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Steal Big, Steal Little
By Amin Sharif
There is an old adage among the criminal class in America
that goes as follows: Steal big and the world will love you. Steal small
and you are hated by every one. The wisdom behind this adage is that the
public will always respect and even admire acts of boldness. On the other
hand acts of pettiness are universally despised. But, an adage, like other
things may come to outlive its usefulness. Today, the above quoted adage
is still used by petty hustlers and drug dealers to justify their
predatory and self-destructive practices. They say, if big corporations
and stock traders are allowed to steal, then why shouldn't they?
Of course, if one accepts the truth of this adage. Then
one must accept that stealing, on all levels, is acceptable. And the
conclusion that all stealing is acceptable leads one to believe that the
crack dealer on the corner is no more than a micro-version of the CEOs of
Enron or WorldCom. And, in the most perverse sense, this conclusion is
true. For both CEO and crack dealer are raping the American public. But
what both CEO and crack dealer fail to understand is that corporate thievery
(stealing big) is beginning to be despised as much as that of the actions
of the corner dealer. And this is as it should be.
But before I continue I must make something clear.
There are those who would look at what Enron and WorldCom are doing and
insist that the capitalist sky is falling. They are ready to man the
barricades and light the molotov cocktails that will lead to the demise of
the entire capitalist superstructure. We have heard these cries before and
finally they are getting old.
What we have in the Enron and WorldCom scandal is not a
crisis in capitalism. It is, however, a crisis in corporate management--a
crisis in the culture of business morality. And the eventual effect of
this crisis in business morality will have far reaching implications for
all Americans, especially the working poor and the minority classes. Even
the middle and upper classes may not go untouched by the corporate rape
that is now occurring. So while this crisis may not sound the death knell
of American capitalism, the situation is still potentially quite
explosive.
Just as the rape of poor and minority communities by
predatory drug dealers has been an agent of instability, so the corporate
rape of American trust and retirement funds by board-room bandits may lead
to a general instability in the American economy. America, of course, has
had economic instability before. But not since the radical labor movement
of the early 1900s has there been any real crisis in the belief on the
part of the American people that capitalism could sustain the American
Dream. The Enron and WorldCom scandal may be the catalyst that puts an end
to the belief that capitalism can solve every American problem. The
corporate behavior of Enron and WorldCom may put an end to the belief in
the American Dream. Only time will tell if this is true or not.
What is surely looming out there is an economic
Judgment Day and a reckoning for the American people. Millions will be
retiring in the near future and the pension checks that are due these
Americans must be paid by someone. For the politicians are now saying that
there is no need to worry about the future. Every American will get what's
due them. These politicians had better be right. The American public is
already edgy about Social Security and Medicare. They sense that basic
economic promises made in the past may not be honored in the future. If
they must also face uncertainty about whether they are to receive their
pension checks, then it may be that a real crisis in capitalism lies ahead.
Most probably, the politicians will come up with a
window dressing solution to hold the American public's anger and
indignation at bay. One only has to recall the election of Bush to see how
skillfully the American game of slight of hand can be played. But it was
only the dreams of a few million American voters that was at stake then.
The Enron and WorldCom scandals may lead to a time when the game will be
played for all the marbles. Then we shall see how down and dirty things
get! * * * *
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update 5 July 2008 |
