Integrity and its Role in Constructive Combat of Corporate Power by United Citizens

Today I was sworn in as a member of the South Carolina Bar. Tomorrow I will be making an argument before a judge at one of the courts here in the Fifth Judicial Circuit. I am very thankful for the many opportunities I will have to speak on behalf of those, who, like me, were not born into this world with a silver spoon and who, unlike me, face far more difficult conditions, daily, than most of us could understand or appreciate. An overwhelming majority of my clients will be low-income (or no income) African-American men and women. This fact says something about the state of America. For one, it says that the idyllic notion of an “American dream” is much more a fiction and fantasy than anything else. It also says that the notion of “American exceptionalism” will find little support in the annals of history. I can quote you passages from historians writing of the Roman Empire 2000 ago, and you would think those words were written about an American Empire 2000 years later, they are so on point; in the days ahead I will share with you these writings and more -- they say something compelling about the rise and fall of empires, as well as the state of humanity. Finally, the fact that an overwhelming majority of my clients are poor black men and women, says something about the state of American business and of American politics that caters to it. American policy, shaped by business leaders, has supported a maximum profit orientation whereby the procurement of the cheapest labor is the name of the game. As a consequence, factories and manufacturing facilities, once good jobs for the average American household, were sent overseas and leaving behind a huge opportunity vacuum for urban workers here. I have been around inner city neighborhoods much in my adult life, and I can tell you from firsthand observation that such destructive American policies have created communities around this nation that are absolutely explosive. State and federal government can continue seeking funds to expand the prison system in a never-ending attempt to quell the volatile condition of these communities, but this policy is not sustainable. Either we change the way business is done in this nation, or this nation will one day feel the wrath from a people facing no hope, forgotten and left behind by global stock market capitalism.

This leads me to today’s discussion. In the previous entry, the analogy of a sailboat was used to invoke three principles that are necessary to compel a craft, as well as a movement, forward: rational and responsible direction, harnessed and applied power, and structural integrity. Remove any one of these three, and it is impossible to move a craft, or a movement, from point A to point B. (Any number of other entities also require direction, power, and integrity -- a nation, an organization, an institution, a company, a community, for example.) So far, more has been said on what is NOT a responsible and rational course of action, than what is. But in eliminating those options that are fundamentally flawed, a more productive option stands out. A right and responsible course of action in the context of public affairs is one that seeks to lead to a more just, more equitable, more peaceful, more sustainable result. This broad paint stroke requires further defining and sharpening. When the discussion of the short history of the American business corporation is picked back up and brought up to the present, at that time certain specifics will emerge.

As for the role of power, it was pointed out previously that no amount of rational discourse or moral persuasion is capable of wresting power from the grip of an entity enjoying superior power positioning. Groups with superior power only relinquish degrees of power when compelled by some form of force; not necessarily violence, but force nonetheless. This fact does not devalue the importance of rational discourse or ethical debate. Modern history has offered ample examples of how power is amplified and sustained by virtue of it being linked to superior rational and ethical positions; it finds validation when accompanied by rationality and justice. Power lacking justice, morality, and responsibility, is most frequently ferocious, ruthless, and ultimately, deficient and destructive. Power linked with justice on the other hand, has staying power; its acceptance by the people provides power sustainability.

I wish to share a few more thoughts on the subject of integrity in this entry. Of the three, integrity is the most difficult for us to wrap our minds around -- yet it is the most important of the three. Sticking with the analogy of a sailboat, if you’ve ever gone sailing or if you have ever seen one in action or if you can imagine, where are your eyes most frequently drawn? The sails, and what lies ahead on the horizon, right? The human eye is generally drawn to power source, and to direction. Our attention is rarely drawn to the hull of the craft; only if water starts gushing in from below, then most definitely, but otherwise, once we are in the boat and moving, little mind is ever given to the hull. One reason for this of course, is because the hull doesn’t stand out naturally in our view when we have a beautiful sail and gorgeous horizon directly in sight. Who stares at a simple wooden hull when there are so many other more interesting things to look at? Another reason ought to be the fact that we have checked the hull thoroughly before putting the craft into the water. This prior inspection gives us a sense of sureness so that once we step into the boat we feel pretty good that it isn’t going to take on water and sink. While it may be the most overlooked part of the craft while in operation, the hull is the most important part of the boat. Direction can be changed, a power source can be interchanged, but without a structurally sound hull, there is neither harnessed power or progressed direction. I conclude, that a nation, a community, a company, an organization, an institution, or a movement, without structural integrity ceases to be a nation working toward direction, a community moving toward a way, a company progressing toward a goal, an organization striving toward an end, an institution reaching toward an objective, or a movement acting toward a dream. Structural integrity is fundamental and foundational to a sustainable entity; direction may be changed, power sources interchanged, but without integrity neither the latter has effect nor the former attained.

The hull represents the structural integrity of the craft -- without structural integrity, no amount of right direction or applied power matters. But the hull does more than simply hold the rudder and the sail together as part of an integrated operating unit. The shape, size and strength of the hull actually expands the capability of the craft’s direction (i.e. expanding what waters it is capable of traversing) as well as determine how much force it can handle. Can a super-sized mainsail attached to a super-tall mast function on a tiny two-person boat? Even if the large mainsail could be unfurled on such an odd looking craft, the slightest breeze would topple the boat end over end into the water. How much power the craft can handle is directly linked to the size, shape, and strength of the hull. Moreover, the size, shape, and strength of the hull directly dictate how far the craft can be taken, and how efficiently it can get there. Would you take a tiny two-person sail to circumnavigate the globe? The mightiest open seas would swiftly swallow up such a puny craft. Even stout ships have difficulty traversing the open seas, but a weak craft has no chance. I submit, that integrity in life and in movements and in organizations is no different. Not only is integrity necessary to hold things together and link power and direction as part of an operational unit, the extent of structural integrity directly determines how much force it can withstand and how much it can apply, and what direction and how far and how efficiently it can get there. Integrity is foundational and fundamental to life.

But what exactly does integrity mean in the context of a public square dominated by enormous global corporations that possess the controls of government, and where the voice of the citizen is rapidly being drowned out? What exactly does integrity mean in the context where global stock market capitalism has had as one of its key traits the practice of ever expanding the pay differential between the executive class and the working class? What exactly does integrity mean in the context where algorithms and super computers manipulate trading activity, taking advantage of the limitations of average everyday investors such that the market begins resembling more a casino than a trustworthy investment mechanism? What exactly does integrity mean in the context where a marginally successful private owner takes a company public and at the benefit of enormous sums of public equity, becomes an instant billionaire? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of large banking institutions after having made a series of failed bets and facing ultimate collapse, were able to manipulate governments in such a way that trillions of public dollars were used to pay off bad bank debts? What exactly does integrity mean when the same bankers then turnaround and pay themselves the largest bonuses in Wall Street history? What exactly does integrity mean when the same bankers, after having just received massive bailouts to compensate for their massive bonuses, then advise the public that it is time for the general public to accept austerity measures and reduce public services for lower income families? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of corporations being awarded by Wall Street for “gaining efficiencies” because for them it means increased profit margins, when what it frequently means to the rest of us on Main Street is that in the process of gaining efficiencies and expanding profit margins, manufacturing was sent to cheap labor camps in third world countries at the expense of paying workers a fair rate? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of a system fundamentally bent toward maximizing consumption for short-term business growth when in the process valuable resources and ecosystems are brought to the brink of total exhaustion? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of a system that says greed is good when every giant of the intellectual, moral, and religious universe has argued the exact opposite? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of a legal system that equates the corporation with a living, breathing human being? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of corporations flush with tons of cash on the balance sheets, while working families are financially strapped and unemployment is on the rise? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of interest rates being manipulated for the sole purpose of enticing citizens to spend more money instead of saving? What exactly does integrity mean when the net result of artificially low interest rates is increased net wealth for corporations and decreased net wealth for citizens? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of political dialogue owned by corporations, having as its aim to present the most extreme voices and radical candidates on television, resulting in heated but empty rhetoric and ultimate political stalemate such that nothing of actual substance and of real change ever gets accomplished? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of cities filled with urban poor, a people born into an environment of hopelessness, born out of a history of enslavement and disenfranchisement, with little hope of a good education, with little hope of a decent job, with little hope of ownership in affordable housing, with little hope of adequate health and medical care, with little hope of sufficient nourishment? What exactly does integrity mean in the context where war is a profit boon for the corporate dominated military complex? What exactly does integrity mean in the context when an increasing number of the largest global corporations have more financial and political clout than a majority of the world’s nations not to mention its citizens? What exactly does integrity mean when what matters most for global business operating in emerging markets such as China and Vietnam is increasing consumer demand and not citizen rights? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of corporations being afforded critical constitutional protections and yet are incapable of comprehending the price paid for such rights and protections? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of a system where cheap labor has been a steady hallmark -- from the use of slaves, to cheap immigrant labor, to cheap illegal immigrant labor, to cheap third world labor? What exactly does integrity mean in the context of a political system where the floodgates of corporate dollars have now been broken wide open for the purpose of driving up the cost of running for political office such that only those who have a chance at winning are those willing to do the bidding of the corporations, or, those who can afford to spend their on fortunes because they have done the bidding of corporations their entire adult life?

I can go on forever.

Integrity in the context of citizens organizing to counter the power of corporations, means to be made strong by time-tested intellectual, moral, and religious giants of human history and by the testing of the spirit and of character that comes from serving the ends of the poor and powerless. This building-up process that is focused on the rational mind, responsible character, and spiritual force, when used to increase durability and expandability of organized citizens, can harness tremendous power and apply awesome force toward a common good -- to fight for a more equitable pay scale, fight for increased ownership, fight for increased minority-holding shareholder rights, fight for increased consumer protections, fight for the right of workers to organize without reprimand, fight for increasing the voice of living-breathing citizens in the political process and softening the volume of so-called corporate citizens, fight for an adequate safety net for impoverished citizens left out and left behind by capitalism, fight for affordable and adequate health and medical care, fight for proper nourishment, fight for protections of finite resources and eco-systems, fight for equitable pay. Absent this deliberate building-up process, our fight is feeble. Currently, we have no fight. We have no fight because we have no integrity. We have allowed ourselves to be led by mental and moral weaklings and spiritual darlings. We are completely subdued by a TV culture that numbs our senses and dumbs our intellect; we are indeed, brain dead with a TV bullet in the head. We are barely recognizable as human, a notch above the dogs, maybe -- but even a dog knows when an intruder nears the house, and barks like hell.

The moral, intellectual, and spiritual giants of ages past concluded that the good life is that which seeks the right life. To be in the fight, to fight for what is right, for what is just, for what is equitable, for what is sustainable, such a life is the good life. If we are not living for these, if we are not fighting for that which promotes a better life for the weak and powerless, we are not actually living. We gain life only so far as we have lost our life for the sake of those who have not in life. Such is the life guided by what is right, is empowered by what is just, and has the strength to withstand adversity by virtue of integrity.

Intellectual integrity, the art of testing an intellectual position against other positions to determine the superiority of positions, is necessary for strength and sustainability. Through a TV culture, sadly we have lost the art of intellectual discourse and dialogue that is necessary to sharpen and define constructive positions. Somehow, this must be regained if we ever hope as a people to move society toward better policies and practices. Without intellectual discourse, ignorance runs hog wild among political leadership and the voting public making it all too easy for corporations to manipulate voting behavior with self-interested, shallow rhetoric and slogans. The people are angry at what is happening on Wall Street and in Washington… Yeah? So the fuck what. Wall Street and Washington can continue to do what it has been doing -- screwing you -- because they know you will not only take it, oddly and comically, you will fight among each other to protect the status quo of the bend-you-over-screwing. They know this because they know the American people are ignorant. Thus, a way to combat the cycle of the ignorant being led by the ignorant and to stop the screwing, is to increase rationality and intellectual discourse.

If the art of intellectual discourse cannot be regained in this TV culture -- and I do have serious doubts about this possibility -- then it may be necessary for those who have gone through the arduous process of intellectual testing and who seek to engage in constructive policymaking, to resort to the positive use of rhetoric and slogan-making for the purpose of exciting emotions of an impassioned but ignorant public. Can the use of simple rhetoric and catchy slogans be done sufficiently enough to maintain the integrity of the message? Given the complexity of the issues involved and the nuanced responses that are needed to address these, I have my doubts about whether over-simplification for the purpose of slogans is productive. Where ignorance is a wild fire, more is required than catchy slogans and cause-oriented rhetoric -- the spirit of a people must be moved. A moving of the spirit can reshape an attitude and redirect an action like no amount of rational discourse or rhetorical dispatches can.

A proper and productive moving of the spirit involves intellectual discipline and moral and ethical understanding -- but it involves more, including a constructive theological framework and a spiritual compass. Unfortunately, much of the American church, to use it as an example, has become intellectually, morally, and theologically ignorant, all for the sake of a “spiritual” experience; meanwhile, the remainder of the American church, while it may possess the faculties of reason and rationality and understand completely the theological underpinnings of justice, its spiritual impotence make it incapable of actually getting a people on fire for justice. With spiritual impotence dominating on one side and intellectual, moral, and theological ignorance dominating on the other, the American church has simply become a destructive source for those hoping to engage in constructive changemaking. For the church to regain an active and constructive role in bringing positive change, how religious leaders are trained must undergo a complete retooling. In ages past, the great universities provided an education that was not so compartmentalized as it is today. A young student could enter the great universities and expect a well-rounded education that included training in theology, law, and the humanities. Nowadays, some students go into a “bible college” and come out with a kumbaya spiritual tune, all the while lacking any capacity to think critically and rationally on matters of theology and the law. Other students go on to seminary to be trained to think critically and rationally in theology, dusting off the old classics by Luther, Calvin, and Barth, yet lack any practical sense of how things are actually accomplished through the art of politics and the practice of law. A good many other students go into the law and are well versed in statutes and case law and the art of argument and negotiation, but are without the ethical and theological backdrop giving such laws and argument moral and spiritual force. Finally, there are the many students who have no interest in the theologies and philosophies of ages past, nor have any interest in legal processes, and instead seek undergraduate and graduate degrees in business. And these eager students quickly learn that business leaders rise to the highest point of stature in society simply by doing one thing -- making more profit than the next guy. Moreover, they learn that the person who is king in business has the means to both pay off lawmakers and purchase airwaves for the aim of reshaping a mindset of a people through propaganda, redefining what is right and wrong, reinventing what is the good life.

In a society where corporations are kingmakers, it is easy to conclude that theologians or spiritual leaders are now of little effect. When I look across the religious spectrum of America, it is hard to argue with this conclusion. Using just the American church as an example (since I come from the Judeo-Christian tradition and it is one I am most familiar with), I see little difference if any between the ways of the church and the ways of Wall Street or Washington. The prominent preachers parading on TV are nothing more than pimps, pushers, and profiteers. These clowns are totally incapable of providing any spiritual or moral force to the problems of the present age. And what of the theologians? Here, there is a deadly entrenchment in old thought and outdated traditions, creating a stranglehold on America’s greatest divinity schools -- the very training grounds for America’s next generation of religious leaders and thinkers. In the halls of the libraries of these great divinity schools, you can find volumes upon volumes upon volumes of dusty works of old by religious leaders of old, debating the most insignificant details. In these same halls you will struggle to find a single useful volume on a practical, nuts and bolts approach to implementing a new strategic business paradigm that is capable of serving the ends of profit and purpose. Some might spend a couple hours a week in church… at most, while those people and many others spend the vast majority of the rest of their waking hours in the workplace -- it seems then, that if the church is to say anything worthwhile at all it ought to have more than a few words on that other 99% of human life that doesn’t entail singing “Jesus love me” tunes in a crusty old cathedral. Call me crazy.

Each day I walked down the halls of one of the great theological libraries, at Princeton Seminary, these words were always with me: “Hebel hebalim, all these things are hebel.” Hebel being a transliterated Hebrew word, that translated literally means vapor, that we have come to define as vanity… so, vapor of vapors, all these things are the most vaporous, or, vanity of vanities, all these things are most vane. These words from the book of Ecclesiastes were with me as I walked among those dusty volumes because I saw not a living word capable of speaking to the real, nuts and bolts, brick and mortar powers of this age -- the corporate power that dominates the public square. It is indeed hard to argue with the conclusion that the religious community has little value to offer to the problem solving process that we must engage in during this age of crisis.

But then… I am reminded of a Moses who led a politically impotent but spiritually powerful group out from the iron grip of Pharaoh’s mighty army, and I am reminded of a Jesus who declared to the Temple powers that the old ways of doing things are finished, and I am reminded of a Martin Luther who defied a Catholic empire, and I am reminded of a Gandhi who defied an English Empire, and I am reminded of a Malcolm X and a Martin Luther King who defied an American Empire. I know these stories well, and I conclude that those who brush off the spiritual leader or the theologian as no longer having effect, are ignorant of history, and more, ignorant of the way of humanity.

It is clearer than ever that business devoid of an ethical compass cannot be sustained. Responsible citizens united, girded by intellectual and moral integrity and spiritual force, must therefore compel big business with persuasive power to seek a new direction toward the twin aims of public purpose and private profit. Citizens of all stripes will be needed in this process of constructive change-making -- including responsible lawmakers, responsible business women and men, responsible ethical thinkers, and yes, responsible spiritual and theological leaders.

Peace.

Jeremy MacNealy