Ruthless business culture enables CEO tyrants
In his book “How Did We Get into This Mess?”, environmentalist George Monbiot calls attention to the self-attribution fallacy.
This is the claim made by many egocentric business leaders that their worldly success is the result of hard work, intelligence and creativity. In other words, “crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible”.
In fact, “bluff, bullshit and bullying” are more likely the common reality. Other “psycho-drivers” include a lack of empathy and conscience, and being enormous skilled at flattery, manipulation, exploitation and general ruthlessness. And let’s not forget the ever-popular corporate CEO mantra: “Corruption enables opportunity”. Such pleasant people, some of them!
As for the rest of us, we are only deemed worthy of worshipping these mythical, superhuman dukes of wealth-creation, who in fact are the psychopathic bankrupters of the modern world order (except, of course, for what they’ve grabbed for themselves in terms of richness and self-delusion).
“Their acolytes, in academia, the media, think-tanks and government [have] created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other peoples’ wealth,” writes Monbiot. That some of them have even captured the hearts and minds of the regulators and tax authorities is indicative of the immoral global sewage farm in which we all now try to survive.
So, with all that in mind, “challenging executive oligarchs” – it could be “oppressors”, “overlords” or “overindulgence” – is my own personal mission for 2017. What’s yours?
John Shepherd
