So What If You Saved the Auto Industry?: Searching for Moral Genius

I’m growing tired of our geniuses. More pointedly, I am frustrated with a culture that lauds their natural gifts and work ethic, but fails profoundly to challenge them to the common good. We all know the typical capitalist response to this, of course. We are told over and over again that corporate and industrial ingenuity actually does serve the common good. But most arguments in this vein revolve around the supposed inevitability of the shared benefits of industry, not the intentionality of those benefits. Assuming true a straightforward – and simplistic – justification of capitalist endeavors, we are still left with the irrefutable fact that all of this social good is merely a by-product. The primary focuses of the Steve Jobs and Henry Fords (aka real American heroes) are a) to explore the limits of their own minds, and b) to make money. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with either, or even to say that we should necessarily expect all people to elevate beyond this mentality. My point here is only inherently heroic about these pursuits.

I was struck by this recently while reading an article about Sergio Marchionne, the head of Italy-based Fiat turned savior of American-born Chrysler. The article was in Time Magazine, a fact significant only because I only read that magazine when I travel (it’s a thing). I happened to be returning from the national assembly of my department, a gathering of many talented and passionate people united in a common goal of inspiring and accompanying people in the United States answer a call to good. I could not help but contrast this with Marchionne, both in the scope of his abilities (sorry, team) and the focus of his work. While sparing you the nuts and bolts (Google it, if you want), it suffices to say that via a natural propensity for leadership, an intuitive sense of what enables and engenders success in employees, and immense technical knowledge, he has been able to return a dying auto-maker to profitability.

What hit me was not the commonly held sense of admiration for the competence of men and women like Marchionne, but a strong feeling that many of the great minds of the modern age are more or less abandoning the people of this world and their needs. Yes, a small measure of jobs were saved and created by Marchionne’s actions, which is of great significance to those people that directly benefitted. But in a world in which dependence on oil negatively impacts people all of the world – from Americans paying high oil prices to the more severe reality of displaced and oppressed people in oil-rich nations (not to mention environmental impacts) – why is this man’s role in saving the auto industry so laudable to us? Why do we not ask, expect even, that someone such as this work to solve the real technical problems of moving away from an oil-based economy altogether? Why don’t we expect that people such as him help poor nations develop a reliable infrastructure to deliver drinking water to their people? While Marchionne worked to combine and increase the efficiency of Fiat and Chrysler, with each playing to the other’s weaknesses, why don’t envision him partnering struggling non-profits to more efficiently execute their mandates to generate social good? Wouldn’t it be great if we cultivated moral creativity and genius in otherwise exceptional people?

I already know that some will latch onto my earlier mention of Steve Jobs and run through all the ways that he has made modern life more convenient. Even ignoring the serious ethical questions about the Apple assembly line, I would challenge anyone to convince me that this was the extent of the impact that Steve Jobs could have had in making this world a truly better place. I do not mean to disparage Jobs, or even Marchionne. Boundless though their abilities may seem, they are still limited by a culture that lacks the will to expect boundless love, compassion, and moral imagination from our heroes and leaders. Yes, sometimes good does, indeed, “trickle down” from their efforts. And sometimes, even, these people spend some small amount of money and energy on charitable works, but is this really an acceptable standard for our heroes? I, for one, find more to admire in the small successes of a group of committed social-servants than the grand enterprises of the hyper-intelligent masters of industry. Especially considering that we are, in many cases, talking about people with a clear vision for the future and a dedication to executing that vision. Wouldn’t it be great if we said to them, “What is your vision for a more just and peaceful world?” – and not as a by-product or side-project, but as a life project. Of course, that would require that we as a people place enough value on such efforts to motivate, inspire, and support our heroes. Because just as children grow to emulate the values of their parents, we shape our leaders as much or more than they shape us.

Promises, Promises: OWS, Corporate America, and Taking the Long View

As the sun seemingly sets on the first phase of the Occupy Wall Street moment – specifically, on the physical occupations themselves – many are questioning what, if anything, was accomplished and, what, if anything, happens next. But there may be a moment, here, to assess how we chose to view that first phase as it was happening, and what it tells us about the current American reality.

One of the persistent (though not necessarily widespread) opinions of OWS was that it consisted of lazy, spoiled young people who feel entitled to a quick, easy road to success. Ironically, this view is espoused often by members of the generation that actually raised these young people, promising them, at base, a quick, easy road to success. And this is where I think that things get more complicated than we have tended to make them. I do not view the people engaged in OWS with any of the pejoratives mentioned. A promise has been made. That promise, that in this nation, hard work and education necessarily breed success, is simply and profoundly false. Many of us knew this previously, of course, for example some of us that are members of or have worked with low-income communities. Now, however, those limitations have been laid out for all of us to see – even if we may still choose not to do so. Much of OWS, then, is a belated sense of the injustice of the system, propelled by the natural shock of a shattered belief system. We can at least credit them with looking truth in the face and accepting it, something which many of their critics are unwilling or unable to do. This, of course, makes a certain degree of sense. Though false, this promise is deep-seated and perpetuated almost universally across the social spectrum.

In the past, the perpetuation of this false promise could be argued to, at the very least, protect the existing power structure. If we all believe that everyone has a fair shot, that we can all be successful with a little elbow grease, and that consumerism will, in the end, lead to happiness, then those at the highest tier of the social order can maintain and prosper unperturbed. Recent events, however, have exposed a fatal flaw in this mentality: its utter lack of longevity. Specifically, you cannot maintain the illusion of social mobility while at the same time eviscerating the middle class. And you can’t achieve and maintain maximum amounts of immediate profits without eviscerating the middle class – jobs must be shed to protect bottom lines and executive bonuses. Moreover, you cannot maintain an industry over the long-term while at the same time all but eliminating a vital, creative workforce. That would seem like common-sense: when all you have left is people concerned about making money and none of the people driven and qualified to make anything else, then you no longer have anything to offer. And, of course, you cannot do any of this and maintain a healthy society and competitive economy.

At this point, it may seem like I am being overly-harsh on the business community. A few clarifications: one, not all business is created equal. This has been one of the best-executed distortions by the corporate world: that to challenge any for-profit enterprise is to challenge every for profit enterprise, period. So first, let us at least come to a common understanding: most businesses exist to earn profit. I know that some will use that statement as a criticism, while others will use it as an absolution. I am not assigning any editorial value. The key is that some businesses earn their profits in ways that add value to our society (i.e.: through employment, ingenuity, solving problems) while others do not (i.e.: they do not employ or do not employ in the US, they exploit resources, they harm the environment, they create rather than solve problems). Ironically, those most concerned with immediate financial gain are both more likely to fall into the latter category and, by virtue of that financial success, receive favorable policy treatment.

A second clarification: in the interest of the big picture, I am attempting to focus on what I see as a largely neglected piece of the national conversation. Much has been discussed of American values and habits on the low- and middle-income levels. Specifically, the tendency of people towards consumerism, debt, and the urge to make a quick buck (even though, in regards to this last point, Americans work longer, more, and more productively than almost any other industrialized nation). So yes, consumerism (and the debt it accrues) is a societal problem. But the emphasis is on societal, as in, across society. For one thing, as I hope that I have illuminated, much of our corporate and (I’ll go this far here) business culture in general is extremely short-sighted in terms of hiring and ingenuity. Admittedly, for small and mid-sized businesses this is often simply an existential reality – they need to be short-sighted in order to survive. For larger corporations it is harder to make that claim, at least when they are consistently increasing executive salaries.

Similarly, our politicians are short-sighted in catering to these interests. It is virtually impossible to run a successful political campaign, at least beyond the local level, without significant corporate backing. This may seem to cater towards the existential reality argument, but whereas businesses have the option of serving the common good, politicians have a mandate. In any case, this is why President Obama is not the anti-business Socialist that many conservatives pretend he is and that many liberals thought he would be. In fact, he has reduced and eliminated more business regulations than President George W. Bush. This is not a defense of Obama (quite the contrary), but merely helps to illustrate my point that there is about a snowball’s chance in Hell of a truly anti-business candidate being elected president. The short-sighted piece, of course, is evident in the trouble that Obama faces not for being too liberal, but for failing to be the president that he promised to be.

Finally, there is the tricky matter of our economy itself, which, in our short-sightedness, we have ingeniously constructed to run on our own short-sighted nature. We condemn those greedy fools that bought houses that they couldn’t afford, yet lament the continuously weak housing market. We wag our finger at all that accumulated debt, yet bend over backwards to incentivize Americans to spend more and (yes, this has actually been said explicitly by economists) stop saving. In the meantime, we have a contingent of people urging the US Government to start saving and eliminate deficits at a time when, economically, it makes most sense to spend money to get people back to work and get the economy moving again. But then, we’re told that this would be short-sighted.

What we need, then, is to re-orient ourselves towards the true American promise. Rather than cling to myths about what our country is, why not work to make it what we want? If we say that all people have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, why not re-orient ourselves towards addressing these rights? Why not first ask ourselves what these things mean – What does a full right to life entail? What does genuine liberty look like? What will make us happy? – and how we can ensure the actualization of each? Instead of believing in false promises, we should do the hard work of fulfilling those promises that ought to be true.