Greed is greed

Sacrifice Zones - a comic book
Bill Moyers on Sacrifice Zones
My friend, the self-proclaimed progressive on the West Coast, posted the above link about a comic book (I am sorry a graphically illustrated book that he unfortunately referred to as a non-fiction graphic novel, which I was very hesitant to point out was an oxymoron, because a novel always is fiction, but I decided that discretion was the better part of valor on that point) that offers a scathing attack on what it calls “corporate greed.”
I find this funny for two reasons. Yes, corporations can be “greedy” but that is because they are run by people, who can be greedy. Hello, when were corporations being run by saints? Come to think of it, when was just about anything in today’s world being run by saints (Mother Theresa excepted)? I guess I find it funny that anyone thinks humans aren’t greedy.  Maybe I am too cynical, but self-interest is too deeply ingrained in human nature to believe the altruism is more than a veneer on the patina of what we call civilized behavior.
I am sorry, but the examples apparently cited in the comic book (as explained by the Bill Moyers’ site also linked above) fail to point out that in most of those cases the industries that were savaged happened to be industries that were failing. It was not necessarily because of corporate “greed” (although that probably had played a role in it) but because the technology, products, etc., were being supplanted by others in the global marketplace.
It is interesting to note that a lot of the heavy industries, such as steel and other manufacturing plants, probably were among the most polluting in the country. Are we not supposed to be glad that they are gone? Much of the problem in Appalachia is that the coal industry is dying. Not that we don’t need the coal, per se, but because coal is not currently in favor as a source of energy because … well, it takes a lot to keep it from polluting the atmosphere. So, those greedy corporations, who mine the coal and use it to run power plants, and used to use it run steel mills and all sorts of other defunct plants in the rust belt, basically are finding it a very hostile business environment these days. So, is it the greedy corporations fault they no longer are in business or is there possibly some other factors at play here. It is easier to blame the greedy corporations.
However, are all corporations greedy? The way that it is portrayed by those who proclaim to be progressives, the answer is yes. And all those obscenely rich folks who manage them need to be taken down a lot of pegs and their wealth redistributed to the people at the lower end of the economic scale.
Still, it makes me giggle that people like Bill Moyers, probably one of the richer “journalists” that I have ever encountered (and I did many, many, many years ago), make this plea to help those in poverty. I mean, I don’t begrudge him his wealth, but I was taught long ago that if you want to lead, you do so by personal example. That doesn’t mean hectoring people from your bully pulpit to do more for the poor or trying to right all the wrongs in the world by taking from some people to give to others.
Now, my old high school classmate apparently has had a fairly tough go of things. I mean he tells me he is a two-time cancer survivor (which is why he hates health insurance companies, I guess). But then again, he is the chief operating officer (or so it says on the web site of his corporation) of an apparently successful computer gaming company. He also has a home apparently in the country (he always is bragging about his fowl) as well, apparently, a condominium in the nearest big city (just did a little research on the building: The smallest condo is a little over 700 square feet and goes for a quarter million dollars, while there are condos in the building that go for up to $2.5 million, according to the city MLS service).
I think it is great that he can afford such digs. I know that I never would have been able to do so, even in my wildest dreams. So, I find it funny that he advocates all these things for the downtrodden, while being a corporate executive himself (note that I never said, nor ever would, say that he is greedy), while I, on the other hand, who have never been a corporate executive (just a mid and somewhat senior level manager at companies that were not always incorporated but usually were), take the position that more people should take responsibility for their own lives and the lumps that come with it.
I hope you find that a bit humorous as well.
But then, you see, I didn’t stay out in California or move to a nice neighborhood in Oregon. I went to live in in “fly-over country” like small farming communities in Kansas and Texas, and lived in a variety of not very big towns across the South and Appalachia, where we usually were saying “Thank God for Mississippi” (sometimes it was Louisiana, depending on what ranking you were talking about). I guess, what I am saying is that I have seen the underbelly of the U.S. and take a different perspective on it than West Coast progressives do.
So, people like the authors of that comic book who hail from New York or Los Angeles can say what they want, but they have no clue what it is like to watch fields burn in the sun of a drought or old mills close because no matter how hard the corporate scallywags try to salvage something, they just no longer can compete.
I can remember listening to Roger Milliken, a textile baron in South Carolina who died in 2010 and was worth, supposedly, about a $1 billion (according to Forbes), lament as he pulled the plug on mill towns all across the area where I lived. He blamed it on “foreign” competition (while he was investing overseas).
Still, the biggest battle I had was trying to convince the leaders in my community that the old mill culture, however wonderful it had been, was dying and the time had come to get ready for the 21^st century. They still are trying to grapple with those changes.
Was Milliken greedy? I don’t know. But I do know a) he made a lot of money with his private corporation and spread a lot of money into things the “good” people of the Upstate of South Carolina thought were appropriate and b) the mill culture finally died.