Watching the price of gas top $2.30 a litre and knowing that big oil companies are making billions in profit is maddening. Never waste a good crisis. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with a company taking profits, but I really wonder where the world is headed when company shareholders care more about increasing profit than anything else.
I think too many people confuse democracy and capitalism. They think a free world should include unfettered opportunities for business and profit. But a model where corporate value is tied to how much returns shareholders can get for their investment is not designed to make the world better or more free. It’s designed to put more wealth into the hands of the rich, who can afford to buy stocks and shares in companies.
Greed is the underlying driver of such a system. Not democracy, not freedom, greed.
‘This approach isn’t as good for the environment, but it is more profitable.’
‘We could pay our employees a better living wage, but that would hurt our profits.’
‘If we lay people off and increase efficiency, we can meet our targets and get our bonuses.’
There are stories like this one, where a boss decided that every employee will get at least 70k a year, and the company is still thriving 5 years later. And there is a local company run by Paul Macdonald that donates 50% of corporate profits to charity.
But these stories are anomalies. They shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be a reason that the world we live in is driven by profit and greed. I hope to see more people doing what these guys are doing. They are earning a good living, and making the world around them better. That shouldn’t be a novel idea, it should be what drives us.
