THE RIP-OFF
Y ou are getting ripped off. I’m getting ripped off too. There isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. “It” is built into “the system.” And that is what this book is about. The ripoff that I am going to describe is not in the form of a scandal, it does not involve “evil” people who spend their time plotting how to best steal from each and every one of us, and it is not the pulp which is so able to sell papers and keep TV programs going. Instead, this theft is far more perfidious. It is the work of all of us. Take the headlines of Summer 2002. Worldcom, Anderson, Merrill Lynch, Enron, Martha Stewart.... The list goes on and on. American confi- dence in our largest corporations is at an all time low. Media pundits speak of the lack of ethics and the lack of standards. But, there is a source of ethics and standards common to all these cases - Business Schools, suppliers of the MBA. What kind of standards were Jeff Skilling and the Wall Street analysts taught while getting their MBA? What kind of ethics? That money was the measure of success. That it is standard to focus on maximizing shareholder wealth. That present value matters more than long-term anything including responsibility. That you “are a team of one” so focus on self (and maximize those stock options). That responsibility is the “market’s” not ours - and, anyhow, no one “like us” ever goes to jail. Harvard claims it provides “a transforming experience that gave [its alumni] the tools and life lessons they needed to chart their own future.”
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