Undermining Progress: Power Enforcing Infallible Ignorance

Bleeding to heal. The Earth is flat. Earth is at the center of the solar system. Zeus lives on Mount Olympus. The divine right of kings to act even as tyrants (e.g., Henry VIII of England). Hitler died in his bunker. Turning the heater on in a local bus kills coronavirus. These are things that were thought in their respective times to be uncontrovertibly true. In some of these cases, the power of the establishment was not subtle in enforcing them even when they should have been questioned. How presumptuous this finite, mortal species is! If ignorance on stilts is bliss, then why is it such in need of power? Subconsciously, the human mind must realize that its assumption of not being able to be wrong is flawed. We are subjective beings with instinctual urges—one of which manifests in the unquestioned assumption that what we know cannot be wrong, and furthermore that we are entitled to impose our “facts” on others. As the homo sapiens (i.e., wise) species, we are too sure, and too proud, concerning our knowledge and especially beliefs. We would like to have the certainty and objectivity that computers have, but we are subjective biological animals, not inert machines.

How much do we actually know? David Hume claimed that we do not really understand causation; we don’t get close enough to it to understand how one thing causes another thing. Worse still, we often take a positive correlation—that one thing is related to another (e.g., rain and seeing umbrellas)—as meaning that the one thing causes the other. Rain does not cause umbrellas; nor do umbrellas cause rain. Descartes was of a rare breed in that he was willing to critique his entire edifice of knowledge. With an open plain filled with the debris in front of him, he wrote that he could only be sure that he was thinking and therefore that he was existing. Cognito sum. I think, therefore I am. That he went on to reconstruct the very same edifice may suggest that he was still too taken with his previous knowledge. At the very least, his rebuilt edifice cannot be reckoned as progress.

Generally speaking, pride/ego plus knowledge is a retardant to progress and a sycophant to the status quo. New ideas must break the glass in order to breath and circulate even to reach peoples’ consciousness. Well-established beliefs clutch at us even in the face of strong arguments and empirical evidence to the contrary.

Hikes and stake-outs on Mount Olympus could have demonstrated to the ancient Greeks that immortal giants did not live there. The Greeks who scaled the peak tended to say that they felt the gods there—that the gods were invisible, as if they were merely spirit. Such contorting and even pruning when necessary is not uncommon in cases in which religion over-reaches; the core of the religious belief itself must endure even in the face of contravening empirical evidence. Sadly, not much progress has been made on the mind-game in the domain of religion; the human mind itself may be susceptible, with denial protecting the mind from recognizing its own susceptibility.

By the time that the ancient Greek religion became extinct, people were willing to conclude that no such gods existed (or had existed), and the belief that they lived on Olympus was simply wrong. Few if any people, however, were then able to consider that their own living religion could be wrong too. It’s the other guy who is wrong; this time, the deity really does exist. The firmness with which this belief is held, as if it were knowledge, is a sign of excessive defensiveness, and thus of unconscious doubt. Perhaps the unconscious is more honest with itself than consciousness is with us.

How many Christians consider that perhaps people could be wrong that Jesus literally rose from the dead (i.e., historically, as an empirical, historical fact)? How many Jews consider that historical evidence is lacking to support the belief that Moses was a historical person?  Josephus, an ancient Jewish historian who lived in the first century, wrote Antiquities, which refers to a man named Jesus (albeit with probable later Christian parenthetical additions that a Jewish historian would not have accepted). To go from a man named Jesus to Jesus Christ involves a religious claim/belief that Jesus is divine. We have left the territory of historical accounts, which are in the past tense, to make use of faith narratives, which, as myths, can be in the present tense. For example, myths such as the Christian Passion story can be reenacted in ritual each year as if Jesus’ passion is once again to be felt. The religious experience is presently experienced, having been triggered by myth (religious story) and ritual (couched in drama).

In short, in looking back at the ancient Greek religion, we dub the stories of Zeus and the other gods as myth. Yet we instinctively resist even the possibility that the ongoing religions could include myth, for it and historical writings are two different genres and we clutch at the added certainty that can be provided by historical accounts. Why is additional certainty believed to be so important? Religionists don’t want to even consider that their particular religious beliefs could be wrong or over-stretched. To be sure, a myth-writer (or orator) may reference historical events, but his point is not to convey the veracity of them. Rather, historical events may be used (and adapted) to make religious points. For example, the Gospels differ on when the Last Supper occurred relative to Passover because the writers wanted make different religious points. None of the writers of the faith narratives would have subordinated religious points to historical accuracy. Therefore, the added certainty is a mirage. Rather than essentially reclassifying religious belief as knowledge (empirical or through reasoning), matching religious belief with its own kind of confidence would be more in keeping with the domain, and thus with human experience therein.

Unfortunately, religion does not rest with the exogenous certainty; the inhabitants in the domain not only try to conquer (and thus control) each other; other domains are fair game too. Run through the circuits of a human brain, religion tends to be infused with pride such that the religious domain may have a propensity to encroach onto other domains, even assuming the prerogative to dominate them. How uncouth! Hence Christianity got into trouble when it tried to control science and claim history for itself. The assumption that religion should constrain scientific knowledge not only conflates two different categories, or domains, but also was ignorantly taken as infallibly true. Furthermore, a faith-belief could be taken as a historical fact, which in turn could be used to justify the belief. Such a closed, self-reinforcing cognitive loop is not easily broken open even to the scalpel of an inquisitive, self-questioning mind. How rare such minds have been and are even in the midst of robust technological progress and greater knowledge available to mankind. 

Christianity also got into trouble with itself, without realizing it, when it over-reached onto the military domain, which is not at all friendly to loving thy enemy. When the Roman Catholic popes became partisans in geo-political rivalries in Europe, the Church became closed in effect to its rivals and thus short-circuited its own mission—that is, the mission in the religious domain to save souls by leading people to Christ. We can count as progress the success of other domains in pushing religion back within the confines of its own turf. To presume to know the native fauna of another land better than the native plants on one’s own land, and then to presume to weed that land without sufficiently weeding one’s own is like arrogance on stilts; the toxic attitude of superiority should be underwater. Thus the high are made low, at least in theory.

In surveying world religions, I see progress at the point when the extant religions (with the exception of Satanism) came to no longer believe that human sacrifice appeases deities. When Judaism and Christianity had gained enough traction in ancient Greco-Roman culture that religion itself was no longer just a matter of ritual, but also had moral content (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes), religion itself may have progressed. Why not more definite? Friedrich Nietzsche, a nineteenth-century European philosopher, argues that modern morality borne of weakness and foisted on the strong to make the latter voluntarily renounce acting on their strength. Meanwhile, the ascetic priests, who are weak (literally in being celibate) are free to unleash their urge to dominate by controlling their respective herds and in confronting the strong with, “Thall Shalt Not!” Even our surest knowledge of progress can afford to be questioned.

Unfortunately, once the Greco-Roman religion that was merely ritual to appease the gods and included human sacrifice was extinct, continued progress has faced a strong headwind from the still extant religions that were created roughly in the “second generation” (1800 BCE-650 CE). Even though the ancient cultures within which those religions formed are by the twenty-first century oceans of time from modern-day cultures, religious strictures grounded in the formative cultures die hard, if at all. These strictures are sustained at in part out of a fear that beginning the project of separating the divine from (human) culture would lead to anything goes (i.e., cafeteria-style religion). What if the divine in revelation is itself cultural reflected on high? Change itself faces an uphill battle even though the sheer difference between modern and ancient cultures suggests that changes are necessary in order that moderns are not to be held captive by the arbitrary limitations in long-ago cultures. This is particularly true in religious moralities. That Paul thought that women should not preach in Christian churches is not sufficient for churches today to be obligated to treat Paul’s opinion in his letters as if it were divine revelation. Even that Jesus’ disciples in the Gospels are men does not mean that Jesus sought to limit his disciples to men. Writings on Mary Magdalene discovered in the twentieth century support this point. Put another way, even mere opinions in ancient letters are held so firmly that human opinion is essentially divinized. As a writer, I am well aware that mistakes are in writings. Correcting for those errors, such as the Christian overlay on Josephus’ historical account on Jesus, has largely been inoperative when the human mind entertains religious belief (i.e., dogma).

My point is that the self-retarding mechanisms of the human mind can slow down progress and enclose us in ignorance that cannot be wrong. We tend to overrate both the freedom of progress from human nature and the knowledge and beliefs we have both individually and as a species. This is not to deny the existence of progress through history. Gladiators killing each other in stadiums has been replaced by football (both sports) fighting for a ball. A general increase in the value of human life has occurred in enough societies to suggest an upward trend for the wayward dictators to measure themselves against. Nietzsche aside, moral progress has also occurred, again in enough societies to demonstrate an upward trend. The incredible technological advances in the twentieth century can also be taken as progress because they have expanded human potential. For one thing, people could write beyond daylight, electric lights being brighter than candles. Just think how long candles were relied on, then all of a sudden, in the turn of a switch, the initially-feared new light was on and could spread. The danger, it seems to me, lies in the assumption that the biological fixity of our species becomes less of a hindrance as technology becomes even more advanced.

The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 hit the species even in spite of our technological advances, even in the field of medicine. Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the UK at the time, initially swore off precautions. The fact that he held high office did not prevent him from having to go into intensive care at a hospital. As far as a virus is concerned, we are not apart from Nature; rather, we are biological. Our minds, being corruptible in terms of knowledge and judgment, can limit what technology can do to stave off a pandemic.

For example, according to a local bus driver in Phoenix, Arizona, the bus company’s management was urging drivers to turn on the heat when the temperature outside was not prohibitive and close the windows (hence trapping the airborne virus) because “the heat kills the virus.” The closed windows meant that plenty of airborne virus could be expected to be trapped in the buses. Perhaps the treatment of bleeding would have healed the brain-sickness of managers. Unfortunately, they were able to use their authority to enforce their ignorance that could not be wrong. So could grocery-store managers there—in a state in which public education is ranked 49^th out of the 50 States—who did not even notice that even their own employees were not keeping at a physical distance from each other and customers (who behaved as herd-animals incapable of altering a well-grooved habit even to protect themselves!). The improved knowledge available from medical experts didn’t matter. In fact, by the month of April, most customers and employees of grocery stores in Phoenix were wearing the surgical masks that the virus can easily pass through; such masks were to be used by the infected so they don’t spit on, and thus infect, the healthy. Of what value is progress in knowledge if a major metropolitan area in a developed country acts regardless? A meat manager at one grocery store there told me that one guy touched a number of meat packages after having gorged on some chocolate. The customer rebuffed the manager, saying, “My fingers going from my mouth to the packages won’t get anyone sick.” An uneducated opinion was presumptuously dismissing science. In this way and many others, the benefits of progress in human knowledge are held back by human nature—specifically, by ignorance that cannot be wrong, and even presumes to trump knowledge.

It is ironic that progress has been extolled even in times held back by the status quo. “We are in an age of greater transparency,” a person interviewed by the BBC said just after the British government tried to have it that the prime minister, Boris Johnson was hospitalized for tests and because he had symptoms. The lightness of this announcement is belied by the fact that he went to a hospital during his Queen’s speech. He surely would not have wanted to take away from the speech, and yet he was going in for tests, so why did he not wait until after the speech? Why the urgency if he was going in for tests? The implication that his hospitalization was not urgent was undone the next day by press reports that he was then in intensive care. So much for transparency, at least from the government. The primitive instinct for security surreptitiously stepped back from, and thus nullified at least in part, the contribution that technology had made on transparency in the press on government affairs.

Similarly, even though a French agent reported to the French intelligence service that he had recently seen Adolf Hitler and his wife attending an opera during one of its three performances in South America after World War II, the world, including the U.S. Government, stuck publically with the Soviets’ story that the couple had died and then been burned in Hitler’s bunker in April, 1945. Even after the Soviets tested the couple’s DNA and found that both people were women, the world and its governments continued with the story that Hitler and his wife had died in the bunker. That Hitler might have lived the rest of his life in South America, even conniving with his expert on dropping a nuclear bomb on New York City, apparently triggered the security instinct such that the progress in intelligence-gathering and analysis was for naught. The tyranny of the status quo against progress is subtle, yet more enduring than the rule of a tyrannical ruler.

Why was it insisted historically in Europe that the Earth is flat even without any evidence? The “scientific fact” was even defended by threats of death, but then it was more a matter of religious belief masquerading as fact. Why is the human mind so hesitant to say, “It’s a theory, but we really don’t know.” The pride of a mind is and the fear of uncertainty are human qualities rooted in the instinct of self-preservation. Pride is thought to beget power, which aids self-preservation. So too does having greater certainty of the environment. Such bloated pride can motivate a Christian king to become convinced that the divine right of kings justifies even tyranny that is hardly in line with Jesus’ teachings. Even Christian clerics intoxicated with their temporal power may suppose that burning a scientist for claiming that the Earth orbits the Sun rather than vice versa is in line with loving enemies. Being more in love with temporal power than with Jesus’ preachments is yet another example of the religious costs of trying to dominate in another domain.

Whether in religion, politics, or higher education, does cognitive difference really make someone an enemy, or is the human brain prone to overstepping, emotionally speaking, in applying emotion to cognitive differences? We humans are overwhelmingly utterly unaware of the games our minds play on us. We assume that we are in control of what we think, and that we use reason impeccably. Nietzsche claimed that the content of ideas is instinctual urges, and thus reasoning is a subjective tussle within loose strictures that may themselves be urges. How much do we really know even about ourselves? Yet we would not tolerate someone saying that what we are absolutely sure we know may yet be incorrect. We are so sure that we grasp for authority to enforce what we know on others who resist. Hence, if we were to go back in time and refuse to be bled, a physician may dismiss our claim that bleeding actually weakens rather than cures a person and use his authority as a physician to subject us to the treatment. The weak—in this case, the ignorant with power—think nothing of dominating the strong; in fact, the resentful enjoy it.

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."

---

 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.

On the Aristocracy of Wealth

The rule of a few—aristocracy. The rule of the wealthy—plutocracy. Where the few, being valued above the many, are determined principally on account of wealth, the two forms of government fuse into the aristocracy of the moneyed interest. The cardinal virtue is the fundamental desire for more—otherwise known as greed. Justice is limited to peerage, or amicitia (friendship) based on having wealth. This sort of justice, which can be derived from Cicero, is antithetical to justice as caritas seu benevolentia universalis (love, that is, universal benevolence), which comes from Plato, Augustine, and Leibniz.

The "ardent glow of freedom gradually evaporates;—the charms of popular equality . . . insensibly decline; —the pleasures, the advantages derived from the new kind of government grow stale through use. Such declension in all these vigorous springs of actions necessarily produces a supineness. The altar of liberty is no longer watched with such attentive assiduity; —a new train of passions succeeds to the empire of the mind; —different objects of desire take place: —and, if the nation happens to enjoy a series of prosperity, voluptuousness, excessive fondness for riches, and luxury gain admission and establish themselves—these produce venality and corruption of every kind, which open a fatal avenue to bribery. Hence it follows, that in the midst of this general contagion a few men—or one—more powerful than all others, industriously endeavor to obtain all authority; and by means of great wealth—or embezzling the public money, —perhaps totally subvert the government, and erect a system of aristocratical or monarchic tyranny in its room. What ready means for this work of evil are numerous standing armies, and the disposition of the great revenue of the United States! . . . All nations pass this parokism of vice at some period or other; —and if at that dangerous juncture your government is not secure upon a solid foundation, and well guarded against the machinations of evil men, the liberties of this country will be lost—perhaps forever!"[1]

 A society wherein aristocracy is defined in terms of money can be likened to an old industrial city wherein the masses are boorish and the few are refined. The latter spend their spare time at the two or three country clubs in town. On July 4^th, the masses have a motorcycle parade and fireworks downtown while the wealth-aristocrats enjoy golf and swimming followed by dinner in the dining room and then a separate fireworks show on the golf course. It is literally the tale of two cities—only one of which is gated, though some of the many can watch the clubs’ fireworks from outside.

 In an aristocratic plutocracy, business executives and the moneyed of the professional class (e.g., CPAs, physicians and lawyers, but not clerics and professors—the Brahmans who have been uneasily professionalized but not as well compensated) are valued and thus they rule. In other words, the country clubs rule the strip malls. It is not only that money is allowed to buy political power; wealth is valued so much that is presumed to have the right to govern.

 Although wealth is the defining difference in a society wherein aristocracy is a function of money, refinement itself tend to go with the upper classes; and yet for all the lubricating manners, the country club set is limited by its value on wealth. In other words, corruption can coexist with the superficial manners typically found on the putting green. True refinement, it turns out, comes not from wealth, but, rather, from being educated. Hence, the greatest difference in a society, it turns out, exists between the pedestrian mall and the scholar rather than between the poor and the rich. Even so, in a society wherein aristocracy is defined in terms of wealth, the distance between the rich and poor is exaggerated, which in turn is seen as justifying plutocracy. Once a society can be characterized as an aristocratic plutocracy, it may be that only a mass rebellion can bring back the demos in governance; for the propertied will only consolidate their rule, and their property, unless or until they are forced to relent.

1. The Impartial Examiner, Essay (March 5, 1788), 5.14.15, in Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Anti-Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 290-91.

A Professional Misnomer: Everyone Is a Self-Proclaimed Professional!

Certainly by the turn of (and well into) the twenty-first century, the term, "professional" had become such a cherished word in the American lexicon that every American had decided that he or she is one. Evincing the Lake Wobegon effect—the tendency of most people to describe themselves or their abilities as above average—nearly everyone is wont to say, “I am a professional.” On housing listings on Craigslist, for example, people routinely use the word to signify that they are not students. In fact, even some students characterize themselves as professionals (though not as professional students!). Such common usage belies the term's claim to having a specific meaning. Moreover, the tendency of non-professions to deem themselves as professions nonetheless may evince one of the downsides of democracy—namely, its proclivity to excess in terms of self-entitlement. This is particularly likely to ensue from a citizenry that is lacking in self-discipline, virtue and knowledge. 

I contend that the self-appellation of “professional” is in actuality an attempt at inclusion in what was hitherto known as “the professional class.” Nietzsche’s thesis is relevant regarding the instinct of certain herd animals to dominate as if they were strong—even though they are in fact weak. 

It is as though a manager at Walmart imagines a concept of egalitarianism wherein he is akin to a lawyer or surgeon—perhaps based on the fact that the manager distinguishes himself somehow from his subordinate “employees.”  Even in the midst of such self-vaunting, a knowledge of store policies and years of practice in dealing with customer complaints do not constitute an equivalent to the knowledge of law or medicine required of a lawyer and physician, respectively. Nor is there an obligation to the public such as in entailed in the practice of law or medicine.

Technically, the term "professional" applies to “the professions.”  This does not mean “any profession” in the sense of “any job category.” Because a professional relies on years of study, albeit undergraduate (meaning only one degree in a discipline/school of knowledge), in his or her practice, he or she must be allowed significant autonomy. Hence the partnership arrangement, wherein the self-discipline of peerage rather than a boss is relied on, is the typical business form for law firms, CPA firms, and medical offices. Managers in business are not professionals. This can be seen both from the standpoint of the relative salience of a responsibility to the client/customer and of judgment.

According to Relson (p. 750), “the basic social role of the physician . . . is to be an agent and trustee for the patient. Physicians are ethically bound to place the medical care needs of their patients before their own financial interests – an obligation that clearly sets the practice of medicine apart from business.” One could add a lawyer's ethical obligation to act in the interest of the client and the CPA's obligation to act in the interest of the public (people who rely on the financial statements). In business by contrast, "buyer beware" is often the default; a business practioner serves a customer for monetary gain.

Similarly, the judgment of a lawyer, physician or CPA is not easily second-guessed by people outside of the respective profession. Even in a hospital, a physician is not reviewed by a manager who is not also a physician. In contrast, non-managerial board directors commonly review the performance of managers.

Put another way, whereas one can manage a business without having attended business school, I do not think any of us would agree to be seen by a physician who had not graduated from a medical school. Nor would a defendant in a criminal case be likely to chance a conviction (and decades in prison) by hiring a lawyer who had not studied law. Creditors and investors would think twice about the unqualified opinion of a CPA firm whose auditors had not passed the CPA exam after years of study of accounting.  That a certified public accountant might also engage in consulting, however, does not mean that consultants are thereby also professionals. Even were consultants to devise a certifying exam, it would not be as substantive or relied on as the lawyer bar exam, medical boards, and the CPA exam.

According to John Boatright (2008), the "work of most financial services providers does not meet the standard criteria for a profession. Among the criteria for a profession which are lacking in financial services are a high degree of organization and self-regulation, a code of ethics, and a commitment to public service. These criteria are possibly met by financial planners and insurance underwriters, but not by brokers, bankers, traders . . ., who, in the strict sense of the term, are not professionals." Financial planners and insurance underwriters come up short, however, in terms of educational requirements. 

According to Boatright (1992), a professional’s stock in trade is a body of specialized knowledge that is the basis for making judgments. Not only is the reliance placed on a professional’s judgment relatively important; professionals are paid primarily for the value of their knowledge that is the basis for their judgments. Accordingly, it is difficult, if not impossible, anyone other than their peers to evaluate their practice.  In fact, Jean Van Houtte (p. 207) refers to professionals as “individuals who practice their occupation autonomously.” Even another surgeon is limited in being able to second-guess a colleague without being in the operating room at the time. The salient element of judgment includes discretion that is difficult for even colleagues to evaluate (though not impossible); obvious lapses, for example, can easily be discerned by a professional’s peers. 

In short, the term "professional" has a specific and limited meaning centered on the responsibility-autonomy that is entailed when specialized-knowledge-informed-judgment is salient in the practice of an occupation. The term does not apply to anyone who does something for a living (as opposed to being an avocation).  If it did, then even prostitutes and politicians would be professionals.  The term “professional politician” connotes ignorance, for which political office is not a job?  It is not like one can be governor of Alaska as a hobby. Also, neither "mature" nor "responsible” is interchangeable with “professional.” Nor does the term mean “acting impersonally or bureaucratically rather than emotionally.” It is no accident that people not in one of the professions use notably wide criteria.

Until the last few decades of the twentieth century, the term "professional" did not suffer from such lack of clarity. For example, Joe Flom, who was instrumental as a lawyer in the hostle take-over bubble that began in the 1970s, claimed that his parents wanted him to be a "professional." He wrote that for them, "being a professional was a great thing. . . . That meant either a doctor or a lawyer." This was the popular application: medicine or law--not a manager or sales person, or even a CEO. Then a sort of inflation set in, and the value associated with being a “professional” has diminished in proportion. The presumption that simply getting hired or being mature on the job makes a person a professional is odious and false. In fact, the over-reach itself evinces an underlying sordid character. Ironically, such a person is in need of more supervision, rather than warranting any sort of autonomy. 

Sources:

Jeff Madrick, Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 2011).

John R. Boatright, “Conflict of Interest: An Agency Analysis.” Pp. 187-203 in Ethics and Agency Theory: An Introduction, Norman E. Bowie and R. Edward Freeman, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).

John R. Boatright, Ethics in Finance (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).

Arnold S. Relman, “Dealing with Conflicts of Interest,” New England Journal of Medicine 313 (1985): 749-51.

Jean Van Houtte, “Research Report: Conflicts of Interest in Law Firms in Belgium,” Legal Ethics 12 (part II): 207-28.

See also:

Skip Worden, On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management.

Hypocritical CSR during a Pandemic: O’Reilly Automotive, Inc.

In the retail sector, the behavior of managers and their employees at the store level is particularly relevant to customers. This relevance, I submit, outweighs the wider benefit of a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) program if the behavior contradicts either the CSR wording or actual programs. Besides the obvious bad odor of hypocrisy that vitiates CSR claims, a company’s direct effects on its customers (and employees) have implications in terms of responsibility. I submit that these implications are more important than those of CSR programs that are geared to societal problems because they are less central to a business. In short, having a CSR program does not make up for irresponsible policies or conduct toward customers (and employees). O’Reilly’s Automotive serves as a good illustration.
The company’s second CSR goal in 2018 was to enhance “the health and wellbeing of communities engaging with” the company.”[1] The company claimed that CSR is “embedded in” its business philosophy such that the operations are not to “become an obstacle or a burden in the way of people’s and the environment’s wellbeing.”[2] Regarding health, the company’s CSR program consisted of providing “nutritional boosting” by producing and distributing health and hygiene products to “enhance the wellbeing of its customers along with the various communities” with which the company has engaged.[3] To the extent that such products are sold to customers, the CSR program is more like an additional product line than from any sense of responsibility to help reduce societal ills. In other words, the health CSR program was rather self-serving.

In spite of the signage, two out of the three customers in the store were not wearing masks or maintaining physical distance from other people. No employee confronted the two customers. 

In just two years, the company’s store-level operations had negligently become an obstacle or hindrance to the health of employees and customers even as the company continued to tout its CSR health goal. Even though stores had signs indicating that masks were required due to the coronavirus pandemic, managers and/or employees in at least one store were refusing to enforce that policy when customers came in without wearing masks. Such customers could even ignore the barriers keeping customers at a distance from the check-out counter. One employee told me that some customers were even mistaking the barriers as an invitation to go behind the counter! I was just as astonished, however, at the employees’ impotence when it came to enforcing the mask requirement.
Perhaps just as the company’s CSR program was self-serving (i.e., selling an unrelated product line), so too was the company’s overriding dictum that the company’s mask policy should not be permitted to get in the way of customers buying products. That is, I suspect that the implicit priority was on the value of marginal revenue over the health of customers and employees. This business calculus may not be surprising, yet the refusal to enforce a salient (by signage) company policy is. To claim that a requirement that is not to be enforced is nonetheless a requirement involves not only cognitive problems, but also sheer weakness. Management includes both making policies and enforcing them. The decision not to enforce one, such as in telling employees not to accost customers who feel entitled to ignore the signage of a requirement, can thus be regarded as ineffectual management even if the goal is to maximize revenue.

[1] Matthew Harvey, “Corporate Social Responsibility of O Reilly Automotive, Inc.,” Essay 48 October 17, 2018 (accessed November 18, 2020).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

On the Ethics of Business Donations and Saving Souls

In the film, Major Barbara (1941), Barbara, a Major in the Salvation Army, has been raised with her sister and brother by their mother. She is legally separated or divorced from the father, Andrew Undershaft, who nonetheless finances the lavish lifestyle of his family. Even Barbara, the idealist Christian evangelical, lives on her father’s armaments wealth. Yet when she meets him after several years, she leaves the Salvation Army after Andrew and an alcohol producer donate large sums. Although Barbara recognizes that the Army in London needs the money, she believes that the Army has sold out because providing weapons of death and alcohol are sinful. “What price salvation, now?” a customer at the Army’s soup kitchen asks Barbara after she had taken off her Army pin and given it to her father. Barbara is not willing to continue with the Christian organization because in her mind it has sold out even though it admittedly needs the donations to survive. But has the Army sold out? Furthermore, does Barbara sold out in using her father's business to convert workers. Ironically, that may be more ethical than the Army's approach to saving souls. 

The full essay is at "Major Barbara."

Pope Francis: Religious and Secular Arguments for Governments Subordinating Markets to Social Norms

The documentary, Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (2018) chiefly lays out the pope’s critique of economic Man. The film begins with references to climate change too loosely linked to the global population figure of 8 million humans, 1 billion of whom are unnecessarily living in poverty. The viewer is left to fill in the gaps, such as that because as biological organisms we must consume and use energy, the hyperextended overpopulation of the species is the root cause of climate- and ecosystem-changing CO2 in the atmosphere and oceans. Arguably, the salvific Son of God or the means into the Kingdom of God enjoy pride of place in the gospels, but compassion for the poor as well as outcasts and the sick is indeed a message that Jesus stresses in the faith narratives. Rather than being a sign of sin, poverty, especially if voluntary,  can permit the sort of humility that is much superior to the pride of the Pharisees. In the documentary, Jorge Bergoglio, who took the name Francis in becoming pope of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, is a practical man who points to the sickness or temptation of greed that keeps humanity from riding itself of poverty, unnecessarily. Moreover, the hegemony of the market, with its culture of consumerism and commoditization, comes at the cost of the common good, which to Francis has a spiritual basis. Abstractly speaking, harmony, which inherently respects its own limitations, should have priority over greed and markets. Both of these can go to excess without enough built-in constraints as occurred before and during the financial crisis of 2008, with poverty plaguing humanity more rather than less as a result.

The full essay is at "Pope Francis."