Trickle Down Deviancy: The Current Corruption of America’S Corporate Cultures

By William N. Spencer

The right to partake of capitalism is exactly what our United States
Consti tuti on is referring to as being the pursuit of happiness.
If you or any person so chooses to apply yourself, study and
learn, and acquire useable and salable knowledge, skills, and
abiliti esand then apply these towards the economic good
of a company/business/corporationyou just might become
greedy and rich. Does relying upon our own self-motivation and
self-determination means that we are greedy? Does working
many hours of mandatory overtime at our chosen career mean
that we are overly self-seeking? The answer to these questions
and many more are all within

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479767168

William N. Spencer

A life-long advocacy of youth ministry and teaching, with over forty years of work in the unionized labor sector, both public and private, has given me a strange perspective of the American workplace. After starting college at age 51, and ending with post-graduate degrees in both Management/Leadership and Human Resources Management, I have acquired the astuteness and discernment to put these shortcomings and faults into print.

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Copyright © 2012 by William N. Spencer.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012923632

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Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1      Just Getting Along

CHAPTER 2      Occupy Wall Street

CHAPTER 3      Government Interference

CHAPTER 4      Greed and Fraud

CHAPTER 5      Corporate Cultures

CHAPTER 6      Corporate Ethics

CHAPTER 7      Corporate Morality

CHAPTER 8      Corporate Scandals

CHAPTER 9      Say It Isn’t So

Conclusion

Closing

Dedication

This particular undertaking of research and writing came about as an aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. A few of my Liberal leaning friends and acquaintances nearly had me convinced of the genuineness and sincerity of this spontaneous outbreak of caring and concerned American citizens. Considering that I am far from being part of the 1%, actually occupying a position in the lower lower-middle of the 99%, I thought that for once, I could honestly assume and champion their position and their cause.

WRONG!!!

My research immediately uncovered that this movement had been years in the planning, just waiting for the given time and place, but most importantly, the appropriate Republican Party presumptive presidential candidate. Anti-Wall Street, anti-big business—anti-Mitt Romney—months before he was actually designated as Obama’s adversary. A ‘movement’ planned, arranged, bought and paid for through MoveOn.org, a pro-democrat/anti-republican subsidiary of billionaire George Soro’s corporate empire. Toss in a few nut-case millionaire Hollywood types such as Michael Moore, masquerading as being the impoverished 1% type, pretending to be an average Joe-Six-Pack, and the philosophically bought and paid for liberal media people, and all were like kids in a candy store; a made to order circus freak-show that could be styled to last until the end of the November presidential election. Mission accomplished!

Today in the political arena it is almost impossible to know what is the truth, or what is the lie; 10% tax cuts which are really 9% tax increases thanks to the phenomenon of Base Line Budgeting. 1993-1994 tax increases for the richest 1% of Americans—where as a single income wage earner for a family of four, making $425.00 per week before deductions, and $275.00 after taxes and insurance—I was blessed with a weekly tax increase. My children qualified for reduced price school lunches; but the Clinton Democrat Party administration considered me one of the richest 1% of Americans—or so they claimed. Go figure! Yes indeed, right then and there I quickly learned to never believe anything spoken or written by any politician; and I have never since voted for any democrat for a national office. And yes, on the local level, I do have some people who although not classified as being friends, are still very good acquaintances, and are Democrats in elected public office.

Perhaps the best name which describes that vast segment of America which continues to vote against America’s best interests, is now in use by Rush Limbaugh. He calls these people ‘low information voters.’ And quite rightly an apropos name for those people who see and hear complete lies disguised as truth on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, PBS, or any of their numerous affiliates—most of which could and should be considered as100% lies, 100% of the time—or these people actually believe even some of the dishonest pap printed in most city’s daily newspapers. Print and/or television, and all media, have freedom of the press; but there is no inherent right, duty, or least of obligation from their end to be in any way honest or truthful.

After three books of research and writing in the Human Resources/Labor Relations area of management and business, I have ascertained that the biggest mistake made by far too many American citizens is that of believing anything from any politician. Regardless of whether the politician is in a City Hall, the County seat, the State Capital, or in Washington DC, regardless of their political party affiliation, one old adage always remains the same. When is a politician lying? Whenever their lips are moving.

Foreword

OK, so it’s just a job. Almost every one of us has to ‘work’ at a job, especially if we are the ones who own a business. We all are required to support ourselves, our families, and our great American way of life; regardless of how high or how low we are on the socio-economic ladder of success. That is of course unless we choose to become needy indigent wards of the state, with no visible legal means of support. Therefore, the real question being put before us in today’s warped and twisted words of business and economic ignorance is: Does relying upon our own knowledge, skills, and abilities mean that we are truly selfish individuals? Does relying upon our own self-motivation and self-determination means that we are greedy? Does working many hours of mandatory overtime (especially for premium levels of pay) at our chosen jobs mean that we are overly self-seeking?

Most gainfully employed working people would consider these examples as merely making the best of the opportunities presented to them as individual people, just mundanely plodding through daily life. So why therefore should a business/corporation/person be thought of any differently? Why should this unique career choice be held to a different or higher standard than other individual persons within the company?

The right to partake of greedy capitalism is exactly what our United States Constitution is referring to as being the ‘pursuit of happiness.’ If you or any person so choose to apply yourself, study and learn, and acquire useable and salable knowledge, skills, and abilities—and then apply these towards the economic good of a company/business/corporation, you just might become ‘greedy and rich.’ But according to our great American socio-economic system, you also have the right not to make yourself successful. Our great American educational system gives everyone the ‘right’ to become an eternal lifetime burdensome drain on society, supported by those few remaining working and productive citizens.

Another factor of today’s personal and corporate responsibility is the concept that everything done wrong is someone else’s fault—the devil made me do it, my mama didn’t change my diapers soon enough, the baby-sitter yelled at me when I was three years old, my family was poor, I had to wear hand-me-down clothes, I didn’t get to eat as much as I wanted to, nobody loves me—well so what. Man up and take responsibility for yourself, for your actions, for what you did or did not do, and for any and all of your mistakes.

How can any problem ever be resolved or corrected if the fact that it’s being a problem is not admitted to in the first place? When Suzy or Johnny does something wrong in school, whip their little rear ends when they get home, and do not blame the teachers for trying to correct stupidity. Just maybe, if you as the parents were yourself on occasion to act responsible, and perform your adult/parent job correctly, Suzy and Johnny would behave themselves in the classroom, and everywhere else.

With this warped and twisted mentality so prevalent in our everyday home and family life, why should we be so surprised that the corporate and business world would be any different? When the parents of Suzy and Johnny allow, or even encourage dishonesty and/or cheating all through elementary and high school, during their graduate or post-graduate education, and professional certifications, why should we, or how could we expect Suzy or Johnny to act or behave any differently inside the corporate world?

And such is the case with our mis-naming an individual person’s unethical, immoral, or criminal actions on behalf of their business entity as being ‘corporate mis-behavior’ or so-called ‘corporate crime’ instead of prosecuting and punishing the lone individual criminal perpetrator? While we somehow are most often prone to absolve so-called ‘good people’ who make bad mistakes for the supposed ‘right reason,’ in the corporate world today we are far too frequently also absolving very bad people who do very bad things for very bad reasons.

Perhaps it is still too true in the world of business that good guys finish last. One only has to examine the actions and demeanors of most CEOs and higher executives; surly, snide, nasty, and/or downright mean in their dealings with most lower-level employees; if and when they should be forced to make any contact with these lower-echelon people. Dog eat dog, stay out of the way, or become a mere stepping-stone to the top; second place is nothing more than the first loser.

Thankfully, slowly but surely, this kind of thinking is being left behind, along with the backbreaking sweatshop factory floor mentality. Business corporation managers must now really know how to manage people in addition to facilities, products, and work schedules. In the old days of the twentieth-century and before, having an exceptionally high IQ as measured by Raven, Wechsler, or Stanford-Binet was almost enough to guarantee a successful future for anyone with a management degree, and with the will and drive to apply oneself, work hard, and work long hours. Today, an executive’s Emotional Intelligence (EI) or (EQ) is deemed to be even more important and much more of a corporate business asset. Knowing people, that is, knowing who does what, how they do it, who they all work best with, and knowing how to get the most productivity from each and every person—while keeping them all happy when doing so—is the most sought after trait in today’s slimmed-down, efficient, least amount of employees possible workplace.

Let’s not say that this modern change of management and people skills is due to any altruistic caring and love for one’s fellow man, because it is not. The greatest majority of change in the workplace, and in society as a whole, is due to the American legal system, court rulings and decrees. Fifty years ago, the only people who had good wages, benefits, and job protection were unionized employees—which many Americans fought quite hard for, and a few gave up their life for the cause of a better work environment. But, over so many decades, the United States government has mandated that these perks and goodies should apply to all employees, in almost all jobs, almost everywhere. By so doing, today’s American employee is a better provided for, and a better taken care of employee, than any worker in any country in the world. But by so doing, they have rendered membership in a union to be a moot point, or almost meaningless for most businesses, and/or for most workers.

I have been an employee of a number of different unions for more than forty years, and I most vehemently believe—as I have written in my first two books—that without strong unions, or the impending threat of a strong union acquiring representation rights, we all, each and every one of us, would be earning nothing more than the legislated minimum wage.

Introduction

To better understand proper behavior in the workplace,

we must first study and understand people’s misbehaviors.

For tax purposes, an incorporated organization, that is, a business registered in any method, whether for profit or non-profit, is considered to be an individual person. So in effect, it could be possible for that ‘person’ to misbehave. But I have never seen an inanimate object such as a factory, warehouse, or office building misbehaving, committing a crime, singing ‘off key’ or dancing out of step.

Therefore, I must presume that there really cannot be such a thing as organizational misbehavior, per se. I can only deduce that what most people are unknowingly referring to is that perhaps some of the people, or many people, or even most of the people in any given organization are involved in unscrupulous, unethical, immoral, or even illegal activities. Whether for the good of the entire organization or only for their own personal gain or profit, it is still wrong, still improper, and in no way should it ever be condoned or supported.

As stated at the beginning, in the eyes of the law, any properly licensed corporation has the very same legal rights as an ‘individual’ person; but really, can that point be factually true? A business/company/organization is a blending of many ‘individual’ persons, serving in many different positions, functions, and capacities; thereby proving that a corporation is not just ‘one’ person. Ergo, the second most important question which must be asked is, just which of the many ‘rights’ constitutionally provided to the ‘individual’ person are germane, and are to be provided to the ‘corporate’ person?

One of these constitutional rights is that a defendant cannot be compelled to serve as a witness against themselves—therefore refusing to incriminate oneself—but how is this to be applied against the ‘corporate’ person? So, Mr. District Attorney, you are claiming that the XYZ Company is involved with criminal activity; alright then, go ahead and interrogate our warehouse building in Osh Kosh, our factory in Green Bay, or one of our main office buildings in Sheboygan. Can a corporation really be an individual person?

Another constitutional right is that a ‘person’ accused of a crime has the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers. But here again, just how is this ‘corporate’ person—the factory building, the warehouse, or the office complex—going to be present at a trial, in a court room? Again I pose the question, can a corporation really be an ‘individual’ person.

A better perspective of this issue is accorded by Wade Rowland (2006): It needs to be understood by any and all, that corporations are nothing more or less than expedient machines for making money. The corporation is, and was deliberately designed to be, the ultimate rational economic being. Its role in the market is to pursue its own self-interest, and in doing so, maximize the production of public welfare. It is invariably self-interested, and what’s more, there is no limit to its avarice. Where people can become sated by material wealth, or succumb to the contempt of their fellows, the corporation has no such constraints.

Economist Milt Friedman said in 1970 that ‘the business of business is business,’ and that the only role of business managers is to make as much money for their shareholders as possible. Again, from Wade Rowland: Anything outside of this end-goal should not be done on company time or with company resources. In fact, Friedman alleged that managers who are doing anything else are violating their legal responsibilities to their shareholders.

Yes, greed is good—well sort of, in a very limited and narrow definition of the American system. In the early years of our country, America, greed—that is, the self-interests of rugged individualism, watching out for and protecting oneself, ones family, and ones property—was considered to be a person’s right and a moral responsibility; and the same applied to a person’s business ventures. This same concept carried over to today, being greedy is what good businesses and corporations are supposed to be within the capitalist system. Individuals can only get ahead by being or acting greedy, towards their own self-interests. While many misguided groups and individuals in America are ‘protesting’ against ‘corporate greed,’ ‘big business,’ and ‘Wall Street financiers,’ we should not ever forget that these ‘most greedy’ corporations also donate the most to charities, and that ‘small’ business is just as much a part of the American business system as ‘big’ business, and that ongoing and productive commerce cannot exist without an equally strong finance system. To be against ‘corporate greed’ is to be against the entire capitalist system, and therefore to be against the American way of life.

This is the question posed by Chris MacDonald (2011): Is making a profit ethically good, or bad, or neutral? Or better still, are there situations in which making a profit is either good, or bad, or neutral? Now, the idea of profit is often tied up with money, with filthy lucre. After all, everyone knows the saying about money being the root of all evil. But in the abstract, profit is just the ‘corporate surplus’ that results from a mutually-beneficial exchange of goods or services. The seller provides something for the purchaser, for a profit over and above cost, and both parties ‘profit’ from this exchange. We need to distinguish between our ethical evaluation of ‘profit,’ and our ethical evaluation of the ‘profit motive.’ Because even if we agree that profit is generally OK, we can still worry about the things that people or companies will do in the pursuit of profit.

Oh how I love those magic few words: ‘The pursuit of profit.’ Yada, yada, yada, ‘Money makes the world go around.’ Why do we all get up so early in the morning, shower and shave, suit and tie, enduring the drudge and drag of going to work? The pursuit of ‘personal profit?’ Yes of course, that is, if we are responsible, adult citizens of America, if we aspire to do the right things, in the right way, at the right time, providing for ourselves and our families. If there were no ‘greedy corporations’ offering employment positions to ‘greedy individuals,’ there could be no pursuit of happiness. Amen, and thank God for ‘greedy corporations.’

According to Edmond S. Bradley (2003): The prospect of ‘corporate greed’ terrifies everyone in government, everyone in leftist mass media, and most men on the street. Unethical corporate behavior is blamed for water pollution, major bankruptcies, low wages, global warming, product safety problems, skin cancer, and cultural ennui. What the free-marketers don’t often make explicit is that the government and media Chicken-Littles are right in part: Corporations are indeed out to make a profit. However greedy or altruistic a business person happens to be, the institutions of the market channel his or her motivation to a social end. Business must serve society in order to thrive, so from the point of view of its economic effects, the moral merit of the motive for engaging in commerce has no necessary bearing on the services that commerce provides to society.

The corporation in its pure state, as stated by Tocque DeVille (2005): "is not immoral, it is amoral. The corporate objective does not include the values of good or evil. It has only the cold, objective value of maximizing profits. But human beings cannot truly be amoral. We are not passive entities. ‘To be’ requires action in every instance. And action always affects something or someone else. ‘To be’ a human being, we must always choose actions that do, or do not, cause harm, that are morally right or wrong. There is just no way around it. But