I saw Chevron's greenwashing "Human Energy" ad for the first time tonight, and my BS meter began screaming. I knew I'd seen something that ran counter to the ad's claims. It didn't take much searching to find it: last month, a federal judge ruled to force Chevron to stand trial in the U.S. for the massacre of Nigerian villagers.
- And there's more:
- How did things get to this point? The Free Market Missionaries convinced us -- not all of us, but enough -- that:
- Pursuing personal benefit no matter what the cost to anyone else is a moral stand, and all talk about "the common good" is evil communism;
- The only human values, the only values of any kind, are those that can be sold on the market so that a businessman can make a buck off them. Anybody who says there are personal benefits not measurable by money is trying to take your money (except MasterCard, who wants to give you money).
- Laws against murder, theft, and violating contracts are just and proper (we couldn't do business without them) but laws protecting health, safety, the environment, the common good, or any other value we can't make an immediate profit on are nanny-state attempts to tell you what's good for you. Government shouldn't tell you what's good for you! That's the job of private business! ("Private" meaning "it's none of your business how we do it.")
The American public bought that, and paid for it, and is paying for it. We created an economic system that rewards unethical behavior and, surprise, we get unethical behavior.
We created it, we can uncreate it. An economy that rewards ethical behavior and penalizes unethical behavior is not a Big Brother (or Big Nanny). Most people don't have to be told what's right and what's wrong -- that's why we have laws to enforce right and wrong on those who do have to be told. We want to live in an ethical society. That is the real American way.
- Free Market Missionaries are alive and well even though their abstractions don't translate to reality
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