Paternalism and Corporate America

Mike Cassidy of the Merc wrote a thoughtful piece about how companies need to be "taking care" of their workers better in these tough economic times. Now, I have no problem with fairness as both an employer and employee, and I think workplaces are far too riddled with unfairness, petty jealosies, back-office politics, and ego, and too little thought is taken to treating everyone in the business with professionalism and respect.

Mike's underlying motive for suggesting this is a noble one - "To me the current situation is more like business are prepared to drag their employees out in the courtyard and shoot them when they no longer need them. I think a few steps back to the days when employees were valued as a company asset wouldn't be so bad."

But Mike's reason for a company doing the right thing for the workers left me a bit cold - precisely because they are so weak and powerless. It reminds me a bit of the time in the not-so-distant past where men were exhorted to take care of women because they were also weak and powerless because had very few / no legal rights or protections - they were viewed as property. And this situation continued until it was noticed in the US that women were also citizens with the same rights as men.

Most of the third world still lives by this older code, however - Noblesse Oblige. It sounds romantic, but do we really want corporations acting as landed gentry and treating employees as serfs chained to the land - "I take you as my vassal. You are of my house, even as the very stones. I pledge to hold you, to guard you, and to keep you. I pledge to honor your service as it deserves, and reward your loyalty in kind"? This is a loose kind of oath, isn't it? Or would it end up as Edith Wharton described in The Age of Innocence - "He found, with rare and mythical exceptions, that there was no noblesse oblige among the business and financial supermen"?

Should our country revert to this older view just because much of the world still lives this way and "just because we can". I notice even Bill Clinton said recently in talking about his book that this was probably the most morally unjustifiable reason for doing things - "because I can".

Acting with the best of intentions is well and good, but the human condition often forces us to impose fairness when fairness isn't always seen as more important than, say, the bottom line. That's why we have laws and protections, and force equitable arrangements.