Egypt

http://lhvnews.com/en/news/5000/will-muslim-brotherhood-enter-military-phase

http://lhvnews.com/en/news/5077/will-morsi-return-to-power

Hi Ron,

Maybe you and I are from different generations.  Before my generation business men did feel accountable to the people whom they employed.  Much as estate managers(the 'Lords' of england, the good ones) used to consider themselves responsible for supplying employment, and care to the people who worked for them.  Times have changed.  I was friends with an english woman who told me while they were living in India(many years ago, now), because they were seen to have wealth (even though they were not wealthy but only by comparison), it was considered by the local people as an obligation and a duty for them to hire household help to give employment to the local people.  She said she was never comfortable with having household servants, but it was expected and they obliged.
You see I come from a time when people lived by the teaching;
"to whom much is given, much will be required." 
People took their duties, responsibilities, and obligations seriously.

"Do you seriously think that "good moral ethics" is an important criterion for choosing a CEO?"

Yes, I do, and there are some that still do run their businesses according to good moral ethics.
But, as it was so hard to find, it is also the reason I left the business world.
You see, this is what has become the main ailment of our society... greed and self-interest.

"if that were true, then the majority would be better advised to let the democratic process play itself out."

I agree... but hey, look what part of the world we are talking about, and what usually happens there.  What is the best solution to controlling civil unrest?



Edited by Caringheart - 24 July 2013 at 6:22pm

Caringheart wrote: Maybe you and I are from different generations.  Before my generation business men did feel accountable to the people whom they employed.  Much as estate managers(the 'Lords' of england, the good ones) used to consider themselves responsible for supplying employment, and care to the people who worked for them.  Times have changed. ...

We may not be as far apart in generational terms as you might suppose.  I think the main difference between us is that I am looking at the world as it is, and you are talking about how it ought to be.  As much as we might want businesses to be ethical creatures, the hard reality is that a successful business must always place profits ahead of people.  It has to, in order to compete with other businesses that will certainly be doing the same.

Did business owners ever feel that much responsibility or empathy for their employees?  The life of a sharecropper or a miner or a sailor or a factory worker was tough, his work was dangerous, his pay was minimal and for the most part the upper echelons frankly didn't care whether he lived or died.  If anything, his circumstances have gradually improved over the decades, but only through government and union pressure, not because the bosses felt any moral imperative about it.

I'm talking about big business, of course -- mega-multi-transnational corporations with thousands or millions of employees.  Small business, where the owner actually gets to know his employees by name, is an entirely different animal.  It is also an endangered species, with the megacorps taking an ever-larger share of the economy.  Maybe that trend is the reason we sometimes have the impression of "the good old days" when employers cared about their employees.

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I agree that the US is behaving like a business with regard to Egypt -- in other words, without regard to ethics.  Bluntly, the US needs allies in the Middle East in order to promote its "interests" (i.e., access to oil) in the region.  It knows it can't work with Morsi, so it wants him out, and it is spending billions to force him out.  Whether Morsi has a legitimate claim to leadership (which he apparently does, having won a fair election as far as I can see) is irrelevant.

Caringheart wrote: Yes, I believe it is big business that has ruined what once was the foundation of the United States of America... the small businessman.

Unfortunately, small business can't compete with the megacorps in a laissez-faire free market.  That's why we need government regulations.

As far as Egypt, I guess the point where we still differ is on whether or not large numbers of people were calling for the removal of Morsi and whether civil unrest was once again imminent.  Unless you or I go there... or know someone from there, we really have no way of knowing the truth for certain.

Going there won't help.  You can't talk to 90 million people yourself.  Fortunately, democracy has a built-in mechanism for assessing whether large numbers of people are dissatisfied with the government.  It's called an election.