Corporate Tar
The Washington Post has an analysis piece on what Bush’s future holds. It seems to be pretty bleak. In large part they say Bush is going to be left holding the bag when WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing, Adelphia, Andersen, and Enron all exit stage bankrupt. Mainstream folk — the ones who only watch CNN — are starting to get what anti-”globalization” activists were trying to say all along. Even Bush has been targeting his buddies in business: The urgency of the matter was reflected in the distraction it caused Bush while attending the meetings of the Group of Eight industrial nations in Canada. During separate news conferences with Britain’s Tony Blair and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Bush angrily criticized “corporate leaders who have not upheld their responsibility,” calling WorldCom’s actions “outrageous” and vowing to “hold people accountable” for fooling employees and investors.
Lack of corporate social responsibility isn’t something that Bush helped create as president, but it’s certainly something he’s profited from. And pro-business Democrats like Clinton share a lot of the blame. Let’s face it, we’ve been on this path since the 80s.
I have not been happy with either party’s treatment of business. Business is a wild beast that has to be controlled. We haven’t been doing any of that. Now we’re going to have to reign in businesses and keep a tighter control on them than we have for thirty years. We’re going to have to abandon the myths we have about capitalism and take a good, hard look at what capitalism does well, what it doesn’t do at all, and where capitalism starts eating its own tail.
I tell you what, though: it’s kind of early. So I’ll tackle those topics later today. In the meantime, check out Fast Company’s Memo to: CEOs which addresses that social responsibility thing Bush was talking about earlier.
