|
personally, i think that the conservative approach to economic activity creates a certain ethically challenged mode of rule.
you know, the idea that you should take everything that you can because the world is a giant private sphere and all economic activity is a productive intervention in that giant private sphere, that the extension of markets provides god with a better way to bring unto righteousness all and sundry, and that capital creates not labor, and that by extending the reach of market relations one is doing gods work, and that god's work relies upon the Heroic Exertion of the Entrepreneur, the capitalist demiurge, and that it is by the
sweat of the virtuous brow of the Entrepreneur that the reach of god and markets (the same thing, really) is extended across otherwise benighted sections of the giant private sphere, that this extension improves that giant private sphere----and since it is by the sweat of one's brow that the giant private sphere is improved, it follows that one is entitled to take whatever one can get as compensation for the expenditure of the aforementioned sweat and the dirtying of the aforementioned virtuous brow----and since one's virtue is confirmed by the giantness of the mounds of cash that flow through the private business apparatus it follows that the magnitude of what one can take as compensation rises as one's virtue rises--so it follows that one is affirmed in one's righteousness as one gathers ever-larger amounts of cash unto oneself--and that within this Exalted Sphere of Righteousness that is vast wealth, the fashioning of networks and sweetheart deals and nobid contract arrangements and nepotism and other such actions that would be counted as ethical lapses amongst the Fallen are not understood that way--all actions are the simple extension of Righteousness. it would also follow that people who misinterpret the actions of the Righteous as being ethically problematic are probably tainted with the original sin of class envy. "they" resent us because they resent our Righteousness. "they" are the devil's spawn.
sadly, i am not joking.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|