As most Americans struggle to cope with a generational-defining pandemic which has resulted in loss of lives, jobs, and more, a relatively small set of greedy people pounce on new opportunities to advance their personal and business interests.
These people are the competitive economic elite, special interests, and especially selfish individuals--the "private interests." They are now lobbying legislatures for bailouts, subsidies, tax breaks, and other goodies; influencing governmental executive decisions; and gouging consumers and even less aggressive business customers.
Why? Because they can. And few things are as profitable and beneficial as exploiting governmental resources and obtaining tax benefits during a crisis. Especially when it is so easy to exploit a government and citizenship having little chance in a rigged system. Even the subsidies for desperate small businesses and their employees have been sucked out by Big Retail whose lobbyists inserted special loopholes in the subsidy programs.
This type of exploitation is what happened in the 2007 Great Recession. It will, history tells us, continue to reoccur every crisis given the rigged rules of the game. The logic is absolutely compelling.
By the standards of our political-economic system these exploiters are not to be criticized or demonized as they are only playing by the rules of the game. This aggressively exploitive activity is legal, incentivized by existing political economic system principles, and in conformity with capitalist and individualist morality. That morality is the well-known "Every Man For Himself," and "Business Is Business."
This morality is a primary component of a political-economic system rigged for an elite class of Big Capital.
In the meantime, those little people directly sacrificing for the health, safety, and support of all Americans – like much of the medical profession, first responders, and even common retail and manufacturing laborers take on new hazards and suffer deleterious consequences including losses of life and livelihood. Their values – a common good, a balance of public and private interests, trustworthiness in governance and society, and the like are exploited. The little people – most Americans— get the shaft. As always.
By the standards of the existing system, these little people can be characterized as patsies and deserve no more than the scraps allocated to them by the ruling elite (and whatever other scraps they can get by squawking by their own pitiful means.)
A lot of people find this situation disgusting, sickening, and immoral.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The existing rules of the game are frustratingly incompatible with most people’s experiences, beliefs, and wants about being citizens of a collective entity. Our rules of the game in both politics and business are 18th-Century ones, reflected in 18th-Century structures and processes. What made some sense in the political/economic realms 250 years ago doesn't work well for most Americans now.
Aggressive self-interest and disregard of any sense of public good doesn’t fit well in our highly concentrated and diverse global environment. Nearly all aspects of life have changed greatly over that period of time except for our political/economic principles, structures, and processes.
What’s up with that!
Why don't Americans think about modernizing and rationalizing a society— especially its morality – 250 years removed from an obsolete individualist and private interest environment?
They need a theory – a new way of seeing and thinking about society. Mostly they need to counter the morality of the existing system with a new morality. A modernized and rationalized political society would be based foremost upon a new set of public values. That set would involve a sense of collective fairness, a “brain” in governance, professionalism in governance, greater respect for science and technology, renewed sources of public trust, inclusiveness, a balance between public and private interests, meaningfulness in every day life, and a respect for doing the “small life” well.
Most Americans would cherish this improvement, if they had a choice. They have to make their own choice.
Let’s get this straight: millions of Americans feel that their society has failed them, millions are clamoring for change, and many are reacting in destructive and non-effective ways. They are wasting their time and efforts now promoting new political candidates, supporting 18th-Century party organizations, and chewing each other up in culture wars allowing the elite to dictate the terms of social life.
It’s time that a new leadership develop to enforce a new set of public values with a new way of seeing and thinking about social life.
Here is a look at one such theory – The Action Manual. (www.theactionmanual.com)
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