Tag: influence

Power and Authority (via Business Management)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Here we have a discourse on authority, a rare and precious gem. Few understand it. Most who believe they have it don’t. Those that understand it seldom explain. Can you tell if the author knows his subject or not?

Here’s a paragraph –

French and Raven identified five bases of power as: legitimate, referent, expert, reward and coercive. Legitimate power is authority. For example, police has legitimate power. Referent power arises from personal authority. It can be someone whom you like and want to follow (e.g your role model). When someone has expert power, that means this person has knowledge which others respect. Reward and Coercive power is the classic definition of carrot and stick. It means the person who holds the power to reward or punish has this type of power.

James Pilant

Power means “the ability to influence people”. For example, if you have the ability to persuade your friends to move in the same direction as you do, then you have the power. Authority is the “official power”. For example if you are assigned to a manager position where your subordinates are obliged to follow your orders then you have the authority. Military officers have the authority. French and Raven identified five bases of power as: legitimat … Read More

via

Koch Foundation Hires and Fires Economists at Public University (via Wake-up Call)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

It is questionable morally to use money and influence to diminish or destroy the rights of Americans. It is questionable morality to subvert or buy the media to prevent unfavorable stories or to spread lies and misinformation. And it is questionable morality to buy influence at American universities so that your perverted economic doctrines can become mainstream, to use public institutions as private breeding grounds for followers, to pollute the social science with the continuous contributions of bought academics, not searching for the truth, but in opposition to it.

Shall large Christian denominations dispose of evolutionary biology using the same methods? Shall opponents of gay marriage dispose of social scientists using the same methods? Shall we give up the field of criminology, after high dollar contributors insist that crime is produced by demonic possession?

Think of the possibilities! These independent researchers, these tenured beasts, all brought to heel. Is global warming a problem? Buy enough academics and it disappears. Some damn nosy professor says dumping radioactive material can damage our genetic heritage, that can be fixed. We can buy as many professors as we want. History can become what we want. The very definition of reality can be changed, literature and painting cleansed of subversive influences.

Are public universities in need of money? Let them get money the old-fashioned way. Haven’t people justified their immoral actions by saying they did it because it was part of the job and they had to feed their families? Haven’t people said they had to do it, it was part of the job? Let’s put academics in that same boat. They shall have their jobs only if they give the proper respect to the contributors, only if their search for truth is predetermined, I promise you that every university in this nation will be rolling in money the moment they realize just like Florida State University that selling the “right” kind of education is more profitable than the pursuit of knowledge. Educating the young has never been very profitable.

We can double, triple administrative salaries. We can build new buildings and a first class physical plant. There will be stadiums and first class football teams at the smallest of institutions. No more begging to the state legislatures, the money will never stop. Donors will compete against each other for professors. If one gets five, then the other must have six.

We can price them. The more influential the professor, the more money they will be worth. It’s easy to measure, who’s on television more often. Who testifies before Congress the most. Whether or not they teach or get published is insignificant. Who wants to buy that?

We have sold so much in this country. Let’s follow free market economics to their logical conclusion.

The brave new world of green is out there waiting for us. Let us walk forward bravely, open palm extended, to sell our last possession, our integrity.

James Pilant

Koch Foundation Hires and Fires Economists at Public University by Rebekah Wilce on May 12, 2011     PR Watch     According to news reports, the Charles G. Koch Foundation has bought “the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.” Kris Hundley of the St. Petersburg Times reports that the elder Koch brother’s foundation “pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University’s economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a … Read More

via Wake-up Call

Senate blocks bill repealing $2B in oil tax breaks (via CBS News)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Once again we see who is important in Washington. Giant highly profitable oil companies get the help they want need while the public pays the full amount at the gas pump.

From the article at CBS News –

“Symbolic votes like this that aim to do nothing but pit people against each other will only frustrate the public even more,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

“Americans really aren’t interested in scapegoats,” he continued. “They just want to pay less to fill up their cars. That’s why this Democratic bill to tax American energy is an affront to the American people.”

I can think of 2 billion reasons this is not a “symbolic” vote and if by pitting people against each other, you mean calling the multibillion dollar profiting oil companies being called to task for their cynical political machinations, pitting people against each other, you are a very cynical man.

Is it ethical to manipulate Congress for relief from taxes when you run an extremely profitable multi-national corporation? It is ethical to call your opponents Un-American for wanting fair taxation?

You do not have to do a deep analysis of the ethical components here. This is a tragedy for the American people that evades the word, theft, by a razor’s edge.

More significant is that both these oil companies and the congressmen protecting them can be found day after day preaching with complete and apparent total conviction the value and importance of free markets. But we see here the colossal hypocrisy, basically six large corporations dictating to a suppliant congress a vast competitive advantage over any competitors. What about the innovation and low prices that competition brings about? Where’s that?

I have been told I am shrill. Explain to me at a time when there are serious plans to limit or eliminate Medicare and Social Security, why these companies should be able to evade their taxes. Tell me. Apparently this nation deserves no tax money from corporations since we don’t provide laws, roads, education, or a horde of ships, tanks, and planes to defend their property. Yeah, I’m shrill. Isn’t someone supposed to look out for the citizens?

From time to time I explain these things to people and they ask me who they should vote for. I tell them honestly, “There is no one.” The only difference between the two parties is in the level of obedience that lobbyists can command. I believe the welfare of the American people figure at most peripherally in the affairs of our government.

James Pilant