Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance
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Taking Back Our Lives in the Age of Corporate Dominance
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781609946043 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Berrett-Koehler Publishers |
| Publication date: | 12/13/1999 |
| Series: | BK Currents |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
Read an Excerpt
Taking Back Our Lives
IN THE AGE OF CORPORATE DOMINANCEBy Ellen Schwartz Suzanne Stoddard
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Ellen Schwartz and Suzanne StoddardAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60994-604-3
Chapter One
Ellen Schwartz
A Time Of Turbulence
when too much information keeps us from knowing the truth
If families just let the culture happen to them, they end up fat, addicted, broke, with a house full of junk and no time. —Mary Pipher
You can never get enough of what you don't really want. —Eric Hoffer
We must do the things we think we cannot do. —Eleanor Roosevelt
WE ARE OVERSTIMULATED AND DISCONNECTED FROM OURSELVES AND NATURE. Image, not substance, is the stuff of our lives: how we look, what we wear, the car we drive. Even our democracy is driven by appearance. Candidates are packaged and rehearsed to speak in nine-second sound bites.
We live in the Information Age. Translation: too much information, too little meaning, and too little wisdom. When Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese monk nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, came to America, he said "Here I am in the land of the Information Superhighway. But do you know what one of your greatest problems is? Communication between each other!"
Not only is communication a problem, but rudeness and disrespect are rampant. Political exchanges are shouted. Talk-show hosts like Jerry Springer and Howard Stern bring new meaning to the word offensive. Verbal abuse abounds in movies and television shows that pass themselves off as entertainment. Comedy shows regularly descend to put-downs underscored by a laugh track. Teachers are noticing that many children don't know how to develop friendships; insults don't foster trust.
We are so cut off—heart from mind, feelings from action—that we do not respond with appropriate outrage at the "entertainment" that inundates our children. The interactive video games are the worst, because the children themselves take part in the murdering and maiming.
"Family values" is a political buzz word, but in reality, our political and economic systems do little to support families. Despite an increasing number of jobs, we have an actual loss of jobs that pay a living wage. While the defense budget catapults above and beyond what even Pentagon brass request, there is less money available to renew our schools for the twenty-first century. As the public airwaves are jammed with messages to buy, enjoy, and indulge, we are more often called consumers than citizens. Our familial and societal fabric is so frayed that more than 38,000 people die from guns each year, over half from arguments, accidents, and suicides. To try to ease our pain, to find a place of refuge, we are offered not only the malling of America but the walling of America.
What is it we're missing? Perhaps listening. Stories. Actions beyond our own lives.
Listening. Listening deeply. This is not something we are accustomed to in the era of the John McLaughlin model of communication. Too often we find ourselves jumping down the other person's throat before they even have a chance to finish their thought. This does not make them feel heard, appreciated, or understood.
Stories. We can barely avoid hearing the stories of the rich and infamous. We know the polished details, spun to make their sex lives, love, rage, or pain much bigger than ours. We know those stories better than those of our own families or neighbors. Yet, it is the stories of the real people connected to us that ultimately hold meaning for us. What a loss it is, when families gather for the holidays, to have half the family bellowing for strangers running after a ball, while the heartbreaks and hopes, tough times and triumphs of those closest to them go unexpressed.
Actions beyond our own lives. Though this is the land of rugged individualism, and independence is what we are taught to exalt, it is really interdependence which allows us to survive and flourish. Ralph Nader said "If we don't spend enough time in our public citizen lives, we will never have truly happy private citizen lives." We must work on several levels at once, moving fluidly in and out of the personal, familial, societal, political, and corporate arenas.
For too long we have fallen prey to the expert syndrome. We are supposed to be experts before venturing an opinion in a particular field. Most people don't paint or draw after the primary grades, because they're not "artists." Most don't enter into spirited discussions on the economy, because they're not economists. And we're not supposed to object to all the money still going into nuclear weapons, because we're not defense analysts. Yet, all it takes is common sense to see what's happening to our lives and to the planet.
Stress and hurry are the hallmarks of our time. Yet, the core of life is simple. We are called to take care of ourselves, keep our bodies healthy, and develop our own unique gifts with zest—even passion. We are called to spend time with those we love, being kindly and helpful, taking care not to discourage or humiliate. And we are called to do something in the broader community to make the world a better place than we found it.
This is neither easy nor hard. It merely involves taking a small step each day. Nothing grandiose. Just consistent actions.
The Native American four-fold path, as taught by Angeles Arrien, has a lot to offer us in these times. The first step is to show up: be where you need to be when you need to be there. The second step is to be aware: identify as much as possible what you are bringing to the situation—thoughts, emotions, assumptions, judgments, expectations. Tune in to the environment, too, and to what your and other peoples' physical condition and state of mind seem to be. Third, speak your truth without blame or judgment. Your truth is simply that: the consummation of your own thoughts and experiences. It is not eternal truth, or the "right" or "only" truth. Offer it as a perspective that may help others decide what is most appropriate for them at that moment. Fourth, let go of outcome. Perhaps this is the most difficult. We live under the illusion not only that we can control others but also that it is good to manipulate a situation to our own ends. Yet, we cannot really control anyone but ourselves (and often we can't even do that!).
For too long we've emphasized freedom in this country and forgotten responsibility. We've organized our time and our lives around the pleasure principle, instead of around true happiness and joyful service.
In these times, we have the privilege of awakening. While we have been anesthetized watching "the good life" on TV, fear, anger, and alienation have grown too strong in the land. Yet there is room for optimism. Getting in touch with the deep silent spaces within ourselves, coming together with hearts and minds, we can change the face of our communities, our nation, and the world.
Questions For Reflection
* What part of modern life is most raw to you?
* Do you feel deeply listened to? By whom?
* What stories do you hunger to know? To share?
* What part does selfless service play in your life?
Chapter Two
Ellen Schwartz
The Gift That Keeps On Taking
how the bottom-line mentality is bottoming out our lives and the planet
Economic globalization is shifting power away from governments responsible for the public good and toward a handful of corporations and financial institutions driven by a single imperative—the quest for short-term financial gain. This has concentrated massive economic and political power in the hands of an elite few ... Faced with pressures to produce greater short-term returns, the world's largest corporations are downsizing to shed people and functions.... It is becoming increasingly difficult for corporate managers to manage in the public interest, no matter how strong their moral values and commitment. —David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. —Edward Abbey
There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world. —Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce
There is enough for everybody's need, but not for anybody's greed. —Mahatma Gandhi
A HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE TODAY MIGHT WELL POSE THE QUESTION: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a disparager of corporations and consumerism?"
Our American Way of Life inseparably fuses with corporations and consumerism, and neither the media nor our political "leaders" are willing to take on the dark side of these powerful, omnipresent forces. We see occasional articles that hit the mark but little aggressive or sustained criticism. In fact, the only place we find "family values" in corporate America is on television commercials for laundry detergents and long distance phone service.
How has this come to be, and what does it all mean? What is the corporate framework of our technological society doing to us?
How does it impact our bodies and spirits to live in a country where every town is starting to look the same, with its Office Max and Citibank, McDonald's and Exxon? To live in houses in suburbs where we have to get in the car and burn gas to buy a loaf of bread or a book? To know that our natural environment is being chopped down and paved over as fast as developers can get to it? To be working longer hours and still not be able to keep up with the bills? To be afraid of the night, the dark and the sounds, because of the random and brutal crime images that pervade evening newscasts?
Can Corporations Be Compassionate?
Corporate products, processes, and structures impinge upon almost every aspect of our existence. Many of us think that if only more compassionate and broad-minded people could be in positions of top management, corporations would be more responsive and responsible. However, Jerry Mander points out in his leading edge book, In the Absence of the Sacred, that management must follow corporate law:
U.S. corporate law holds that management of publicly held companies must act primarily in the economic interests of shareholders. If not, management can be sued by shareholders and firings would surely occur. So managers are legally obliged to ignore community welfare (e.g., worker health and satisfaction, environmental concerns) if those needs interfere with profitability. And corporate managers must also deny that corporate acts have a negative impact of any kind, if that impact might translate into costly damage suits that hinder profits.
Does this seem too extreme to be true? Do you remember Bhopal? Mander recaps the story:
In 1986, Union Carbide Corporation's chemical plant in Bhopal, India accidentally released methyl isocynate into the air, injuring some 200,000 people and killing more than 2,000. Soon after the accident the chairman of the board of Union Carbide, Warren M. Anderson, was so upset at what happened that he informed the media that he would spend the rest of his life attempting to correct the problems his company had caused and to make amends. Only one year later, however, Mr. Anderson was quoted in Business Week as saying that he had "overreacted," and was now prepared to lead the company in the legal fight against paying damages and reparations. What happened? Very simply, Mr. Anderson at first reacted as a human being. Later, he realized (and perhaps was pressed to realize) that this reaction was inappropriate for a chairman of the board of a company whose primary obligations are not to the poor victims of Bhopal, but to shareholders; that is, to its profit picture. If Mr. Anderson had persisted in expressing his personal feelings or acknowledging the company's culpability, he certainly would have been fired.
CEO Greed and the Declining Standard of Living
Mander continues, in The Case Against the Global Economy, "Corporate ideology, corporate priorities, corporate styles of behavior, corporate value systems, and corporate modes of organization have become synonymous with our way of life."
What does this mean? What are the connections and consequences that are never broached by the talking heads on TV? The growth of poverty in our midst and the increasingly difficult time the middle class is having making ends meet are a direct effect of the astronomical increases in CEO compensation and shareholder gains, as well as politically influenced changes in the tax code.
In 1978, CEOs of large corporations made approximately 60 times more pay than their average worker. By 1997, that ratio had risen to 189:1. The 1998-99 version of The State of Working America by Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, confirms the lowering of living standards for the majority of Americans. For most people, compensation (wages plus benefits) fell between 1989 and 1997, with men experiencing a 7.8% drop. Looking at wages alone, between 1989 and 1997, the average hourly wage for men with a high school diploma and one to five years of work experience fell 7.4%; for comparable women, real wages fell 6.1%.
Much of the conventional economic analysis argues that a college degree is a prerequisite to participating in the new technology-driven economy. Yet the hourly wages of entry-level college graduates fell about 7% for both males and females between 1989 and 1997. Even newly hired engineers and scientists earned, respectively, 11% and 8% less than their counterparts in 1989 (adjusted for inflation). Mathematics and computer science graduates made modest gains, earning 5% more than the 1989 wage scale.
Looking at actual wages paid across the board, 28.6% of American workers earn less than $7.79 per hour—the amount it takes to lift a family of four above the poverty line with full-time, full-year employment. An additional 14.4% earn between $7.80 and $9.99 per hour. Only 57% of the American workforce earns $10 or more per hour.
Working people got a slight reprieve in 1998 when, at last, real wages grew 2.6% for the typical (50th percentile) worker. This gain was not simply the result of increased wages; the typical family worked 129 more hours than in 1989—the equivalent of 3 weeks of full-time work to achieve this boost. This while their labors were generating a 9% increase in productivity for their companies.
Did the productivity gain bring an increase in benefits? Not at all. Health insurance for those working in the private sector decreased from 70% in 1979 to 64.2% in 1997, while pension coverage went down from 51% to 47%.
Of course, the headlines in the business pages of the newspapers during the 1980s and 1990s were loudly proclaiming the good news of the stock market boom. The market's wildly rising prices, however, had little impact on working families, for the simple reason that the broad middle class does not own much stock. Almost 90% of all stock is owned by the wealthiest 10% of households; 60% of Americans own no stock at all. Eighty-six percent of the benefit of the 1989-1997 stock market increase went to the richest 10% of American households.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Taking Back Our Lives by Ellen Schwartz Suzanne Stoddard Copyright © 2000 by Ellen Schwartz and Suzanne Stoddard. Excerpted by permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword....................ixAcknowledgments....................xi
Part I How Corporate Structures, Products, and Processes Impact Our Work and Personal Lives....................1
Introduction....................3
Chapter 1 A Time of Turbulence when too much information keeps us from knowing the truth....................9
Chapter 2 The Gift That Keeps On Taking how the bottom-line mentality is bottoming out our lives and the planet....................15
Chapter 3 The Hidden Costs of Competition the heavy price we pay to win....................37
Chapter 4 This Is Entertainment? TV as purveyor of a culture of disrespect and promoter of a passive populace....................49
Chapter 5 Media, Girls, and Body Image how impossible images of physical perfection are making our girls sick....................67
Chapter 6 The Best Government Big Money Can Buy can a corporate-sponsored democracy serve the people?....................73
Chapter 7 What Do World Trade Agreements Have to Do with Me? globalization means equalizing down to the lowest common denominator....................87
Chapter 8 Time: A Nonrenewable Resource why we aren't finding time to live....................99
Chapter 9 Change and the Comfort Zone embracing risks that have been foisted upon us by life....................109
Chapter 10 What's an Inner Life and Who Needs It? trading fear for trust and planting seeds of loving-kindness....................115
Chapter 11 Flashpoints how our stresses play out in the family crucible, damaging those we love most....................121
Chapter 12 Nurturing What Is Precious finding new ways to communicate and connect with our loved ones....................127
Chapter 13 Meaningful Work livelihoods both personally satisfying and earth-friendly....................135
Chapter 14 Giving Time, Getting Joy life as a banquet for the servers....................153
Chapter 15 Together We Are Whole new ways to create a support network while beating the high cost of living....................165
Chapter 16 Paring Down Our Lives how less can be much more....................177
Chapter 17 What Is and What Can Be starting from wherever you are with a passionate consciousness....................181
Afterword Way More Fun than TV surefire ways to release your playful spirit....................185
Bibliography....................191
Endnotes....................195
Resources....................199
Index....................209
About the Authors....................223