THE END OF THE AGE OF GREED

23 April 2025

by Robert C. Hinkley*

Humanity has the option to become successful on our planet if we reorient world production away from weaponry—from killingry to livingry. Can we convince humanity in time? ---R. Buckminster Fuller

A new Age was born more than a century ago.  With the election of Donald Trump for the second time and his appointment of Elon Musk to head DOGE, the Age of Greed has come to full fruition.  Like the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, the Age of Greed is marked by a means of production.   Unlike those Ages, it isn’t based on a material. It’s based on a tool, the modern corporation, and a law in place all over the world which dedicates corporations to the pursuit of self-interest.   

Corporations aren’t people.  They don’t have human traits like greed, but there is an identifiable reason why they behave as if they do (at least when large sums of money are at stake). That reason is the existing duty of directors contained in the corporate law which requires them to “act in their company’s best interests” with no balancing obligation at all to safeguard the environment, dignity of employees, public health and safety, wellbeing of our communities, or other elements of the public interest.

This provision encourages, if not requires, directors to allow the company to continue conducting its operations even when they are aware it is severely harmful. While technically not a human trait, it looks very much like greed.

The law wasn’t always this way.  Early corporations were originally required to safeguard the public interest, at least from severe harm.  Failure to do so could result in the revocation of their charter, their license to operate.  This made company directors more cautious with the public interest and made companies act like they had a conscience.  This made them better citizens.  In hindsight, it made them governable.

However, approximately 150 years ago, legislatures everywhere began enticing companies to incorporate in their jurisdiction by eliminating any legal requirement that corporations safeguard the public interest.  This marked the beginning of the Age of Greed. Corporate law commentators now refer to this change as “The Race to the Bottom” (RTTB). 

The RTTB made government’s job to protect the public interest significantly more difficult.  This wasn’t obvious at first. Corporations back then had little ability to harm others.  They were still small, acted mostly locally and used primitive technology. 

Over the next century and a half all this changed.  Companies grew and technology developed.  These factors made some capable of causing severe harm.  Most of today’s big corporations act not just locally, but regionally and globally.  Their actions are the result of tens of thousands of employees working in concert backed by billions in capital.  They are capable of developing new technology which continually harms the public interest in ways which are invisible until advancements in science uncover it. 

By then, they have billions invested which they don’t want to lose.  They then use their rights a citizens to lobby the people’s elected leaders to allow them to continue their destructive behaviour. Gradually, they became proficient at interfering in democratic processes to frustrate proposed laws and regulations which would make them stop. 

Untethering corporate directors from any obligation to protect the public interest led eventually to a contest of strength between government--formed to protect the public interest-- and the modern corporation--designed to pursue only self-interest. Eventually, the contest tipped in favour of the latter and the pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the public became normal and expected corporate behaviour.

In the last five decades, the Age of Greed gained traction and is now running at full speed.  Government now seems more concerned with furthering the pursuit of corporate self-interest (and hoping in vain it benefits everyone) than protecting those things we all hold in common.

The argument that a rising economy would lift everyone’s wellbeing has slowly been disproven. The rising tide didn’t lift all boats.  Instead, it has led to inequality and the gradual reduction of the middle class.  Further, it’s come at the expense of severe harm to the environment, the dignity of employees, the public health and safety, and the wellbeing of our communities.

The Age of Greed has proven that democracy cannot protect the public from large institutions dedicated to the pursuit of unrestrained self-interest. People all over the world are wondering if it can survive.  Many are beginning to give up on it and look to authoritarians for solutions.  

The solution lies not in abandoning democracy.  It’s not that democratic government is too weak.  It’s that big business’s inclination towards greed has become too strong. Worse, this behaviour sets a bad example for individual citizens by justifying and excusing the pursuit of individual self-interest at the expense of good citizenship. 

The purpose of government must be to protect and advance the interests of all.  If it benefits only a few and sacrifices the public interest in the process, only those that it benefits will support it. The rest will become susceptible to the call of charlatans and con men. 

The dissatisfaction we are now seeing with government comes from those who have determined liberal democracy is no longer benefitting them.  Their voices must be heard.  At a minimum, the environment, dignity of employees, public health and safety and wellbeing of our communities must be preserved and shielded from corporate onslaught.

The solution rests not in abandoning democracy, but in bringing the pursuit of unbridled self-interest under control once again.  The Age of Greed must be put behind. To start, this means reining in the legally authorized selfishness of big corporations.

Our most powerful citizens should necessarily be our best citizens, not our worst. Corporate directors should be required to recognize that the pursuit of their company’s self-interest should never harm the public, or at least, never harm it severely.  This will require changing existing law that directors:

·      “Act in the best interests of the company.”

To require them to:

·      “Act in the best interests of the company, but not at the expense of [severe] damage to the environment, dignity of employees, public health and safety, or wellbeing of the communities in which the company operates.”

Making this change, the Code for Corporate Citizenship (Code), should stop the major causes of global warming, result in better treatment of employees, eliminate the mass marketing of addictive and harmful products, and slow the corporate dissemination of hate and disinformation that sets communities against each other for profit. 

At the very least it will eliminate the excuse and justification provided by the RTTB which gave the pursuit of corporate profits priority over protecting the public interest.  This is important. Corporate inflicted harm to the public interest usually first occurs unintentionally--before science discovers it and the inflicting company is aware of it.  Afterwards, such abuse occurs intentionally until a law is passed to prohibit it or, rarely, a company stops voluntarily. 

Instead, directors usually reason they should allow the company to continue. The behaviour causing the harm is not yet illegal and stopping isn’t in the company’s best interests (because it will cause large write-offs of existing investments). The Code will make it clear that continuing in ways that harm will no longer be considered acceptable, normative or permitted behaviour (regardless of the adverse financial effects to the company).

In a very real sense, the Code will make corporations more humane.  They will begin to act like they have a conscience.  They will begin to behave less like a mindless and heartless tool and more like good citizens.  This isn’t too much to ask.

The vast majority of corporations already recognize that there is value in being perceived as a good steward of the environment (i.e., “green”), employer, or member of the community.  The American Business Roundtable, an organization of 200 CEOs from America’s largest companies, is on record rejecting the principle that their company’s only purpose is to act in its best interests. Instead, they believe its purpose includes taking into consideration, in addition to shareholders, the environment, employees and other stakeholders. 

Every business school now teaches ESG, the idea that a company should protect the environment and society at large as well as engage in good corporate governance.  According to industry sources, there’s now more than $30 trillion invested under socially responsible management.

Finally, no major religion teaches it’s acceptable to intentionally harm others or despoil the environment for personal gain.  In Christianity, greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  There’s no defence that it isn’t sinful because technically it isn’t illegal.  Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, persuasively argued that action against climate change was a moral imperative for Christians and humanity.

Why then, we must ask, should the law design our most powerful institutions in a way that encourages them to pursue self-interest which results in severe harm?  Rather, all such corporate behaviour should specifically be defined as unacceptable.  Corporate directors should be required to stop it from the day they become aware of it, even if no other law specifically prohibits it.

The goal of corporate behaviour should continue to be profit, but never at the expense of severe harm to the public interest.  The Code will make this clear by making the possibility of causing severe harm (and being forced to make it stop) a risk that good directors will not want to take.  In response, most will take steps to mitigate the risk by constantly monitoring their company for operations which may be causing harm and then, when they find it is, taking steps to reduce it.

Enacting the Code will close the Age of Greed and unlock the door to a new age, one of mandatory good corporate citizenship.  It will eliminate the bad idea that corporate profits should have priority over preserving the common good of all.  This will change not only the corporate mindset, but by way of example, alter the mindset of individual citizens as well. It will put an end to the Age of Greed and open a new age that is more humane and more sustainable, the Age of Citizenship. 

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Photo by Richard Miller

Robert C. Hinkley is a retired corporate lawyer and was formerly a partner in two of America's leading law firms. He in the author of "Time to Change Corporations: Closing the Citizehship Gap."