A Mittens Morality Play

The first time I read David Korten's most recent book, Agenda For A New Economy, it was for his economic insights. I reread it for more of that-- plus moral instruction. Like this:

We humans are living out an epic morality play of five thousand years' duration, that pits good, that which serves life, against evil, that which destroys life. Good is represented by the forces of mutual caring, cooperation and responsibility in the service of life. Evil is represented by the forces of domination, unbridled competition, and individual greed in the service of money.


Individual greed surely will be with us so long as there are humans, but if we are to survive and prosper, we must recognize that greed is a sin, not a virtue-- a form of addiction and a sign of psychological dysfunction. Any public subsidy of persons so encumbered should be limited to payment for rehabilitation services as part of a national health care program.

Romneycare, of course, comes to mind. I think most people saw Mitt Romney as a rather mild-mannered, relatively inoffensive middle-of-the-road politician with an outsize hankering to become president. Then came his lashing out against the American people claiming that everyone is envious of him. Really? Envious? He dropped 20 points in the polls after he made that remark. Let him shove his Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands and Luxembourg tax havens up his ass. If the Mormons are ever going to fulfill their dream of seizing the White House, it's not going to be by spending all their money on Mitt Romney. They ought to get him some of those rehabilitation services. Korten sounds like he could well have been describing Willard "Mitt" Romney to a t when he wrote these words:

The "genius" for financial innovation and risk management that Wall Street regularly touts as its gift to the world consists mainly of finding new ways for an unethical trader to capture the profits from questionable financial transactions and shift the risk to others. The consequences for society are a revealing lesson in the importance of positive moral practice.