21st Century Robber Barons
by Miki Saxon
Are you familiar with the term ‘robber baron’?
“Robber baron” is a derogatory metaphor of social criticism originally applied to certain late 19th-century American businessmen who were accused of using unscrupulous methods to get rich, or expand their wealth.
It’s a great description of many, not all, of the tech titans you hear/read about daily.
The most familiar names are Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergy Brin, and Jeff Bezos, but there are many others, as well as all the aspirational robber baron founders looking for their own brass ring.
Today’s barons build their empires on your metaphorical back, i.e., your personal data, but the result is the same.
What drives them? Money? Power?
Why can’t they see what they are doing? How can they not?
What are their values? Where are their ethics?
I found the answer in a working paper published by Harvard’s Working Knowledge in 2007 and authored by four professors from various universities.
“The current effort to curb unethical behavior “ignores the innate tendency for the individual to engage in self-deception” (p. 224), an error which substantially negates any systematic efforts at the organization level.
This paper was intended to bring the psychological processes of the individual decision-maker to the forefront by examining the self-deception that is inherent in the beliefs about one’s own (un)ethical behavior. Individuals deceive themselves that they are ethical people and the continuation of this belief allows for the perpetuity of unethical behavior. We hope that by examining the interplay of the want/should selves through a temporal lens, we shed light on these false beliefs and break their defeating cycle.”
Self-deception.
That helps explain all the men who, after being called out for their words and actions, claim they didn’t do anything wrong.
While the research provides a reason, it certainly doesn’t alter the negative results of the behavior.
Reasons don’t excuse the behavior.
Nor does it offer a way to change it.
Image credit: Wikipedia
