Wealth Triumphs at the Kentucky Derby

Imagine running a race, and winning it only to watch the metal being given to your sponsor. “To Coke, our victor.” In enabling a runner, horse, or jockey to train, a sponsor is not the winner (for otherwise the sponsor would be enabling itself). While it is understandable that wealth is highly esteemed in the business sector, the imposing of this “top dog” in society itself distorts non-business activities into the prism of commerce. In the context of managerial capitalism, particularly where managers style themselves as “coaches,” it is no accident that coaches and trainers in sports come to be treated  as ends rather than means—as the winners rather than as facilitators on the sideline. It is important to remember that Art Sherman was not on the horse that won the Derby in 2014.  

The essay is at WR - Business & Society: "Who Won the Kentucky Derby?"

Putin on Ukraine's National Sovereignty

On February 28, 2014, Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Yurly Sergeyev informed the Security Council that Russia had invaded the Crimean Peninsula, a semi-autonomous region of the sovereign state. Heretofore, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, Russia had agreed in a treaty to respect the territorial borders of the Soviet Union’s former republic. After briefly discussing whether Putin’s land-grab should have come as a surprise to the world, I take a critical look at the Russian president’s rationale for invasion. I argue that political realism (i.e., strategic interests of particular states being the signature feature of international relations) undergirds Putin’s geo-political view. This foundation is problematic as evinced by Putin’s inconsistencies on national sovereignty.

From: "Russia’s Putin on National Sovereignty: Ukraine v. Syria"

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens Testifies on Campaign Finance Reform

In his testimony before a U.S. Senate Committee in 2014, former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens addressed the need for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving Congress and the States the power to restrict political campaign contributions. After listing leveling the playing field such that rival candidates have equal opportunity to persuade, freeing up elected officials from having to spend so much time raising campaign funds, and distinguishing constituents from non-voters (including unions, corporations, and people of other electoral jurisdictions in the U.S.), he stated his position in particularly clear terms. “Money is not speech,” he declared. “Speech is only one of the activities that are financed by campaign contributions and expenditures. Those financial activities should not receive precisely the same constitutional protection as speech itself.”  In short, even money given directly to a political campaign does not reduce to political speech. Although Citizens United (2010) and McCutcheon (2014) were being much cited at the time as baleful cases sure to transform the American democracy into a plutocracy, or rule by wealth-interests, Stevens went back to a 1976 case as the reason why a constitutional amendment rather a mere statute would be needed to place limitations on monetary contributions to political campaigns. In denying Congress the power to impose limits on campaign contributions, the Court in Buckley v. Valeo issued the infamous equivalence between money and speech. To Stevens, money is speech is the fundamental error promulgated by the Court in Buckley that has led successive majority opinions to eviscerate campaign finance limitations enacted by Congress. I submit that the ex-jurist could have drawn on the Buckley decision for support, thus undermining the resulting legal doctrine as a legal precedent for the Court. 

The entire essay is at "John Paul Stevens: Money Is Not Speech"

Clippers Owner Faces Mob-Rule?

As the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court were looking at two cases involving cellphone privacy from the standpoint of police access, NBC Commissioner Adam Silver announced that he had banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from attending any NBA team practice or game for life and was being fined $2.5 million. Interestingly, given the tenor of the public discourse, the Clippers’ owner had not made a public pronouncement regarding his negative view of black people; rather, a tabloid had taped and broadcast a private cellphone conversation. That is to say, Sterling would have to pay a multi-million dollar fine for what he had said in a private conversation with his girlfriend. I contend there is reason to pause at this news, lest such public pressure establish the precedent wherein the passions of the mob is effectively given such reign as to render property ownership and the rule of law as so contingent that might makes right. 

The essay is at WR - Government & Markets: “NBA Team-Owner Faces Wrath of the Mob For Racist Conversation”

Marnie

Some movies are remembered for their narrative; other films attract an audience out of sheer star-power. Generally speaking, both story and charisma can be of value to a film. The value of a charismatic actor playing a character of substance can be realized by watching the performance dubbed with the voice of another actor. Watching the film Forgiven once dubbed in French, I popped out the DVD even before the end of the first act because the voices of Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, and Morgan Freeman were gone. In the case of Marnie (1964), as well as the James Bond franchise, the flims would lose out without Sean Connery’s voice. Even so, a film that distorts or stretches a narrative to attract (and rely on) an actor’s charisma is also suboptimal. I contend that this excess compromises Marnie.

The essay is at WR-Film: "Marnie"

On Putin's Selective Recognition of National Sovereignty: Political Realism Undone?

On February 28, 2014, Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Yurly Sergeyev informed the Security Council that Russia had invaded the Crimean Peninsula, a semi-autonomous region of the sovereign state. Heretofore, in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons, Russia had agreed in a treaty to respect the territorial borders of the Soviet Union’s former republic. After briefly discussing whether Putin’s land-grab should have come as a surprise to the world, I take a critical look at the Russian president’s rationale for invasion. I argue that political realism (i.e., strategic interests of particular states being the signature feature of international relations) undergirds Putin’s geo-political view. This foundation is problematic as evinced by Putin’s inconsistencies on national sovereignty.

The essay is at WR-International Relations: "Russia’s Putin on National Sovereignty"

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Mega-Churches: A Fusion of Business and Christianity?

The ends–justifying-the-means rationale is a tricky business, justifying historically a myriad of offensive practices including torture. On the other hand, “good use” has been deemed a legitimate rationale for acquiring wealth under Christian auspices—the obstacle of the proverbial camel squeezing through the eye of the needle being assuaged by good intentions. Generally speaking, the “right use” rationale gained currency through the centuries of Christianity, leading to the Prosperity Gospel , which maintains that right belief rather than right use is all a believer needs to justify  acquiring and amassing wealth without being thereby excluded from the Kingdom of God. That Gospel, by the way, comes out of the Hebrew Bible, or “Old Testament.”  In this essay, I analyze the “good use” rationale in the context of incorporating businesses inside a church—a trend well-underway in the evangelical  Christian mega-churches as of 2014. Can the rationale survive the baleful implications of the proverbial camel Biblical passage? Further, what of Jesus’s over-turning of the sellers’s tables in the Temple?

The essay is at WR-Religion: "Right Use” of a Business in Church: Incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility"

Economic Sanctions: Weapon of Choice to Counter Russian Expansionism

A week and a half after government representatives from Russia, the E.U., the U.S., and Ukraine agreed to deescalate the political instability in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. Government imposed additional “targeted sanctions on a number of Russian individuals and companies” after concluding that the Russian government had not ceased from fomenting violence in eastern Ukraine.[1] With the official numbers on capital flight from Russia at $50 billion a month for the first three months of 2014, this announcement on April 28^th is oriented to exploiting a Russian vulnerability. Moreover, the statement signals a step-wise, “surgical” approach premised on the value of money—a symbol of value. In relative terms, a broad military response looks almost primitive, if not (hopefully) antiquated.

The essay is at WR-International Relations: "High Finance Answering Putin’s Imperial Ambitions: A New Age?"

Anti-Semitism and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

At a joint EU-US news-conference on 26 March 2014, Presidents Barroso, Van Rompuy, and Obama discussed the problematic Russian invasion of the Crimea province of Ukraine.  The “chairman” of the European Council and the “chief executive” of the European Commission both responded to concerns that the European Union had not stood up to its business interests in order to enact economic sanctions capable of putting Putin back in his pen. Even though the two EU presidents sought to "puff up" the force latent in the sanctions already in place, Barroso insightfully made the more significant point that aggressively sending tanks across a border was no longer tolerable. Perhaps from “lessons learned” from Hitler’s exploits in the twentieth century, global challenges such as global warming (and, relatedly, the species’ over-population), and an internet-enabled closer world in the twenty-first century, a paradigm-shift in international relations may harken some sorely needed progress in international relations (i.e., political development)  in the new millennium. The key would be a stark refusal to tolerate a practice that had been tacitly accommodated, even in opposition, just decades earlier. 

The essay is at WR-International Relations: "New Rules: Invasions and Anti-Semitism in the Twenty-First Century"

Aereo v Broadcast TV Networks

Internet start-ups can be said to profit, at least potentially sometime in the future, by leveraging the commons, or public space, even enlarging it in the process. Companies founded on the scarcity paradigm of privateness and even public policy based on a de facto privatized tenet have accordingly gone on the defensive. Although Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions would suggest that the old guard must die off before the new paradigm can come into its own, the internet revolution has shown a remarkable yet subtle persistence in “seeping through the cracks” into the “light of day.” 

The essay is at WR-Government & Markets: "The Internet Eclipsing Television Networks: Toto, We’re not in Kansas Anymore"

New Rules for a New Millennium: Russian Invaders Beware

At a joint EU-US news-conference on 26 March 2014, Presidents Barroso, Van Rompuy, and Obama discussed the problematic Russian invasion of the Crimea province of Ukraine.  The “chairman” of the European Council and the “chief executive” of the European Commission both responded to concerns that the European Union had not stood up to its business interests in order to enact economic sanctions capable of putting Putin back in his pen. Even though the two EU presidents sought to "puff up" the force latent in the sanctions already in place, Barroso insightfully made the more significant point that invading parties just aren't done in the new century. In this essay, my task is to sideline the debate over whether the EU had not stood up to its domestic commercial interests in favor of Barroso's much more significant point concerning a paradigm shift whose time of recognition has come in the new millennium.

(The remainder of this essay is now at the International Relations section of The Worden Report)

Social Media Marketing: The Social Element as an End in Itself

In the religious domain, some people struggle with the inherent incongruity of acting selflessly while believing that the righteous are rewarded in heaven. Resolving this oxymoron in practical as well as theoretical terms may come down to “one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing.” Whether innate or a “learned skill,” disentangling a practice from any hope of reward can be applied to social media marketing. This application is easier said than done, especially in a culture of greed saturated with opportunism at every opportunity as a strong norm and custom. Indeed, the underlying question may be whether a “strong personality” once well-engrained is able, not to mention willing, to “park itself out back” if even for a much-needed break.

Gary Vaynerchuk, the author of several books on social media marketing, preaches a two-step approach, which can be characterized as the marketer becoming a native in whichever (social media) platforms he or she is in and then consummating the (ultimately) desired transaction. Ideally, the selling fuses with becoming a native (or recognized as one), so the two phases are “phased” into one.

Crucially, being able to come across as a native is not the same as “going native.” Whether in business or government, putting up a front in order to be perceived by the masses as one of them is not the same as being one of them. Even though Vaynerchuk emphasizes the need to respect the nuances of a given social media platform (e.g., values and mannerisms), he may be interpreted by some readers as maintaining that presenting the appearance of respect is sufficient to “become” a native, at least for marketing purposes. In other words, a marketer need not “go native”; going through the motions is sufficient as long as the other participants believe that the entrant is satisfying their social or informational objectives.  

Unfortunately, learning how to come across as a native in sync with a platform’s distinctive “cultural” mores and norms may be too short-sighted not only in terms of “going native,” but also in achieving marketing objectives. In fact, the approach itself may be too self-serving—too close to those objectives—to render the marketer as a native. Positing a distance between engaging the social element and being oriented to making the sale, Vaynerchuk advises that in contributing to the social or informational dialogue at the outset, “you’re not selling anything. You’re not asking your consumer for a commitment. You’re just sharing a moment together.”[1] The experience shared is essentially an end in itself, eclipsing any further motive, as in to sell a product or service.

It may seem rather strange to find a marketer oriented to exploiting any opportunity “just sharing a moment together” with electronic strangers as an end in itself; serial opportunists in an enabling cultural context are used to treating other rational beings as mere means at any opportunity, rather than as ends in themselves (i.e., violating Kant’s Kingdom of Ends version of his Categorical Imperative). Vaynerchuk may undercut his own depiction of the shared experience as sufficient unto itself by reminding his readers that the “emotional connection” they “build through [participating in social or informational dialogue without selling but to “become” a native] pays off [when they] decide to throw the right hook [i.e., make the sale’s pitch and consummate a transaction].”[2] With such a payoff in the offing, I doubt that virtually any marketer oriented to “maximizing” any opportunity to tout, brag, or hard-sell would just share an emotional connection at a moment without being motivated by, or at least mindful of, the hidden agenda.

A "stakeholder model" approach to social-media marketing. This framework is inherently self-centric, whereas a web-like structure would be more in line with "shared experiences." Both frameworks are distinct, and yet can be managed, or related, such that neither encroaches on the other unduly.

(Image Source: irisemedia.com)

As difficult as it may be for a marketing personality to simply share a moment with another human being—especially a stranger narrowly glimpsed through electronic means—Vaynerchuk rightly situates the feat as a requirement for “going native,” and thus, ironically, for being able to ultimately make the sale. In the context of authentic social and informational reciprocity in a given social-media platform, a wax figure easily stands out. Even so, all too many marketers come across as stiff, or contrived, in social media as if self-centeredness and lying advances rather than detracts from sales. Hence, I suspect that a rather intractable marketing personality and a related and thus enabling culture, such as that of American business, stands in the way of business being able to fully integrate social-media marketing.[3] 

Similar to why it is difficult to fall asleep without taking a break from trying to do so, marketers have trouble not letting their marketing hand know what their other hand is doing. At the very least, managers overseeing marketing would need to permit and even encourage the marketer(s) tasked with social-media marketing to spend time online without worrying about having to sell anything (even oneself). In hiring such marketers, managers ought to highlight rather than sideline those applicants who enjoy being on a social media platform.

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[1] Gary Vaynerchuk, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook (New York: Harper, 2013), p. 22.

[2] Ibid, p. 23.

[3] The fixation on using any opportunity to sell one’s wares is exemplified in CNBC’s Jim Cramer’s choice of response as another host mentioned on March 14, 2014  that Jim had worked that weekend at his restaurant. Rather than share the moment by regaling his colleagues and the viewers with a tale of something enjoyable from his weekend at his restaurant, he remarked as if by script that he had worked that weekend because “we were trying out a new chicken sandwich” and a new drink. The sheer contrivance belied any semblance of authentic passion, as might be realized in relishing simply experiencing being in his restaurant (e.g., the atmosphere) and later telling people about it instead of selling as if it were an end in itself. Underneath the obsession with getting as much as possible from any opportunity is greed, a motive and value that knows no limitation. Ultimately, it is a well-worn grove that keeps marketers from “going native” and thus being able to fully inhabit social media. 

Meteorology vs. Astronomy: Is It Spring Yet?

Advancing clocks an hour ahead to Daylight Savings Time conveniently announces itself as the easy-to-remember Spring Forward. Advancing democracy in the Middle East in the early years of the 2010s proclaimed to the world the Arab Spring. Advancing global warming foretells earlier springs encroaching on softened winters. Even as spring blooms in the sights of the popular press, the media quite stunningly often stumbles over when the season begins. The groundhog is no help, differing from year to year on whether spring begins four or six weeks from February 2nd. Astonishingly—and in no small measure my impetus in writing here out of no less than dumbfounded curiosity—even television meteorologists play to the popular ignorance, willingly succumbing to the common practice of taking astronomical “spring” as meteorological spring too. The “professionals’” declaratory tone alone reveals just how certain human beings can be even of presumed knowledge lacking any real foundation.  Sadly, this mentality of assertion, having become so widespread, or ubiquitous, in modern society, is virtually invisible to us; and yet, the shrill of the epistemological missionary zeal reverberates from no less than modernity’s default: faith in one’s own use of reason. In this essay, I present the first day of spring as a case in point rather than make the entire argument.

Sometime during the first week of March 2014, as yet another front of frigid Arctic air charged southward through North America, various weather personalities on television newscasts relished in the apparently startling fact that spring was just two weeks away. Viewers looking out at snow-covered landskips as far south as Kansas City could marvel at the return of nature’s colors and smells so soon. Most years, the grass is green there by the Ives of March.

Even as the popularly broadcast juxtaposition made for good copy, meteorological spring in the Northern Hemisphere had already come—that is to say, with regard to weather and climate. According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “(m)eteorologists and climatologists break the seasons down into groupings of three months based on the annual temperature cycle as well as our calendar. . . . Meteorological spring includes March, April, and May; meteorological summer includes June, July, and August; meteorological fall includes September, October, and November; and meteorological winter includes December, January and February.”[1] Therefore, by the first week of March 2014, spring had already arrived as far as the weather is concerned even as television meteorologists were publicly pointing to March 20^th as the first day. 

Even calling so much attention to the first day, as if suddenly the northern climes of the contiguous United States would suddenly return their fauna and flora to their other half-lives on that day, is horribly misleading. Assuming that the meteorologists were well aware that spring weather data begins on March 1^st of each year in the U.S., the next-most plausible explanation may be found in the lazy assumption that it is easier to go with popular misconceptions than expend the effort to stare one in the face and overcome its stolid inertia head-on (the excuse being not wanting to cause confusion).

As a result, Americans are left with the incredibly incongruent “expert” assertion that summer begins not with Memorial Day, but just a couple of weeks before July 4^th on June 21^st of each year. Essentially, we are to believe that summer begins in the middle of summer! That such a logical and experiential absurdity can long endure in spite of evidence to the contrary is itself evidence of just how much cognitive dissidence human beings are willing to endure in the face of declarations from perceived expertise. In other words, an erroneous or outdated status-quo societal default has tremendous hold even in the age of (rationalist) Enlightenment (i.e., from the fifteenth-century Renaissance period).

Lest it be said that the enabled popular misconception came spontaneous out of nothing ex nihilo, the basis of the confusion lies in the rather stupid decision to apply the names of the meteorological seasons (i.e., fall, winter, spring, and summer) to the four quadrants of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. Whereas the meteorological seasons are based on the annual temperature cycle applied to the calendar, “astronomical seasons are based on the position of the Earth in relation to the sun.”[2] Due to the tilt of the planet, solar energy is maximized in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in different parts of the planet’s orbit. To label a certain interval of space as “spring” is not just highly misleading; the label is a category mistake, for the climatic seasons on Earth do not exist in the void of space.[3]

Astronomy is distinct from weather, even though the two are related (i.e., not disparate).

(Image source: NASA)

Put another way, astronomical “spring” in the Northern Hemisphere refers to the portion of the Earth’s orbit from the point at which the vertical rays from the Sun hit the Earth on its equator (on the “Spring” Equinox, usually on March 21^st) to point when the vertical rays are on the Tropic of Capricorn (the furthest north the vertical rays go, on the “Summer” Solstice, usually on June 21^st). In fact, Summer Solstice is better translated as the highpoint rather than beginning of summer. That is to say, the sun reaches its highest arc in the Northern sky on June 21^st, which is neither the pinnacle nor beginning of summer in terms of temperatures.[4]

 

In short, the piercing pronouncements on the public air-waves of the beginning of spring (and then three months later of summer) ring hollow. Nevertheless, the meteorologists who trumpet the good news do so year after year, as if deer caught in a car’s headlights (or speaking to such deer!). Perhaps the fix is as simple as changing the names of the Earth’s orbit’s four parts so they are not likened to climatic seasons. The puzzle would doubtless still present itself as to how it is that nonsensical claims can long endure as a societal (or even global) default, taken for granted in a way that strangely wards off reason’s piercing rays and those of our own experience. Something is oddly off in how human beings are hard-wired.

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[1] National Climatic Data Center, “Meteorological Versus Astronomical Summer—What’s the Difference?” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, June 21, 2013 (accessed March 9, 2014).

[2] Ibid., italics added.

[3] As another example of a mislabeling that should have been known to trigger much confusion and even false claims, the three law instructors from Harvard who founded the law school at the University of Chicago at the beginning of the twentieth century should have known better than to replace the name of the bachelors in law, the L.L.B. (i.e., bachelors in the letters of law), with a name implying a doctorate (the J.D., or juris doctor). The actual (professional and academic) doctorate in Law is the J.S.D., the doctorate in juridical science, of which the LL.B., or J.D., along with the LL.M. (masters), is a prerequisite and thus not possibly a doctorate in itself. A doctoral degree must be the terminal degree in a school of knowledge, have comprehensive exams in a discipline of said knowledge (graded by professors rather than an industry regulatory body), and include a significant work of original research (i.e., a book-length study, except in a quantitative or scientific field) that the candidate defends before a committee of faculty. Yet how many Americans correct an American lawyer who declares himself to be a doctor?  The same goes for the M.D. as well (a program of survey-courses followed by a couple years of seminars—the typical substance of a bachelors program), and yet how many physicians and surgeons presume themselves entitled to use the doctoral title (Dr.) even as they dismiss the valid appellations that holders of the Ph.D., J.S.D., D.Sci.M. (Doctorate in the Science of Medicine), D.B.A. (business), D.D. (divinity/theology), and D. Ed. (education) use as per the rights and privileges of these doctoral degrees?  Meanwhile, the general public goes on grazing as if the snow were green grass.

[4] The word solstice in English comes from the Latin word, solstitium, which combines sol (sun) and stit (from sistere, to make stand).  In other words, the sun is made to stand (highest) in the Northern Hemisphere on June 21^st of each year. Nothing is thus implied about any beginning; rather, the implication is that of a pinnacle or high point. Yet even in this sense, meteorological summer is different, for its high point in terms of temperature comes in mid to late July. 

Former Fed Chair Greenspan: How to Break the Back of a Bubble

While being interviewed on CNBC on March 7, 2014, Alan Greenspan spoke a bit on the problem of irrational exuberance in a market. Pointing to the failure of the Federal Reserve under his chairmanship to innocuously dissolve the “dot.com” bubble in the 1990s, Greenspan said he had come to the conclusion that asset-appreciation bubbles cannot be “defused” (for reasons he says are in his new book) “unless you break the back of the actual euphoria that generates the bubbles.”[1] Alas, piercing that wave would involve nothing short of unplugging a basic instinct in human nature; both monetary and fiscal policy would doubtless come up short. However, I suspect that the field of rhetoric may have something to say about how we can deflate societal exuberance, but only on the condition that greater clarity will have been achieved in identifying whether a given market is overvalued due to emotional excess (i.e.g, emotive greed having reached a critical mass) circumventing normal risk-aversion.

The full essay is at "Chair Greenspan."

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1. “Greenspan Revisits ‘Irrational Exuberance,” CNBC, March 7, 2014 (accessed same date).

Über “Surge-Pricing”: There’s a Mobile App for Price-Gouging!

A week into 2012, The New York Times ran a piece on Ubur (as in Übermench?), a taxi and livery company founded in 2009. As Curtis Lanoue aptly describes in his essay on the company, its novelty consists of a unique mobile app that passengers, drivers and the company’s managers use to bring demand and supply into equilibrium by means of differential pricing including “surge pricing.”[1] The price of a taxi or livery depends on temporal and geographic demand and supply levels. That is to say, the pricing increases as more people request rides. Theoretically, the pricing should go back down even in situations in which the demand is high as drivers are enticed to continue driving a few more hours. Hence, the wait time for an Uber cab after a concert or sporting event should be reduced even if the first people out have to wait until the price goes down or pay more than they expected. In this essay, I suggest that such “stickiness” in even such a small-scale market mechanism as a mobile app can give rise to some formidable ethical problems.

Price-gouging primped up as a mobile app?  (Image Source: thevirge.com)

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