This time of year I do some financial reviews when renewing personal contracts (e.g. insurances). Some of my own personal musings follow (I share them).
During my reviews (are they good value; is there a new & better product; are they raising their rates too much?), is one of the times when I reflect on an uglier side of capitalism: corporate greed.
If the price has gone up a lot since last year, I ask ‘why?’. I feel reasonably sure that the reason for a big increase isn’t because the employee(s) I communicate with have gotten a big raise. Big raises for *employees* haven’t been a thing for almost 2 decades now by my calculation…
The corporate entity might be reporting large profits. & So many of us surmise that some executives & C-suite people are taking lots extra each year. In enough behemoth companies this seems to be the case, per the news stories. It hardly seems a strategy that will bring happy endings.
Then I reflect on the whole capitalist system. Where *some* unprincipled players will just take & take (as much as the market will bear?). I believe there are some very good things about capitalism. It provides incentive & innovative products. But greed for greed’s sake is not one of the good things.
Naked greed in the marketplace: = disregard & disdain towards customers/clients/employees? How could that result in a happy ending?
& Why? One rather enlightening survey that I recall concluded that no matter how much $$ people had in the bank (humans of all income levels), they tended to respond that they would feel secure when they had 3X as much $$.
General insecurity about $$ in current culture? Leaning (almost always) towards yearning for more more more? Yikes.