
{"id":17190,"date":"2011-04-07T14:25:16","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T18:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=17190"},"modified":"2011-04-07T14:25:16","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T18:25:16","slug":"how-many-bottom-lines-do-we-really-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/04\/07\/how-many-bottom-lines-do-we-really-need\/","title":{"rendered":"How many bottom lines do we really need?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Dan Coleman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Did you know that Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Town Code incorporates a principle devised by Shell Oil? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, the same Shell Oil that has been accused of human rights violations in Nigeria, including summary execution, crimes against humanity, torture, inhumane treatment and \u00c2\u00adcollaborating in the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. The same Shell Oil that has despoiled the Niger delta and was responsible for the largest freshwater oil spill ever.<br \/>\nWith a record like this, it is little wonder that Shell came up with one of the corporate world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more effective public relations concepts of recent years: the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), also known as People, Planet, Profit. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as if Shell was saying, sure you can criticize our environmental and humanitarian record but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget, we have to make a profit.<br \/>\nEfforts to value people have dogged profiteering for over a century. The late 19th and early-to-mid-20th centuries were marked by many thousands of strikes by workers, more than 1,400 in the year 1886 alone. Many of these were met by violent strikebreakers backed up at times by military force. This is a struggle that continues in 2011 in Wisconsin and other states.<br \/>\nThrough the efforts of these men and women, much of value was created: the weekend, workplace-safety standards, health care for workers, vacation and sick leave, etc. And each of these was wrested from the one bottom line that corporate America really cares about.<br \/>\nDespite William Blake offering the image of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dark satanic mills\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as far back as 1804, the environmental impacts of industrial capitalism began to be understood with Rachel Carson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1962 publication of The Silent Spring. Within a decade, there was Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Water Act and much more, each a challenge to the profit-focused priorities of capital.<br \/>\nGiven the pre-eminent importance of profit-maximization, it is not surprising that corporations touting the Triple Bottom Line often oppose measures to combat global warming, oppose workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights and oppose regulatory mechanisms to protect the health of people and planet.<br \/>\nHistory has taught us that Adam Smith was wrong when he offered the justification for prioritizing profit that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153by pursuing his own interest [the businessman] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If Smith were correct, companies like Shell would not have such a devastating impact on society and nature. In part, this impact results from profit being measured in a short timeframe, a year or even a quarter of a year, while sustainability requires a vision spanning, as the Iroquois put it, as much as seven generations.<br \/>\nBut Smith was right that profit ought to serve human well-being. Therefore, it must be understood within an ethical system that places people and planet first. This holds true for the vague term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stakeholder value\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that some, including Carrboro, use instead of profit. Who are the stakeholders if not people and planet?<br \/>\nThe TBL offers nothing to help us navigate the inevitable contradictions between profit on the one hand and people\/planet on the other. But, really, why should we have any social or political bottom lines at all?<br \/>\nIt was social ecologist Murray Bookchin who bemoaned the cultural turn to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grubby language\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the market economy, which has \u00e2\u20ac\u0153replaced our most hallowed moral and spiritual expressions. We now \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinvest\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in our children, marriages, and relationships. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 We live in a world of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctrade-offs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and we ask for the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbottom line\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of any emotional \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctransaction.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nThere are a variety of frameworks that speak to a more fundamental commitment to the well-being of all life. In an 1854 speech, Chief Seattle offered the notion of a web of life: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nA century after Chief Seattle, Aldo Leopold articulated his land ethic in Sand County Almanac, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The biotic community, of course, includes humans.<br \/>\nWe need the ability to truly place people and planet first and to reject the false, self-serving homilies offered by those who spread pavement and poverty in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Rather than seek simplistic nostrums, we may have to take the time to look hard at each decision, and bring a clear ethical sensibility, like that of Seattle or Leopold, to bear. <\/p>\n<p><em>Dan Coleman is a member of the Carrboro Board of Aldermen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did you know that Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Town Code incorporates a principle devised by Shell Oil? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17190"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17192,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17190\/revisions\/17192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}