complaint. The assumption of political equality of voters—one person, one vote—does not hold in complaints to a manager about an employee. Even in terms of political democracy, Donald Trump only received the votes of 34% of the eligible voters (and Harris received 32%) in 2024, so it is not really true that majority rules. I for one am more interested to know why eligible voters did not vote (or voted for other candidates, who could not be expected to win) than in why voters voted for Trump or Harris.

Individuals have insights, and, for any given subject-matter or domain, some people have more insight than do others. I might even venture to claim that some people are, whether genetically or by effort in formal education, more intelligent than are other people. Herds, however, walk only when a general shift is occurring. Waiting for a herd to complain for the substance of the complaint to have merit and thus value and credibility, can be reckoned as foolish management. Nietzsche contrasted herd-animals, who are weak, from the strong, who act out of self-confident strength if they are not beguiled by the weak to be ashamed of being strong, as if it were unethical. In actuality, weakness even in not standing up to corruption is unethical even in feckless non-action, and the corrupt are themselves obviously unethical in being so.

I contend that the transit “T” company and the Massachusetts government with respect to that company comprise layers of negligence, beginning with the dangerous drivers themselves and going through the customer service department and the transit “police” department to upper management, and finally to the Massachusetts government: none of which are looking out for the public and the bus riders (as even accelerating even just until the point of stop by braking hard is very uncomfortable).

Once I conducted a small experiment to find out if the bad bus drivers had been trained badly or have been knowingly driving badly. I asked one bus driver to stop slamming on the brakes, and he complied, which told me that at least some of the reckless drivers know that they are driving badly and yet are doing it anyway. I believe they do so in order to rack up minutes at the end of a route to take a personal break, or else because they are late due to traffic and the company pressures its drivers to reach the end of a route on time. But this does not explain why many drivers depart the beginning point of a route early. A longer break at the end or insuring an on-time arrival is likely the motive. Creating a longer break could be called gaming the system. I know that the driver supervisors know this is happening, yet they conveniently allow it.

Finally, notice that I have not had to resort to claiming that the drivers’ union is protecting even reckless drivers. I suspect that is also in play, but the sad point is that I have enough without even bringing up the pressure from the union on the management. I would not be surprised to learn that the upper management has told the union’s head, We’ve got your back. After all, it is what the governor told the drivers when she announced the sweet labor contract in 2023 that was, according to that governor, supposed to make the operation of the buses safer.

Collusion upon collusion upon collusion can make for collision, collision, and collision when aggressive bus-driving is involved, and this is obviously at the expense of customers and even the public, not to mention the innocent pedestrians and car-drivers who are injured or even killed as a result. The banality of narrow, bureaucratic managerialism and oblivious, duty-free politics is none other than corruption writ large. This means that that the system itself, which spans the domains of business and government, is corrupt and thus is in need of reform. Generally speaking, furtive though obvious unaccountability can become so banal as it becomes so common that it renders bad management itself as unethical. 

In the present case before us, the expectation of harm to innocents may be eclipsed by a narrow, self-centered fixation on enuerated departmental tasks (e.g. by the transit “police” department), and willful gross negligence (e.g., many of the bus drivers). The harm may be an implicit byproduct of the incentives and disincentives that are operative in the system, including the bus company and the government that is supposed to oversee the company. Aside from the refusal or sheer inability of elected government officials and regulators to adequately oversee the Boston metro area's mass-transit, known as the "T," the aggressive bus-driving and the transit company's management can be so bad that both can be said to be inherently unethical. 

Even the ongoing momentum of the inertia of such a dysfunctional system can be said to be unethical, such that inaction is culpable. In such a case, the status quo does not warrant pride of place; rather, warrants should be issued for the drivers who believe that the traffic laws do not apply to themselves. 

Indeed, an attitude can be determined to be unethical, as can the consequences when innocent people are injured or even killed and human customers are driven like cattle. Ironically, the toxic "herd animals" depicted by Nietzsche that are too weak to master their instinctual urge to dominate are at the wheel, as they are too weak to experience the richer pleasure that comes from power derived from mastering one's own most intractible urges. If this verdict seems overly harsh, you might imagine the jolt from a foot stomping down on a brake pedal immediately after having ridden the acelerator without allowing the bus to coast at all, all this without any concern for the paid passengers or for pedestrians and people driving nearby.

In the seventeenth century, a European Jansenist priest, Pierre Nicole, wrote that even though self-love (over loving God) can have unintended beneficial consequences and thus be reckoned as enlightened self-interest, self-love is still a sin. Although Augustine wrote that sin can have unintended beneficial consequences, it is important to remember that self-love is still a sin. In moral terms, which has been my vantage-point here, it can be said that selfishness negligent of any possible resulting harm to other people, is unethical. Selfishness can be extended to an organization's managers as well as to government officials who look the other way. Unfortunately, the human nose can become accustomed to a bad odor if it hangs around long enough to become the atmospheric norm. 

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1. Christian MilNeil, “MBTA Adopts ‘Historic’ New Labor Deal with Carmen’s Union,” StreetsBlogMass, August 2, 2023.
2. Ibid.

Starbucks Bucks Its Workers’ Labor Union

Even though more than 500 Starbucks shops had unionized by the end of 2024, it seems that the company’s management did not respect the new union very much. Unfortunately for the company, one implication that can be drawn is that the company’s management didn’t respect federal labor law very much too. For in not respecting its union enough to negotiate it on reducing employee work hours, the company violated federal law. The “smoking gun,” I submit, was that the management used dissimulation to respond to the government, rather than address the complaint directly.

On October 10, 2024, the “general council of the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint . . . alleging that Starbucks made the scheduling changes in late 2022 and early 2023” without consulting and negotiating with the union.”[1] The complaint reads in part that Starbucks changed workers’ hours “without prior notice to the Union and without affording the Union an opportunity to bargain.”[2] As per federal labor law, Starbucks was required to give prior notice to the union and give it a chance to bargain, as well as to tell the union how the change in hours would impact the paychecks of the workers affected. In its written response, the company’s management ignored this requirement and instead defended a practice that was not against the law and the government was thus not in the government’s complaint.

Starbucks stated, “We continuously review operations decisions to optimally address business needs and customer expectations, consistent with the law.”[3] Indeed, doing so does not in itself violate federal law, but the statement does not address the complaint. Next, the company tried to obviate the complaint, again by not addressing anything that was illegal, by pointing out, “our decisions were made across our system, in unionized and non-unionized stores, and they were made without regard to organizing activity at Starbucks.”[4] Even if that were true, it does not address whether the management had informed the union and given it an opportunity to bargain in the cases of the unionized stores.

By not addressing the violations specified in the complaint, the company’s managers may either have been dissimulating by changing the terms of the dispute or trying to avoid lying by denying the specific charges. Either way, the mentality is sordid, and this in itself can be interpreted in line with the old adage, Where there is smoke, there is fire.  Where there is a devious mentality, there is likely to be a crime.

As a result of the violation, some employees lost the benefit of health insurance because they no longer worked enough hours per week. Therefore, the union’s lawyer said that damages could be more than merely the wages for the lost hours. A conservative estimate could be “north of $30 million.”[5] Lest this seem like enough of a disincentive for the management to begin to respect the union (and federal labor law), I submit that it is extremely difficult to change a company’s organizational culture.

Today, I went to buy a product at a Target store. The shelf was empty so I went to customer service, which the linguistically opportunistic management calls “guest” services. The employee was incorrect that I could not order the product online and have it delivered to the store; she was even wrong that the product was not in the back of the store. I went to a manager, who assured me that she would “coach” the employee.  In a tone of “you’re not getting it,” what I actually said was, “It was not just her mistakes; her mentality—her attitude—was terrible, and that can’t be coached away.” The manager didn’t say anything, but her facial expression was one of dismissiveness. Starbucks’ management at the corporate level needed more than coaching from the government.

1. Dave Jamieson, “Starbucks Could Owe Millions to Baristas Who Unionized,” The Huffington Post, October 11, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

Walmart: Encroaching on Employees' Private Lives

In 2023, Walmart relaxed its policy requiring anyone applying for a job at the company to get a drug test, including for marijuana, which at the time was legal in several U.S. member states. Once hired, however, employees were still subject to random testing. An employee in a member state in which the drug is legal could be fired even if the person is never affected by the drug while working. I contend that the practice is unfair, unethical, and an over-reach in terms of the nature of a labor contract. 

The ethical principle of fairness is violated because both marijuana and alcohol can impair the brain and yet the company only tests for one even where both drugs are legal. An argument can be made that the alcoholic personality is less than suitable, and yet taking marijuana outside of work (with no impact during work hours) is reason enough for an employee to be fired. Whereas alcohol can inducive hostility and even aggression, marijuana has a calming drug—something that could actually help busy cashiers.

Besides being unfair, the policy of even random tests for marijuana is invasive, beyond the legitimate scope of an employer’s reach—assuming that the employee using marijuana is never “high” at work. In selling one’s labor, an employee does not agree to a company’s management being able to control the employee’s legal activities outside of work if those activities do not affect the employee’s work. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, was against marijuana; for him to impose his ideological opposition on others where the drug is legal was over-reaching and impious; he was not a god. An argument can also be made that it is none of the company’s business, literally and figuratively, whether an employee uses the drug where it is illegal, again as long as the employee is not “high” at work. Law enforcement is the job of police, not a company’s managers. Of course, if an employee is convicted of a crime, an employer may not permit convicted employees to continue. In the case of Walmart, it hires people who have criminal records, which shows just how nonsensical the policy of random testing for marijuana is (especially as more and more U.S. member states legalize recreational use of the drug). In terms of a contract between an employer and an employee, an employer who presumes to dictate an employee’s recreational activities imposes a cost on employees that is not offset by the monetary compensation.

Imagine what would happen if a labor union informed a company’s management that an abrasive supervisor must be subject to drug and alcohol tests and fired for any positive results, or else the employees would strike. Suppose too that the supervisor does indeed have a problem with alcohol, but is not under its influence while at work. Still the union insists that the company fire that person. Suddenly, the company’s management would object with a mighty roar, How dare employees tell us what we cannot do on our days off! The nerve! Well, it goes both ways, folks. The attitude is the same: the unethical vice of invasiveness (in peoples’ personal, not work-related lives) is noxious and may even point to a toxic organizational culture.

See: Walmart: Bad Management as Unethical

Bucking Starbucks’ Star

Common sense would perhaps dictate that a company sporting a managerial culture of pathological lying as the default way of dealing with stakeholders must inevitably go under at some point. Kant’s categorical imperative insists that mendacity is unethical, for it violates the non-contradictory law of reason. What would the Prussian Kant say, however, to the good Germans who lied to NAZI Jew-hunters about hiding the enemies of the state? As laudable as such lies are, unsavory business managers seem instinctually wired to take advantage of the slippery slope by ignoring the rationale of avoiding extreme harm. What begins as a trickle can become a deluge. Perhaps that is what happened at Starbucks.

In late October, 2022, the director of the U.S. National Labor Relations Board “accused Starbucks of threatening to withhold benefits and wage increases from workers if they unionized; selectively enforcing work policies against union supporters; disciplining or firing workers who were activists; and failing to bargain in good faith.”[1] Starbucks had closed a store in Ithaca, New York. The lack of good faith can be seen in the Congressional testimony of Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ CEO, in 2023. He sanctimoniously “admitted” that people he had spoken with could erroneously infer intimidation. In other words, it’s on the other guy. Such toxic pomposity easily belies a mere patina of portrayed honesty.  

NLRB officials claimed in 2022, The “company has repeatedly broken the law by firing pro-union employees, cutting their hours and offering pay hikes and other benefits to those who decline to unionize.”[2] Least the company’s management’s denials of these claims be believed, fast-forward to April, 2023, when it was revealed that the company had lied that negative publicity and a related strike played no role in the company’s decision to permanently close another store in Ithaca.

The story begins back in April, 2022, when Starbucks’ public-relations firm notified its client that employees “went on strike due to repeated grease trap spills that caused an unsafe environment and lack of action from management.”[3] The lack of action regarding a known safety hazard at a store that the company had written had the “strongest real estate trade position in this area” such that “any relocation would be inferior” points to a single-minded and expedient orientation to money.[4] Such a mentality is ripe for pro-union votes. A managerial culture of mendacity just adds fuel to the flames.

Andrew Trull, a company spokesman, claimed, “Media attention had no bearing on our decision to close the store.”[5] In an internal email, however, Denise Nelsen, senior vice president of U.S. operations, wrote, “We have to solve these condition issues because we also keep getting media on the store condition there.”[6] A direct contradiction! In symbolic logic, A and not-A cannot both be true. A barista at the store at the time said regarding the closing of the lucrative store, “It was retaliation for the strike we went on because we were being forced to work in unsafe conditions. They didn’t care [before]. They cared all of a sudden now when we’re making national news.”[7] Admittedly, negative publicity can hurt the bottom-line. I venture to say nonetheless that the instinctual urge to retaliate, which Nietzsche claimed is out of control in the weak who seek to dominate, trumps the otherwise-hegemonic money-orientation in Starbucks’ managerial culture. The propensity to fabricate rather than tell the truth serves both the power-aggrandizing and economizing motives, especially when they are extreme urges out of control (i.e., not mastered, or channeled by the individual).  

The culture of mendacity in Starbucks’ managerial cadre reaches even the store-manager level. I know this from personal experience. At a Starbucks’ store in April, 2023, a store manager pointed to the last remaining seat. “It’s right below an air-duct that blows cold air.” I had been there in January. “We can adjust that for you,” the manager lied. “I though the temperature of stores is centrally controlled,” I countered. “Yes, it is; it reduces our carbon footprint.” He gave no outward sign that he had just contradicted himself, which can be construed as a lie on top of a lie. Perhaps he was assuming that customers are idiots and would not be likely to put two and two together. Well, I did, but I was polite enough not to tell him that I knew that he had just lied to me. Instead, I went after the accuracy of his claim that centralized control is environmentally friendly. “Well, I have lived in Phoenix, Arizona, where your stores are generally known to feel like refrigerators even when it is 116F degrees. I’d say that’s a pretty big footprint, wouldn’t you?” He stood there silent, like an idiot. The dumb shoes were on a different foot.

Meanwhile, employees of that store kept to their script—that they like their store manager so they would not vote to unionize. When on one occasion I overheard a shift-manager say that the company’s management had lied about giving the employees an additional day off, he was silent when I asked him if he still liked the management so much he would not vote to strike. He pretended like I had not overheard him, which itself is a kind of a lie. Even the employees, who are in no sense of the word “partners” as the company’s head management pretends and publicizes, lie to customers.

Lastly, when I was living in Arizona, I went to a Starbucks in area of Tempe north of the Salt River, which the city of Tempe lies is a lake even though it looks like any other river. Six police employees on their break on the 4^th of July will wandering around the customer area between tables. I approached a Starbucks employee to complain, as I was not used to looking up from my laptop and seeing so many guns passing by at close-range. She refused to act. Then when the group of guns were blocking the counter where drinks are available, I reapproached her and she finally decided to do something. She politely asked the police to hang out away from the bar. She was met with bloated egos, one of which, with his back to the customer area, kept turning his head to give us suspicious looks.

My thought was: if the guy feels such distrust for the public, perhaps he and his coworkers would feel more comfortable spending their breaks somewhere more comfortable. Somewhere more out of the way rather than front and center. This would also spare us, the taxpayers, from being subject to even the tacit intimidation of seeing bullet-proof vests and guns at such close range as we enjoy our coffee. No, I was not over-caffeinated, though maybe the police were, given all their pacing around the tables. Not that the police employees would have recognized their hyperactive state; after all, fish cannot see the water that they breathe, for they are always in it. I contend that such a blindness is conducive to literally and figuratively taking liberties, whether through intimidation or outright lashing out. 

I do contend that liberty includes freedom of the innocent from intimidation. It can be quite difficult to perceive, yet unconsciously it is surely felt. Notice, for instance, the policeman intently looking at me as I took the picture shown here. Is taking a picture suspicious enough to warrant such rapt attention as a hunting dog might have upon seeing a rabbit? As the youth of today would say, the guy needs to chill. Not that I would have walked over to him after taking the photo and say, Hey dude, just chill out a bit, huh? You're on your break. He would have sternly dismissed such an accusation and turned on me (hence proving my point for me) even though it was, after all, a holiday. July 4th, Freedom from Intimidation Day in the U.S.A. By the twenty-first century, the British Red Coats had all but been forgotten, even, I suspect, in Boston Massachusetts. In Arizona, the Red Coats are homegrown.

Fortunately for all concerned, the police huddle-formation soon broke up and the disgruntled cops left the store. I discovered only days later that the head of their local union had been broadcasting that Starbucks had demanded that the police leave the store, which was a lie. The egos were two degrees of separation from realizing that my complaint had some validity, and they felt the need to retaliate against the company just for being asked to move out of the way. Interestingly, the barista had refused to ask the police to stop wandering through the tight-knit customer area yet decided to act when the police were near her.

Laura Ingram of Fox News had decided that I must be a criminal. For its part, Starbucks sent in a vice president, who directly or indirectly told The New York Times that I must be “anxious” and that police of any number whatsoever are welcome in any Starbucks store. Considering the retaliation against employees, or “partners,” who have held strikes or sought to unionize, it is interesting that the vice president capitulated to the local police union—even scapegoating a customer in doing so. I wonder how many customers trust the company and its management; any such trust would surely not be deserved.

The esteemed Starbucks experience, which the company advertised at the time, apparently includes being thrown under the bus (i.e., sacrificed) for making a request that might upset the company’s cosy relationship with fellow power-aggrandizers. Mendacious birds of prey often fly together, for they understand each other, just as alcoholics and drug addicts do. Using people, whether for retaliation or more money, violates Kant’s moral imperative that rational beings (including us, even as we irrationally over-populate and, in doing so, risk even our own extinction) treat other such beings not just as means, but also as ends in themselves. Kant was insistent and adamant: Telling lies violates this moral requirement of what it means ultimately to be human—to partake in rational nature.

Furthermore, as Nietzsche emphasizes in his Genealogy of Morals, an unmastered and excessive instinctual urge of resentment, especially of the strong, and indeed of the ensuing retaliation too, is a mark of being weak. The strong are advised to keep their distance from the new birds of prey. Hence, job-seekers should avoid toxic managerial cultures if possible, and at the very least be on the lookout for the telltale signs—the red flags. A pattern of telling lies is such a flag, hence it is significant when a direct contradiction can be exposed. (Potential) customers should take notice too, though the want of local alternatives can make it difficult, practically speaking, to avoid the chain. Unfettered choices require a competitive market, which as the activities of companies such as Standard Oil, Walmart, and Facebook demonstrate, can be difficult to be maintained even in a republic.

See the booklet: "Bucking Starbucks' Star."

See the essay: "Starbucks Capitulates to an Overzealous Police Union in Spite of In-Store Intimidation."

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 1. Dave Jamieson, “Starbucks Broke Law By Closing Unionized Store In Ithaca, Labor Officials Say,” Huffington Post, November 1, 2022.
 2. Ibid.
 3. Dave Jamieson, “A Starbucks Closed Abruptly—And Its Workers Say It Was Retaliation,” The Huffington Post, April 29, 2023.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

Uncovering the Root of Poverty: An Addictive Habit

Addictive pain-killers killed 64,000 residents in the U.S. in 2016, in part because physicians tended to rely on patients’ self-determined ratings of pain on a scale of 1 to 10.[1] Such subjective ratings were of course vulnerable to self-seeking motives willfully negligent or even reckless in terms of health. A habit or marked tendency in favor of choices at the expense of a person’s own long-term well-being stems, I submit, from weak impulse-control. This factor can explain a lot about why poverty exists and goes on. 

Poverty, it has been said, is the cruelest form of war, for such war can go on and on and wreck subtle though tremendous damage on the afflicted. Yet the mentality that can get a person into such a war and associated bad choices can be easily overlooked by elites that deign to study the problem of poverty.

Attempting to explain escalating rates of suicide, overdoses, and alcoholism among uneducated Americans, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, who spoke at the CEO Council sponsored by The Wall Street Journal in November, 2017, pointed to the diminishing number of jobs “with a ladder up, with on-the-job training, with benefits.”[2] With less incentive to focus on doing well at work and less opportunity to get involved in a union, a person can easily feel despondent, especially given the breakdown of the nuclear and extended family and the decline of mainline Christianity. Drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, and ultimately even suicide, can remove the resulting sense of nihilism.

The job/family/religion explanation strikes me as overly formalistic, even external, however. For example, the rise of individualistic evangelical Christianity, which Deaton and Case claimed does not allow for a sense of community because of the theological emphasis on an individual's relationship with Jesus, can nonetheless provide social opportunities for people. A visit to any megachurch can demonstrate that “extra-curricular activities” go on in spite of the individualistic theological bent. Megachurches typically have coffee shops and fitness rooms, and even put on plays (e.g., at Easter). 
Similarly, not being able to get involved in a union does not exhaust the things a person can do with others in a group; political activism, for example, is open to workers outside of the work context (e.g., working on a political campaign).
I also take issue with the claim that uneducated workers do drugs because a promotion into management is no longer as easy as it may have been in the past. The work ethic is not predicated on advancement; rather, hard work itself is valued as a virtue. To be sure, the technologically and off-shore based relative loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of satisfaction from working in a fast-food restaurant, for instance, have made it more difficult for uneducated people to find fulfilling jobs or jobs at all. Faced with loads of empty time--rather than trying to start an enterprise (e.g., a site online) or volunteer--drugs and alcohol are easy apparent fixes, or fillers. Yet the decision to have empty time is a course of least resistance rather than a fait accompli. The willingness to be lazy is itself significant, for it gets us closer to the underlying problem, which is internal. 
I submit that drug use, including alcohol and nicotine, does not stem from having lots of time from being unemployed. Rather, people who succumb to drug addition can be said to have weak impulse control; they do not have or use the strength of will to resist the urge to take another hit, or to try some drug in the first place. I've never tried heroine or cocaine even just to see what they are like because I know they are highly addictive so I have resisted offers to try them. So I'm surprised when I hear people who use those drugs treat them so casually, so conveniently, without any hint of impulse control. 
The lack of a college education is a contributing factor, for a surprising phenomenon of ignorance is its presumption to not being able to be wrong with respect to itself. So presuming to know all about heroine or cocaine and being able to manage them as if a physician fits with being uneducated. In college, students think through critiques of theories rather than taking them at face value; the professors model this. Being accustomed to critiquing other people's theories can get a person in the thought-habit of critiquing even one's own, even implicit, theories. In contrast, the assumption of ignorance that it must be right goes unchallenged by the uneducated. Interestingly, the difference is not just cognitive, for attitude is impacted by whether or not a person turns reason on oneself. The arrogance of ignorance contrasts with the humility that is ideally in putting one's own assumptions and beliefs about oneself and the world under the proverbial knife. Such an orientation necessitates the use of impulse-control, which in turn implies valuing it rather than conveniently assuming that it is not worthwhile. 

I submit that the “Two Americas” are separated by two trajectories of habitual thinking and values that stem from whether or not a person values and has good impulse-control. People who value such control loathe being around people who don't. Put another way, evading impulse-control is acceptable in some quarters while looked down on in others. The two respective cultures are each self-reinforcing, and social distance between those cultures naturally widens and is not just a matter of being educated or not. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to three "ghetto" apartment complexes, complete with "ghetto property-managements" whose mentality goes beyond garden-variety incompetence to reflect the lack of impulse-control evinced by many of the residents with respect to each other (e.g., being inconsiderate with noise late at night, and having a tendency to lie--failing to resist to impulse to take the easy out).  
Speaking once with a security guard whose company covered one such “ghetto complex” in addition to other, “non-ghetto” complexes, I was struck by how he distinguished the “ghetto” residents. “They think they live in houses, playing their music as if people are not on the other side of the wall. We don't have this problem at the other complexes we handle. The people in that area of town are not so inconsiderate.” I could see why uneducated poor people live together and other people avoid them; the difference is not merely monetary. People who resist the urge to play music or movies loud at night so not to disturb neighbors also resist the urge to lie when doing so would get them off the hook. In apartment complexes populated by poor, uneducated people, the mentality is exactly the opposite, and such a sordid mentality based in a convenient refusal to engage in impulse-control (for selfish reasons) is anathema to other people, who thus keep their distance and even perhaps urge public policy that hurts the poor. Regardless of how sordid the attitude is, I contend that poor people's human rights to sustenance should be respected and protected. This is particularly so because of how intractable the attitude truly is. A person who is used to dismissing impulse-control (i.e., not valuing it) is not likely to go down the other track, unless the motive comes from sustained suffering. 
In terms of not being employable, the lack of a college education again does not tell the whole story. A low-level employee interacting regularly with customers gets heat from a manager if the attitude is, "I can't be wrong about X." Lying about the customer is also not acceptable. Impulse control is vital to virtually any vocation. 
A day after Thanksgiving in 2017, I faced a middle-aged cashier who insisted that people could refuse to recognize that it was Thanksgiving and instead validly select another holiday to celebrate that day, including Christmas and even July 4th.  I countered that Thanksgiving and the other two holidays are set by the U.S. Government, and so are on determined days.  She dismissed this out of hand, which was insulting, and repeated, "It can be any holiday you select." She refused to resist her impulse that she must be right even though she was wrong. "No, yesterday was Thanksgiving and this is Thanksgiving weekend--not another holiday," I insisted, but she rigidly held on to her ignorance as if it could be right. Rather than use self-discipline even to consider that she may have been wrong, she failed to resist the impulse of the presumption of being right and being dismissive.

I submit that a culture exists in the poor America that involves not only a difference in wealth and even education-level, but and most crucially in the attitude toward and practice of impulse-control. That is, being inconsiderate, lying, and feeling entitled in being infallible about what a person thinks one knows can become salient norms where enough uneducated poor live. The attitude thinks it receives confirmation because other people in a similar way also have it. The poor are very susceptible to being rude, lying, and using drugs because of ill-used or perhaps impaired impulse-control. Viewing such restraint as of nugatory value, it is easy to be inconsiderate, rude, even highly aggressive (given the overblown or even imagined slights or provocations).
Biking in poor areas near universities, I have noticed the extreme “road-rage” that is distinct among poor drivers. Today in fact, I witnessed one driver get out of his car to shout at the driver in front of him at a red light. The aggressor showed absolutely no impulse-control; his emotions were out of control. Similarly, I've seen poor drivers much, much more than other drivers lose complete control of themselves emotionally and because apparently I had no right to bike on the side of the roads along the curbs! The sheer aggressiveness, outstripping any rational basis in the context itself, has both amazed me and formed in my mind an image of the typical poor driver. My reaction in observing such drivers has been that such people must surely live in a very different world. I couldn't imagine anyone with such pathetic impulse control being in college or holding a job. Clearly, another America exists, with its own mores and values that retain the inhabitants from entering (and being accepted in!) polite society. Being in the habit of evading impulse-control is so different than valuing such internal control that “Two Americas” can be so explained. Both in terms of wealth and, if the stats on drug and alcohol abuse are correct, impulse-control, the America that is expanding is not the one that should be.

If I am correct in my analysis here, simply providing more and better jobs, creating labor unions and other ways for poor people to “get involved” or be in a group only touch the surface, and thus cannot get the job done in eliminating poverty. Even if "ghetto" apartment complexes are "broken up," with the very poor being disbursed such that they cannot form a culture of least resistance, the internal attitude with respect to impulse-control is surely very difficult to change. So study of precisely how such a feat may be accomplished is needed. 

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[1] Gregory Korte, “U.S. Waging Tech War against Opioid Epidemic,” USA Today, November 24-26, 2017.

[2] Janet Adamy, “’Two Americas,’ Updated,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2017.