MAGA and the Ethics of Now
How short-term profits replaced history and tradition. (Democratic Vistas Newsletter, July 6, 2024)
Kenneth Burke published Attitudes Toward History in 1937. It was clearly written in reaction to what was then happening in Germany. As a pragmatist, Burke wanted to show that the best way to learn from history was to view it from as many perspectives as possible. If we tend to view history from a single perspective—for example, teleologically, as moving toward some end, like progress or justice—then, we are going to miss some of its lessons.
If we were writing a history of American since World War II, we might frame it as a steady progression toward equality or the aspirations—not the compromises—in the Declaration of Independence and our constitution. We could document a strong current of social movements: the Civil Rights movement, the antiwar movement, feminism, LBGTQ+ rights, political correctness, and MeToo. If we focus on these movements, it is easy to agree with Martin Luther King Jr. that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This view, however, obscures an equally powerful trend toward consolidating wealth and power, which has taken us to the precipice of losing out democracy.
Instead of attempting to do “big history” in this post, I want to look at a small slice of history. I want to look at how business ethics, not as taught in college seminars—that is, academic courses that instruct individuals on how to behave once they are hired by a corporation—but as inferred from the behavior of corporations and how executives justify business practice. I am following Burke’s lead here. I am not saying, “This is reality.” I am saying, “This is one way to think about reality.” A good word to describe Burke’s thinking is play. He is constantly playing with different perspectives.
So, please join me in a little bit of historical play.
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States dominated manufacturing because the infrastructure of many of other countries had been destroyed. It could be argued that US manufacturing had won the war. Ford stopped making cars and started making airplanes. During this era, business executives were willing to build companies over decades that would last beyond the foreseeable future, generation after generation. Employees thought about developing a career within the same company for fifty years, an entire adult lifespan, and then retiring into a comfortable middle-class home and eating Betty Crocker inspired meals, most of which involved opening a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Even when the company pushed for more profits, employees could rely on their union to even things out.
I don’t want to be too nostalgic here. In January 1953, Charles Wilson, President of General Motors, reportedly said: “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” Around 1969, in an undergraduate political science class, I remember one of my classmates quoting Wilson. Most of my classmates were horrified by the arrogance and myopia of a prominent businessman.
Wilson made the comment during a senate confirmation hearing. Eisenhower had nominated him to become the Secretary of Defense. Wilson held about $2.5 million in GM stock, and Senator Robert Hendrickson thought this might be a conflict of interest. The hearing was not open to the public, but reportedly Wilson said that there was no conflict between what was good for business, including GM, and what was good for the country. He was roundly attacked in the press, which at the time meant editorials in daily city newspapers. No immediate reactions on Twitter then.
Looking back, I am not so sure that Wilson’s comment was as deluded and narcissistic as we thought, way back in 1969. Now, I think his statement has a certain charm. As President of GM, Wilson was attempting to build a sustainable company that would make America a better place by providing jobs with a decent salary. He was certainly not altruistic, but at least he was thinking beyond short-term profits.
In the 1987 film Wall Street, Gordan Gekko said, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Even this phrase no longer shocks us. More recently, we witnessed Jeff Bezos ride into space in his penis-shaped rocket, and then, once his feet were safely back on terra firma, he thanked the employees of Amazon, many of whom are working physically debilitating jobs and living from paycheck to paycheck, for making it all possible. I am sure the employees of Amazon were touched by their boss’s kind thoughts.
It could be argued that Bezos is an old-fashioned businessman who is building a sustainable company. It could also be argued that the entire business model of Amazon is designed to eliminate competition (a throwback to the Robber Barons of the late-nineteenth century) and to maximize profits from all sources, both customers and employees (the Neoliberalism of the late-twentieth century, or the economic model of share-cropping and coal-mining with debt to the company store creating something close to slavery). I cannot imagine Bezos saying, “What is good for Amazon is good for the country.” I cannot even imagine him saying, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” I can imagine him saying something like, “Remove all the restraints on my business, and I will take humanity, or a small bit of it, some of my friends and me, to Mars.” Bezos and his peers are something different. They don’t attempt to justify their business behavior. It seems to have its own stasis, a self-regulating system that consumes history and leaves us alone with the now.
We might argue that the ideological statements by Wilson and his peers in the 1950s were self-serving, but at least they considered how their actions might have a positive impact on the future of the US and the lives of average Americans. It has been a while since I’ve heard this kind of justification, maybe decades.
What I hear and see, with some important exceptions, is a different kind of business ethics, if we could call it a system of ethics: the person (remember the Supreme Court ruled that a corporation had the status of a person) wants to increase short-term profits as the ultimate and only good. This means lower taxes, even at the expense of the “commonwealth,” that is, roads, education, healthcare, etc. It means short-term profits over long-term investments, even if this means breaking up a company that is making a profit to sell it as parts for a significant payout now. It is all about the now. It is the Ethics of Now.
We have been playing with a particular view of our history—that we have lost our connection to history, that we cannot see beyond the moment. What does this view help us to see. Business now operates on a different sense of time. The past, our national norms and democratic values, are ignored. Any vision of the future has reduced scope. Instead of looking ahead decades, the future has become as short as the nanoseconds it takes AI to make a trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
If we continue to play with this idea a bit longer, what are the implications? How do we see this approach to business driving other parts of our lives?
Why was Trump elected? He sold himself as a successful businessman. The ability to work a deal appears to be the skill that allows one to succeed in any job, even being president. Some investigative reporters argued that Trump is not even a good businessman, but the premise of his campaign—that a good businessman would make a good president—was broadly accepted.
What do we see if we view Trump through the Ethics of Now? Trump is often criticized for contradicting himself. Actually, he is perfectly consistent. He always says what he believes the mob wants to hear at that moment or what happens to satiate his immediate need at that moment, which is typically to inflate his greatness.
What about those non-MAGA Trump supporters? They are willing to ignore the dangers of Trump having a second term for lower taxes. Lower taxes mean more money now, even though it might mean a dictator as president.
What about the Supreme Court and its string of incomprehensible decisions this year? The SCOTUS decision on July 1, relating to Trump’s request for absolute immunity as president, whether in office or not, is about the now. If I understand the majority decision (I’m not a lawyer), they said that Trump was half right (he is immune for acts that are part of his duties as president) and half wrong (he is not immune for personal acts, whatever that is).
If the majority wanted to reach a decision that delayed prosecuting Trump for his role in the January 6th Insurrection (the motive behind this ruling seems to be about Trump, not future presidents) or fantasize about grounds for a Trump appeal (what acts are presidential or personal will have to be determined), then they succeeded to fix the now (keep Trump out of jail) with no apparent thought for what Biden (or some other president, other than Trump) might do with his greatly expanded powers in the future. If Biden loses the election in November, could he send the military to seize all voting machines and have his extended family do a recount?
The SCOTUS decision on Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council (June 28) will greatly restrict the ability of governmental agencies to interpret and enforce laws. The majority apparently didn’t like agencies like the EPA making decisions about protecting the environment, so they weakened—maybe even gutted, we will see—all agencies that have done good in the past and would have done good in the future.
The conservative majority on the Supreme Court seems to be following the Steve Bannon playbook: Bannon wants to bring about “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” He wants to weaken all institutions and checks on an imperial presidency so that Trump, once he is reelected, will have no checks on his impulses. His impulses, not his will. The “will” implies some kind of connection to an integrated identity, to aspirational goals, to the past and future.
Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 propaganda film about Hitler was titled Triumph of the Will. If Bannon made a propaganda film about Trump, it should be titled Triumph of the Impulse.
I will end this session of historical play here, saving comments on better approaches to ethics for later. Let me end with stating what should be obvious in a moment when the obvious is often obscured: An ethics that only deals with the now is no ethics at all.