Holding the Unfit Accountable vs. Murdoch’s Entitlement to Power

“A damning report [in late April 2012] on the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers concluding that Mr. Murdoch is “not a fit person” to run a huge international company has convulsed Britain’s political and media worlds and threatened a core asset of Mr. Murdoch’s American-based News Corporation.”[1] The report also “found that three senior Murdoch executives misled Parliament in testimony” and “alleges that the company sought to cover up widespread phone hacking.”[2]

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. John F. Burns and Ravi Somaiya, “Panel in Hacking Case Finds Murdoch Unfit as News Titan,” The New York Times, May 1, 2012

2. Ibid.

Subsidiarity: Federalism Over Catholic Social Ethics?

In the E.U., the principle of subsidiarity functions in theory like the Tenth Amendment does in the U.S.—again in theory. In both cases, public authority on a given domain or policy-area is preferentially to be exercised at the state rather than federal level. The principle, while not federalism per se, can be an element of it. Taking subsidiarity to be “really federalism” turns the latter into an alliance—giving the states potentially so much power that the government of the federation or union itself cannot act as a check on the state governments.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

Wealth: Benefitting and Distorting Society

“One of the great political and economic challenges of our time is figuring out the balance between wealth that benefits society and wealth that distorts.”[1] In terms of benefitting society, invested (as distinct from donated) wealth can benefit consumers by enabling better and cheaper products. Economists estimate that for every dollar invested in productive enterprise, there is $5 of benefit to consumers.  Interestingly, this does not apply to money that is donated (rather than invested) to feed the poor (i.e., consumption rather than production).

1.Adam Davidson, “The Purpose ofSpectacular Wealth, According to a Spectacularly Wealthy Guy,” The New York Times, May 1, 2012. 

Quitting Money: Crazy in Christian Terms?

In 12 years, Daniel Suelo has not made a penny; neither has he spent one. In 2000, he left his remaining $30 in a phone booth (remember those?) and never looked back. He went on to live on public lands, foraging for food and accepting alms from others.  Mark Sundeen, who wrote The Man Who Quit Money about his friend, told an interviewer, “I assumed he had gone crazy or had some kind of mental breakdown. But that is not the case.”[1] The key to unpacking Suelo’s life-choice is to view it as a spiritual journey.

The full essay is at "Quitting Money."

1. “He ‘Quit Money’ and Is Still Living a Happy Life,” MSNBC, May 2, 2012. 

Wal-Mart: Political Contributions as Bribery

In September 2005, “a senior Wal-Mart lawyer received an alarming e-mail from a former executive at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. In the e-mail and follow-up conversations, the former executive described how Wal-Mart de Mexico had orchestrated a campaign of bribery to win market dominance. In its rush to build stores, he said, the company had paid bribes to obtain permits in virtually every corner of the country. . . . Wal-Mart dispatched investigators to Mexico City, and within days they unearthed evidence of widespread bribery. They found a paper trail of hundreds of suspect payments totaling more than $24 million. They also found documents showing that Wal-Mart de Mexico’s top executives not only knew about the payments, but had taken steps to conceal them from Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. In a confidential report to his superiors, Wal-Mart’s lead investigator, a former F.B.I. special agent, summed up their initial findings this way: ‘There is reasonable suspicion to believe that Mexican and USA laws have been violated.’”[1]

The full essay is in The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.

1. David Barstow, “Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up by Wal-Mart After Top-Level Struggle,” The New York Times, April 21, 2012.

The Internet Escapes China's Grasp

The “surprising escape” of Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist, from house arrest to the presumed custody of U.S. diplomats was “buoying China's embattled dissident community” even as the government lashed out, “detaining those who helped him and squelching mention of his name on the Internet.”[1] Two points bear further scrutiny.

The full essay is at "The Internet Escapes China's Grasp."

1. Alexa Olesen, “Chen Guangcheng Escape: China Activists Inspired by Blind Dissident Lawyer,” The Huffington Post, April 29, 2012.