Greed

Greed.

It’s an ugly, hideous word. It defines and describes some of the very worst parts of our fallen human nature. Greed is the excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions. Many of us have looked at CEOs and big company executives and condemned them for their greed in accepting and rewarding themselves with tens of millions of dollars in bonuses and income, even while the companies that they are responsible for lie in ruins and exist now only after receiving a taxpayer bailout.

Rightly so.

In my own industry, the CEO of the company is rarely someone who has worked his way up through the ranks. In fact most of the ‘engineering’ companies that I know are actually run by businessmen; people who have never even studied engineering.

This is a problem.

The culture has moved away from the idea that captains of industry are men who rose to their levels through monumental achievements, sacrificial hard work, and an inspirational spirit that naturally entitles them to leadership. Modern CEOs and company presidents are educated at prestigious universities; enter the corporate structure as a junior executive, and ‘claw their way to the top’ at corporate cocktail parties and company junkets. They never go through challenges that really prove their mettle. They are not refined in the daily fire of production, or purified through the technical challenges of a crisis. They’re young. They’re ambitious. They’re wooed by big money and a fancy life. They feel deserving of their high pay because of their title, rather than their battle scars. This is a mistake that corporations are paying for; a mistake that as taxpayers, we are paying for. It is a path that is an affront to our history and contrary to our best interests.

What’s the answer?

Is it increased federal regulation? Is it hard limits on the pay of corporate executives? Is it a crushing and punitive tax system?

How can the government be the answer to this problem, when the political model of the government varies little if at all from that of our flawed corporate giants?

How can government be the answer when their lust for power and sense of entitlement surpasses even those of the most brazen CEOs?

Government can not cure this disease because the government is showing even more advanced indicators of this debilitating plague.

So what is the answer?

The people.

Not because we are free from the illness of greed and entitlement, but because our position has slowed the progress of it.

Our country needs a mental check. What are our motives? What are our values? Do we work to gain ‘more stuff’ or do we labor to build something great and provide for the health and well being of those we love? Do we honor our word? Do we hold ourselves responsible for our commitments and decisions? Do we seek to help others? Do we reach out to the hurting, or complain that the government isn’t doing enough?

This is a time for the people of this country to ask some difficult questions of themselves and of their leadership. Will we vote for those who are bent on power because they are flashy and exciting? Or will we stand by the candidates who seek their positions out of a sense of responsibility; that fear their own motives and question their own real purposes?

If we follow our eyes and make personal and political judgments based on feelings and scorn the wisdom that calls out for out attention, we will be like a tree that upon rising to the splendor of all that it could be, suddenly pulled up its roots and abandoned the fertile soil from which it rose, only to topple at the next wind of adversity.