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A think tank partly funded by Exxon Mobil sent letters to scientists offering them up to $10,000 to critique findings in a major global warming study released Friday which found that global warming was real and likely caused by burning fossil fuels. For the full ugly story Click Here . One might note that this is one day after Exxon Mobil announced the largest corporate profits of any company ever in the history of the planet. Spread around a few million dollars and you can likely get 100 morons with degrees to sell their integrity. Enough to make news stories believable to professional gamblers and NASCAR lovers.

DA. Isn't that what they call free enterprise?

Some call bank robbery free enterprise too.

Buying other people's integrity ain't free.

So DA Morgan, it seems you want to link bank robbery to Exxon. Do you have facts or is it more they make large profits?
When you say "some call bank robbery free enterprise too." Are you one of the some ?
If not, who are the "some". I am at a Science page.

Hi factvsfiction,

I must agree with you, DA is wrong. Exxon's busuness practices should not be compared with bank robbery. In fact, a far closer and much more apt comparision would be strong arm robbery or, perhaps, highway robbery. Yes, highway robbery - it is after all - an oil company!

Dr. R.

Yes, DA, that's an interesting article. The fact is that all companies with a vested interest in selling products that are thought to make a significant contribution to climate change will, in order to ensure their survival, either need to produce evidence that they don't, or start selling something that doesn't!

Terry-Do you feel that because it is "free enterprise" this action does not have to be ethical ?, or do you intend it as the criticism that I took it for!

Ellis. I suppose it's the criticism you took it for, but how can I be sure what you took it for? My argument would be that free enterprise in itself has no ethical dimension. We found that to be so here in NZ in the 1980s and '90s. And yet supporters of the free market insist the market will find it's own level. Bollocks. There needs to be some restraint on it but those who've benefited most are the least likely to support any restraints. How do we solve this problem?

I quite agree, Terry. British PM Thatcher chose to leave our economy to the mercy of market forces, and let it 'find it's own level'. The rich and lordly became richer and lordlier, at the expense of everyone else, with whom she seemed to be totally out of touch.

How do you solve the problem? Maybe vote in a new government. Actually, Thatcher was ousted by her own party.

The problem was solved once in 1776 and has been undermined ever since.

To quote the second President of the United States:

"What chance have Talents and Virtues in comparison with Wealth and Birth? and Beauty?"
~ John Adams to Thomas Jefferson; Sept. 2, 1813

As long as John Q. Sixpack continues to think Paris Hilton's antics are more important than good government and Anna Nicole Smith's death more important than that of an innocent Iraqi we are getting exactly what we deserve.

To quote "H. L. Mencken"
"Democracy is the theory that holds that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Some of us are practicing how to duck.

So the majority here think that it is impossible to combine free enterprise and ethical standards---and we who have participated in the discussion all live in countries firmly committed to free enterprise, (well maybe NZ is a bit wobbly about it) ---a bit sad really.

The quote from Mencken is one of the most apt and cynical I can remember reading in a long time. Time to dig out the tin hat I think.

It is not impossible to combine free enterprise and ethical standards.

The problem is, quite simply, that any time free enterprise is asked to adhere to ethical standards it threatens its workers with unemployment.

We want you to clean up your pollution.
That will cost money and force us to lay employees off.

We want you to provide your employees with safer working conditions.
That will cost money and force us to lay employees off.

We want you to stop using toxic chemicals.
That will give our competitors in other countries an advantage, we will lose business, and be forced to lay employees off.

It is total disingenuous nonsense but John Q. Public living from paycheck to paycheck almost always caves in out of fear.

If you want to control people all you need to do is scare them. George Bush did that to get his war and corporations do that all the time to get their way. Corporations will behave ethically when they are forced to do so by an uncowered citizenry.

Yes, that probably says it all. Ethics are always likely to be compromised where wealth is at stake, free enterprise or not - part of being human, I suppose.

Any form of government or philosophy that does not accept human nature as its basis is doomed to failure.

If you don't believe me ... list the number of cities on this planet in which drugs and prostitution are illegal and also do not exist.

Note even laws that guarantee a death sentence can control neither. And most countries, and most religions, continue to demand that which is not just improbable ... but impossible. As Einstein said:

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Same holds true for allowing and controlling monied interests. As long as we allow corporations and the rich to have a disproportionate voice in our affairs ... we should not be surprised when they take control. They always have and they always will so long as we sit idly by and allow it.

Of course it's possible to do better with regard to ethical behaviour both in Govt and politics. NZ realised it was on the wrong track for example and Finland a small country with an 58% tax-rate (on average) manages to run an economy that is not over burdened with debt, in fact it is in surplus. It also has the highest standard of literacy and numeracy in the world, universal free schooling and health care, comprehensive welfare cover and its citizens recently polled as some of the most happy and contented on the planet. This is all, we are told, impossible. Our economic theorists insist that low taxation and low government spending is the way to prosperity and lets free market pick up the oportunities to create wealth and jobs. Thus the good things "trickle down" to the workers who are individually resonsible for their own welfare.

And it's not working very well at all. So how do we dis-allow it DA?

DA wrote;

"It is not impossible to combine free enterprise and ethical standards."

But the examples you give all involve some sort of government intervention. The purists would quickly point out this is no longer free enterprise. I agree 100% with you that the wealthy (read Gorse Bush and associates) use what John Ralston Saul calls "the technique of fear" to manipulate the population.

We seem to all agree that combining ethics and economics is difficult. Education is the ready answer but what does that actually mean and how do we implement it?

Ellis points out the NZ government has backtracked on some of the changes introduced in the 80s and 90s but the main opposition party is straining at the leash to get back in next election. They look likely to succeed because their propaganda appeals to peoples' selfishness. I'd be very happy if we on this site can think of some way to prevent it.

Free enterprise without government intervention is an oligarchy. None has ever existed, or nearly existed, without the common people rising up with weapons and overthrowing it.

There is another word I would use to describe it: Kleptocracy.

As Lord Acton said:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The common people rarely act in their own self-interest until things become unbearable. And this is true for a number of reasons mostly biological.

1. We are a species that crawled out of the cave by following alpha males. Made sense when we were potentially leopard food. Times have changed but we still want to follow a "lord" whether it is "lord Jesus Christ" or "Lord Bush" or "Lord Exxon." We kneel to those with authority ... even when wholly undeserved.

2. We are all basically self-interested. If we have a job ... the heck with the next guy or gal. Let them fend for themselves. I've got food so why should I care about some dolt who chooses to live in Botswana? I've got retirement so why should I care about the moron who believed their employer when they offered up a retirement plan that was never fully funded.

3. We are easily led by fear. To quote Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II:

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

Such things are only a surprise to those who don't study history.

Hi DA,

You said: "Such things are only a surprise to those who don't study history."

Alas, this is all too true.

Dr. R.

DA. I agree with your comments totally. But they don't really help us in our quest to change the situation.

This won't help either, but it shows the kleptocracy continues. From a news release on Yahoo today:

"Today, we're fighting a new war to defend our liberty and our people and our way of life," said Bush,

Can any of you tell me what percentage of US citizens actually accept that? I note the President no longer claims to be fighting for the Iraqi peoples' freedom and democracy. Not that he ever was. It was always just a cover. By the way, why isn't there more song and dance in US about the reasons for the war rather than just bickering over how to end it? Is it simply that both major parties are just part of the kleptocracy?

Please bear with me on this! I am not an expert on Finnish politics but the underlying wealth of Finland lies with the huge company-Nokia- coupled with the high rate of Government taxation. It is working! It shouldn't!

Maybe the Finns aren't all so self-interested DA, and the Welfare state that has resulted is so supportive that people are contented- or perhaps our own economies have never been able to explore properly the possibility of governmental control existing alongside free enterprise in a true partnership.

terry- Sorry to hear the Rogernomics may rise again.