The pinko in the corner office

My morning Globe and Mail today had an interview with Unilever CEO Paul Polman.

Unilever is a European conglomerate and what comes through loud and clear is a distinctly European sensibility as to how capitalism's relationship with its host societies should be managed.

The prevailing view on Wall Street is that it should be managed, ie regulated, as little as possible. That's the attitude that brought us to 2008 and the recession that never ends, and the bailouts of those "we're guilty as hell but too big to fail" banksters.

Nevertheless it remains the conventional wisdom that the "market" and the "private sector" do best when left alone, and the ensuing rising tide will lift all boats, provided you have a boat and don't drown instead.

Polman credits Milton Friedman with lending prestige to the idea that big business has no inherent societal obligations other than maximizing profit. Questions about the nature of a corporation's contribution to society are seen as part of a natural dialogue in Europe. Here they are seen as socialist propaganda.

At least since the Reagan era American discourse has valorized the most repugnant excesses of finance capital. The best and the brightest in MBA programs across the country aren't there so they can move into  managing small and mid-size manufacturers.

They're there because they want to be the Al Dunlaps and Ivan Boeskys of tomorrow. They want to start hedge funds and buy those manufacturers and unleash the "hidden value" to be found therein. If that means tearing them down, looting the pension plan, selling off the underlying real estate and sending the jobs to China, that's hunky dory with them.

They don't want to build anything for the long run. They want to make a quick buck now.

It's a well worn script, but it still works and it still gets endless praise from the business press. The obsequious fawning over Bill Ackman by this very newspaper during his recent "coup" at CP Rail is a great example.

While it's a great strategy for making its practitioners rich, it is ultimately  a destructive business model and cannot be sustained.

As Polman says, if capitalism is to survive, it needs to become socially responsible. Ultimately, that means adapting capitalism to the needs of society, and not bending society to meet the demands of capitalism.