by G. Wierzynski
We hold business to be immoral
‑ immoral in its behaviour and immoral in its refusal to question itself.
Over the years, business has invested society with its own values and gradually
elevated them to the stature of gospel.
Business is a highly efficient
system for manufacturing and distributing goods, but it improperly cites
its material success to justify the validity of its ethical values. According
to business ethic, work is not only good, but necessary, wealth spells success,
competition is the most efficient means for extracting the best efforts of
men, profit is the engine of growth. But we hold that such values, while
they have some merit, are only half‑truths. There is surely more to work
than making a living and more to success than wealth.
Competition has turned into
a social blight. It causes institutions to function on the basis of conflict
and domination. It perverts the value of people; they are judged not on their
worth as humans, but on how well they can compete with others. Competition
encourages petty bickering, at a time when there are already too many barriers
between people in our urban society. Clearly, we will never reach the brotherhood
dream of 'all are equal' if we have to run on the competitive dog‑eat‑dog
track.
We also question the profit
motive. To be sure, the profit system has lifted industry to new records
of production, and society to new levels of affluence. But is that system
compatible with human values? Now that we produce enough to feed, clothe
and shelter every American, should we not turn our efforts to improving the
quality of our lives? The profit system does not permit us to do so. We are
caught on the treadmill of economic growth. Instead of developing our human
potentialities, we continue to emphasize materialism. We clutter our lives
with gadgets we don't need, we scatter our resource on advertising budgets
to stimulate a synthetic need for items we will presently be throwing away,
we dissipate our talents on new toothpaste formulas ‑ but we have built only
seven medical schools in the past ten years and need at least a hundred more.
What do we want? Our huge mental institutions bulge with patients. What we want is a society where people don't have to flip out ‑ a society that assists people in expressing themselves ‑a society in which a large part of the population does not have to fight for survival while another part fights about what to do with its money.