[Dialogue] Save the Internet

Mon May 1 12:03:21 EDT 2006

Hi John and other replyers,

It is good to hear from you John, and most of what you
have to say makes great sense to me.  However, I am
not certain how the streategies you suggest work
concretely in today's USA.  Most of us have beceome so
aware that todays  corporations simply buy what they
want from the congress and the administration.  On the
very local scene we commonly call it graft or bribery.
 It seems that nationally there seems to be nothing
the individual can do about it.  It is difficult to
marshall enough telephone calls and emails  to members
of congress to even make a dent, much less cause a
change in direction.  I believe this is real.  It is
the wedding of the Congress and the Corporations which
bothers me most.

I hope you and some others reply.
Thanks again!

Charles Hahn

--- John Epps <jlepps at pc.jaring.my> wrote:

> Hello George and other colleagues who are welcome in
> on this dialogue.
> 
> It's a real treat to be able to clarify some
> thinking with you. So here goes:
> 
> For some time, I've been working with "big
> businesses." It has come to gall 
> me when I hear people whom I respect and whose
> values I share speaking as 
> if "big business" were the demonic force causing all
> the pain we all 
> experience. I'd be the last to claim that business
> organizations are 
> blame-free, and, to be sure, some are indeed
> demonic. They are, however, 
> the clear minority. Most are well-intentioned,
> honest endeavors to make 
> life more liveable.
> 
> A clear misunderstanding, which I am opposing in the
> graduate business 
> course I'm teaching, is that the purpose of business
> is to make money. That 
> is not true.  Despite the opinions of Milton
> Friedman, that view is a 
> definite minority among business scholars (yes,
> there are some). The 
> purpose of business is to create value (i.e.,to
> provide goods or services 
> that people value enough to pay for), and the
> measure of its success is 
> profit. As Peter Drucker, Charles Handy, and others
> say, claiming the 
> purpose of business is to make money is like saying
> the purpose of life is 
> to eat. We must eat to live, but eating is not the
> purpose of life. It 
> enables us to pursue a more valuable purpose. We
> find that helping people 
> clarify the real purpose of their business is very
> motivating, and touches 
> the desire most of us have to make a difference with
> our work.
> 
> Business organizations, just like religious
> organizations, are finite, 
> fallible, and clearly imperfect -- just like the
> best of us. They're 
> neither more nor less to blame for social ills than
> anyone else. It's just 
> that waiting for the perfect organization to come
> along would entail a VERY 
> long wait. We make do with what we have, and, as H.
> R. Neibuhr suggests, we 
> attempt to be the sensitive and responsive part of
> that organization, 
> working for its continual transformation.
> 
> The comment about the institution of slavery is
> absolutely correct: it was 
> evil. But calling it an institution is pretty
> abstract, sort of like 
> calling Christianity an institution. It is, in some
> way of talking, but 
> that doesn't provide anything concrete enough to get
> a handle on. Anyway, I 
> was talking about organizations, not institutions in
> that sense. There is a 
> difference.
> 
> I totally share your views on the Religious Right
> and their perversions of 
> morality. I'm not suggesting that morality is simply
> an individual matter. 
> In fact, business ethics (not quite a contradiction
> in terms) is an 
> important topic coming more to the forefront after
> Enron, etc.
> 
> So I hope we can put some energy into making good
> use of "big business" as 
> an ally rather than as an enemy. A useful metaphor
> comes from the Chinese, 
> "Lure the tiger out of the mountains" as a
> stratagem. It's built on the 
> insight that when you go tiger hunting, you don't do
> it in the turf of the 
> tiger. That's the way to get eaten. You "lure the
> tiger out of the 
> mountains" so that you have a fair chance. In an
> abstract sense, that means 
> for strategy, if you don't have the advantage, your
> only agenda is to get 
> the advantage. Anything else is a prescription for
> failure.
> 
> We translate that to mean getting the opponent to
> become an ally. A silly 
> example is the department staff that wanted to buy
> an expensive piece of 
> equipment, but were opposed by the finance officer.
> They had the 
> demonstrator model installed in the office of the
> opponent, who experienced 
> the benefit and quickly became an advocate. What do
> you suppose it would 
> take for "big business" to perceive the value of
> continuing the free 
> Internet? Maybe it would not be the telecom
> companies that would be the 
> ally, but they could certainly be "outvoted" by
> other industries that 
> routinely use the Internet for normal everyday
> operations.
> 
> These are just some ruminations, and I'd welcome
> response.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> John Epps
> 
> At 08:34 AM 4/29/2006 -0500, you wrote:
> >Perhaps you are right, however I have noticed that
> small people, of which 
> >I am one, can act very immorally in mobs, something
> they would not do on 
> >their own, and that in 1884 a Federal District
> judge in the U.S. made 
> >corporations individuals in law.  Also, there
> appears to me to be evil 
> >conveyed in and through institutions, e.g. the
> institution of slavery, 
> >which speaking ethically, goes far beyond what a
> small person can 
> >contribute and the practices, images,
> understandings can be perpetuated 
> >far beyond that small person for generations.  The
> right wing religious in 
> >the U.S. have tried to put the whole of morality on
> individual 
> >responsibility, which is aptly applied in specific
> instances, but they 
> >readily ignore these principles as a group when it
> comes to issues of 
> >poverty and the distribution of wealth and taxes.
> >
> >Having attempted to work through the political
> process at the state level, 
> >it occurs to me that all the people I meet are good
> and decent folks as 
> >people, but when vote time comes their decisions
> are made on the basis of 
> >corporate interests, which they even admit
> sometimes in private not the 
> >best thing to do.
> >
> >–george
> >
> >
> >On Apr 29, 2006, at 4:55 PM, John Epps wrote:
> >
> >>George:
> >>
> >>The villains aren't large companies, but small
> people.
> >>
> >>At 07:17 AM 4/28/2006 -0500, you wrote:
> >>>The following article highlights an upcoming
> threat to our communication 
> >>>abilities and the first in a series of moves by
> the large companies to 
> >>>use congress to control the flow of information
> and make much more money 
> >>>off the internet.  We've had extensive battles in
> the Texas legislature 
> >>>to prevent the major telecom and cable companies
> from inserting laws on 
> >>>the books forbidding cities from putting up
> wireless networks, which 
> >>>have become necessary for small towns to retain
> their assembly plants 
> >>>and warehouses, since the majors won't serve
> them.
> >>>–george holcombe
> >>>
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