Volume 2 number 3, March 2000 Cats, Dogs, Corporations Envision: You slog home through the snow, throw open the cabin door, and there you see the cat and the dog, snuggled together on the Forbidden Couch. So you pitch a fit and toss them out into the cold, saying various bad things about their behavior, ancestry, sexual practices, and appearance. They seem to cogitate upon their sins out there in the snow, but you give them a good long time to chill out and reflect before you let them in. So the next night when you come home, both pets are on the floor where you think they belong—but the dog is positively groveling with guilt, wagging frantically and slobbering on your boots. The cat, however, simply licks his stripes and waits calmly for the reassuring clank of the can opener. Rotten beasts, you may think. Why can’t they learn? Ah, but they have learned. If you had read your pets’ minds while they sat in cold banishment, you would have found in the dog’s brain something like, The Boss is very upset because I was on the couch, so now I am cold and hungry; I have been a Bad, Bad dog. Lying on the couch is Bad. In the cat’s brain, however, would be something like, The house-human made unpleasant noises and acted disrespectfully toward me. Usually he is better behaved; evidently, the sight of me on the couch makes him behave badly. Therefore I will take care that he never sees me on the couch again. So the dog knows he has sinned for the sake of warm paws, and exudes shame and apology. But the cat knows he has been good, because you didn’t see him on the couch. They learned their lessons—different lessons. The differences between feline and canine moral judgements came to mind the other day when I listened, once again, to Alaska’s governor saying nice things about Alaska’s Big Oil and its plans for consolidation, which the oil companies assure us will bring nothing but good to Alaskans. Sure. See, if people think like dogs, corporations think like cats. A few years ago, a corporate apologist made this perfectly clear to me on (of all things) a National Public Radio call-in show. The show’s subject was the exemplary behavior of the chief of a big Massachusetts textile factory that had burned just before Christmas that year. The flames were not yet out before this executive was circulating amongst the employees and townsfolk, swearing that the factory would be rebuilt, that no jobs would be lost, that he would even keep the paychecks flowing through the holiday season, that the rebuilding would be guided by committees from the workforce. And so on. He made good on all his promises, too. Callers were praising this man as a model of good corporate citizenship, almost as a hero. Then, like a splash of cold water, came the caller who said, Hey, that executive should be fired. In fact, if it’s not a family firm, if the stock is traded, then maybe he should even be jailed. When the immediate outraged babble died away, the caller continued: Look. He should have taken the fire as a heaven-sent opportunity to get out of Taxachusetts. He should have taken the insurance money and rebuilt offshore someplace where the labor is cheaper. Because the whole purpose of a corporation is to make money for its stockholders. Why should those employees be more important than the widows and orphans and pension funds or whatever that hold shares in that company? And the town’s tax rolls shouldn’t matter at all. He probably cost those stockholders millions. Hell, maybe they should hang him. For me, that was an epiphany. The prime directive, so to speak, for any corporation is to make as much money as possible, whether they call it profits or capital gains or plain old cash. Corporate officials who don’t heed that prime directive get fired, and deserve to be. They may look and sound like people, often very nice people, but professionally they can’t follow usual people’s standards and ethical codes. They have to think like cats. And, like cats, they think that as long as they don’t get caught—or if getting caught isn’t too costly—then they are behaving properly. They are being Good. To take a local example: Does anyone in Ester believe the company minions who vanished into Canada leaving Yellow Eagle’s last payrolls unpaid lost their jobs because it’s not honorable, or even legal, to stiff your workforce? Nah. They got away. They saved money for the company. That’s being Good. Nice kitty. Once I understood that corporations think like cats, I felt better about the whole capitalist system. It’s playing by the rules, its own rules. I mean, I really like capitalism; it’s treated me well. But if you want to make it behave properly, you have to make it very uncomfortable when it does something you think is bad—especially because it doesn’t share human views of what’s bad. If dumping poisonous fluids into salmon streams saves money, it’s good corporate behavior—unless the fines for doing so ruin the profit margin, and if the odds of getting caught are not in the corporation’s favor. Lying about the dumping is good corporate behavior; threatening employees who might squeal about the dumping is good behavior; donating heavily to the election campaigns of politicians who write the laws setting the fines for dumping is good behavior—you get the picture. But if you believe that the innocent-seeming cat wasn’t on the couch, or that the oil companies really are suffering under Alaska’s strict environmental protection laws and onerous taxes so they absolutely positively need to form a defensive monopoly—well, I’d say you were one dumb puppy. Just stay off the couch, okay? | ||
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