January, 2013
GROWING BIG
For executives and primary actors in big business, in big government, in big entertainment, and in big “non-profit” (that means non-taxed) organizations, it is all about getting power and status, cultivating wealth and reputation, and expanding influence through scope of control. For those who like thousand-dollar-words: This is called aggrandizement. In America some use to call this “climbing the corporate ladder”. These days others more frequently characterize such roles as leading with “the entrepreneurial spirit”. For lower placed individuals those who hold such elite positions are simply called “the boss”, or “the innovator”, or “the technical specialist”, or “the manager”.
Members of this group of corporate patricians are not owners or managers of small businesses having one location or operating in a regional area. These technocrats work only in firms having a national or global presence on the stage of commerce or in any other arena of organized governmental or private activity that impacts the economic outcomes for all persons on earth. These people are not elected; they are selected by the boards of directors of corporations and by the agency heads who are appointed by politicians. The common citizens of the world’s countries have only a distant and very remote impact on the hiring process of those who organize the economic circumstances that surround all who are living.
Yet in the United States as well as in many other countries most adults claim that they live in a democratic society. If asked for the meaning of democracy, “government by all the people, or by majority rule, promoting the practice or principles of social equality” would be a common answer.
Question is:
Is the recent behavior of politicians in Washington, D.C., the practice of democracy?
And if not, why not?
