Black Friday: An American Holiday

For a long time, I didn't understand why the Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. would be called Black Friday. Why associate darkness with such a nice holiday whose humble purpose is to feel gratitude, even and especially if a person has little externally for which to feel grateful. Black Friday is so named because the shopping day is so bit it can bring retail businesses out of the red and into the black, as if profitability were dark rather than something worth rejoicing--in business, I might add--rather than for a whole society. For American society to so easily have come to call the day following Thanksgiving black just because that is how managements perceive it demonstrates just how commercialized, or business oriented, American society has become. What this means for that society, and even perhaps the majority of the people themselves, is very troublesome, even disturbing.

The full essay is at "Black Friday: An American Holiday."

Off Target: Corporate Spending as "Speech" against Gay Rights

In a 5-4 decision on January 21, 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United that federal restrictions on corporate spending in elections constituted a violation of free speech. Critics called it wrong to equate corporate “speech” with individual speech and said the ruling would allow special-interest money to flood election campaigns. The bipartisan nature of the opposition to this ruling is striking in these largely partisan times. The court’s ruling is opposed, respectively, by 76, 81 and 85 percent of Republicans, independents and Democrats; and by 73, 85 and 86 percent of conservatives, moderates and liberals. Majorities in all these groups, ranging from 58 to 73 percent, not only oppose the ruling but feel strongly about it. Even among people who agree at least somewhat with the Tea Party movement, which advocates less government regulation, 73 percent oppose the high court’s rejection of this particular law. In addition to overwhelming opposition to the decision, there’s also bipartisan support for Congress to try to reinstate restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and unions.

The full essay is at "Target's 'Free Speech'." 

Dissecting Best Buy’s Ethic: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

In 2010, Best Buy’s management adopted executive compensation principles that included a provision that “pay is clearly tied to . . . performance.” Frank Trestman, then chairman of the company’s compensation and human resources committee, made this statement with rose-colored glasses. After just two years, Target's board and upper management abandoned the provision amid poor numbers. Even as the management laid off 2,400 employees (1.4% of the total), the board's compensation committee approved cash bonuses of $500,000 and $2 million in restricted stock for four executives. The interim CEO, Mike Mikan, was at the time hauling in $3.3 million in annual total compensation. In the analysis that follows, I subject this "dual strategy" to two criteria: institutional conflicts-of-interest and distributive justice.


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.

Best Buy: A Retail Company Using Apology to Sell Still More

As I was entering a “Bestbuy” store one summer day wearing shorts and a tee shirt and carrying my ubiquitous book bag (as you might expect), the security person, whom the manager later told me also works at a prison, walked after me as though stalking me, practially yelling “Sir! Sir!” Reaching me as I was talking to a salesperson who was treating me as though I were a customer, the lineback demanded to look in my book bag immediately. I stated matter of factly that I had had no opportunity to stash anything from the store in my bag while walking in the front door (after which he saw my every move).  Nevertheless, I opened my pouch for him and he was satisifed. After I left the salesperson, I reported the incident to a manager, whose “company apologizes” was belied by his curtness and fake politieness. Can a company even apologize? 

The full essay has been incorporated into On the Arrogance of False Entitlement: A Nietzschean Critique of Business Ethics and Management, which is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.