One More Day Alive

Profit and public responsibility, or at least accountability, are not unrelated. In fact, maybe they are inexorably connected to each other.  But don’t just take my word for it.

The recent backlash over proposed new debit card fees by banks in America is the perfect example. The fact that those banks finally listened to the protestations of their customers is the best news yet for the future of America – and the future of capitalism.

Because the last two years have been a real test for business in America making many wonder if capitalism would survive the backlash of public protests.

But the reality is that outside of a few wacky extremists crying for outright socialism most Americans don’t oppose capitalism or profits. What they are fed up, and rightfully so, is the proliferation of unfettered GREED and the rise of an embarrassingly irresponsible corporate culture of selfishness!

Case in point: the debit card fee fiasco. This all began in September after Bank of America foolishly decided to try to nickel and dime the American public (the same American public who bailed them out with a huge stimulus just a few years ago) by adding a $5-a-month fee to use debit cards. Other banks soon announced they would do the same.

Within a few months there was a huge public outcry from customers with many threatening to leave en masse. All this finally made all the banks including Bank of America reverse their decision.

Now obviously these banks changed their minds because they realized that in this particular situation they stood to lose customers. And that would cost them more profit in the long run than they would make in the short run by adding the fees.

But maybe this is more than just an isolated case. Maybe it means that corporate America is remembering the bottom line of capitalism is not just dollars, but SENSE too – common sense that says that caring about people, about the world around you will improve your profits. That’s because people are more apt to work for and buy from companies that are nice instead of nasty.  It is proven time and time again.

Henry Ford, one of the greatest, and most successful, capitalists in American history – the father of the assembly line – purposely raised his employees’ salaries more than he needed to in order to enable them to buy his cars.  That wasn’t just because he was a nice guy. He knew it would create generations of Ford Customers that would inevitably in the long run earn the company much more than it cost in the short run. But the byproduct of that was he made a whole lot of employees happier and better off too, and he was probably the happier for it as well!

Now I do not think it is government’s responsibility to make these companies act morally. (The exception is when the whole game is rigged for instance in the case of collusion or monopoly.) We need free will and free markets in order for moral decisions to be possible. God does not make us do the right thing, and neither should government.  

I truly believe eventually the people will get tired of being taken advantage of, and they will rise up and make these companies do the right thing with the power of their wallets.

But if everything I have said is true then it begs the question: Why have there been so many short-sighted selfish companies in the last few decades in America? 

The answer is simple – stupidity!  If everyone (the companies, the employees and the consumers) prospers more in the long run, by running a considerate and socially responsible business, then only a fool would do differently.

But thank God some of those fools are beginning to wise up.

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