This is an addendum to my last post about Debtism, in response to a question someone raised with me on another blog regarding greed. That person believes greed is a much bigger issue than my point that the dysfunctional economic system of Debtism has hijacked true capitalism. That person’s point was that one of the most important things that needs to occur is that executives need to stop being overpayed.
I am including in this blog the response I posted on that other blog to that person’s points:
I too believe that greed has fueled the shift from sane economics to Debtism, as have other unacceptable egotistical motives.
However, because we are supposed to be living in a primarily capitalistic economic system, I only begrudge executives reaping large economic benefits from their leadership if:
1) They have taken their company into debt in order to create the illusion of profitability; or
2) Their company has been profitable at the expense of the common good or through some other form of corruption. (One form of corruption, in my opinion, is overpaying executives and underpaying other employees, when there is insufficient profit to pay everyone what they deserve.)
To me, greed is more of a symptom of the real problem than its cause. What lives at the very foundation of greed, power hunger, debtism and a willingness to create profit at the expense of the common good, is one over-riding issue: profoundly distorted notions of what creates life fulfillment.
As a psychologist I have observed in clients only one thing that causes us to seek life fulfillment at the expense of personal, relationship or societal integrity: unresolved prior trauma that has created profoundly distorted beliefs about how to create safety, self-worth, and life fulfillment.
Any attempted solution to our current economic, political and other societal challenges that does not include dealing with these basic psychological truths will only create a band-aid that temporarily controls certain symptoms. Without addressing these issues, no attempted solution will never, ever, create true durable solutions that solve the problems at their root cause.
These basic psychological truths about integrity, fulfillment, unresolved trauma and societal problem-solving have been left out of the political and business landscape for far too long. This is why books that show people how to do something about this, such as such as The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World, are so vitally important today.
We will continue to suffer as a society until leaders emerge who have the psychological wisdom AND the political backbone to bring psychology into the process of creating societal solutions to our societal problems.
We will continue to suffer as a society until a highly vocal minority of citizens step forth to demand this kind of new generation of leader. That’s not a typo: all it would take is a highly vocal minority. Extreme evangelicals and radical environmentalists are among the many minorities that have already proven this to be true.
The best way any of us can do this effectively is to first become the change we want to see. Resources like The New IQ: How Integrity Intelligence Serves You, Your Relationships and Our World enable us to do this.
Stop waiting for others to start when you can start yourself.
