The Common Good in 2023

Opinion Columnist

By Mary Keyes Rogers | Nov. 4, 2023

The news cycle is spinning so fast that I hardly know where to aim my opinion! Bartender, I’ll take an auto worker strike with a splash of capitalism and a twist of The Common Good, please.

First, let me say it’s about time that the auto industry returned to the practice of paying workers a living wage. Jolly good work to everyone involved!

Unions have been so weakened over the past 50 years that many have never seen their ability to strangle an industry into submission. It is only now, with a nationwide worker shortage, that the auto workers could turn in their IOU, representing more than 15 years of concessions in pay, benefits, and working conditions.

The workers appear to be big winners. For the lowest-tier worker, this is hardly a bonanza. With wages around $26, it only winks at a living wage but is enough to bring these workers out of homelessness. For those higher up the ladder, it creates a middle-class lifestyle.

But, how many of us thought, “So how much more expensive will my next car be?” The very question reveals how the average American has been misled to believe a common economic falsehood. Once you reprogram your mind, you begin to understand income inequality.

Our American capitalist equation tells us that under whatever circumstances, the company must maintain the highest profit possible. So if one expense (wages) increases, another must decrease, or the sales prices must rise. Pretty simple stuff.

We understand that the company must make sufficient profits to pay the maximum return to stockholders. Individual members of the board of directors have an absolute sworn obligation to represent the interests of stockholders. They have no choice. Right?

Wrong. Dead wrong.

We are made to think that it is the Eleventh Commandment. I assure you, it is not. There is not, nor has there ever been, a rule, regulation, law, or mandate ordering this “stockholder first” philosophy.

For the first 200 years of American life, the bountiful success of our small towns and growing cities depended upon the economic ideology of capitalism alongside a commitment to The Common Good. Capitalism blossomed because farms and businesses operated for the equal benefit of owners, workers, and the community. In our post-industrial age, companies and wealthy business owners invested generously in community projects for The Common Good.

Business leaders routinely gathered to address the needs of workers and their families. They built hospitals, universities, and parks and cared for the less fortunate. It was seen as their obligation to the community. Business and industry served The Common Good.

That is until the 1980s when Jack Welsh, CEO and Chairman of General Electric, kicked out not just one but two legs of The Common Good: workers and community now served the company. All that stood was his devotion to maximizing profits for the stockholders, along with a steadfast refusal to acknowledge any sense of shame for abandoning the welfare of GE’s employees or communities.

Each year, he fired what he considered his bottom 10 percent of employees, regardless of seniority, absolute performance, or circumstance. He shuttered less profitable factories, leaving small towns gutted and polluted. He saved GE at the expense of thousands of employees and dozens of communities while making himself, their executives, and stockholders rich, guilt free.

As this corporate philosophy took root and business leaders increasingly prioritized stockholders, unions were locked out and The Common Good was left to nonprofits, churches, and the government. Taxpayers have since paid the bill, whereas corporations have increased their profits by lowering their tax exposure.

The Common Good, a self-sustaining capitalist system of business, workers, and community operating in the harmony of mutual interest, respect, and support under a democratic government where each individual has an equal vote, now seems somewhat quaint.

Could the 2020s be the decade of the union? Unions may become the answer, using their strength by placing demands on large corporations to restore living wages and service to the community.

Northwest Michigan is fortunate to have many business owners who embrace social responsibility; they serve on boards and financially support our nonprofits. Imagine if we enjoyed the same level of commitment from the region’s big box and large corporations to pay living wages and financial support to our community institutions proportionate to their local revenue.

Workers should not accept poverty wages. Your car doesn’t need to cost more. Americans deserve more from corporate America.

Mary Keyes Rogers is a resident of Traverse City, providing consulting services to small business owners. Her career has included her radio show Mary in the Morning, Marigold Women in Business, executive director of the National Association of Women Business Owners, and Michigan Small Business Development Center.