Here are two things that are broken and need fixing. Neither of them have an easy fix. Neither of them will be fixed any time soon. I don’t pretend to have answers. I don’t know who has answers or if they can be solved in my lifetime?
1. The shareholder model of ownership. When companies act on behalf of shareholders they do not act on behalf of customers or employees. The shareholder only cares about profit and gains, and those come at the expense of workers and end-users.
2. Religious zealots. Every religion has good people of faith who live good lives and are sincerely wonderful people. But that doesn’t make all religions equal. Some religions allow for the truly faithful, those following the faith devoutly, to do bad things in the name of God. That’s a broken system. It has removed the purpose of the faith away from the benefit of humanity.
Both systems are entrenched in tradition. Both models create bad incentives that do not serve the public good. Both of these will outlive me. Again, I don’t have answers. I just know that the models are broken.
We aren’t getting rid of shareholders, we aren’t getting rid of religion. How do we reduce the bad incentives? How do you tell a shareholder that their returns should be lower so that employees are better paid, or consumers should get a more affordable price at their expense? How do you tell a person willing to martyr themselves for the glory of God, and their righteous place in heaven, that they should be kind to everyone regardless of faith while they are here on earth?
Again, I don’t know? What I do know is that greed and blind faith are evil, broken parts of systems that need to change. Because everyone suffers in a world where these broken models continue.
