However, at one time there was a strain of Conservative thought in some precincts that was more values-based and neither doctrinaire nor anti-people of color, non-Christians and even accepting of a mild form of Keynsian-economics, recognizing that the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith did not always deal cards out fairly.
Though I am an extremely liberal person politically, I too, have some conservative tendencies.
For instance, I think people should be kind to other people. That we should treat others as we wish to be treated. That we should look people in the eyes, say "please" and "thank you," show up on time and do what we say we're going to do. I suppose you could say that my conservatism starts and maybe ends with the word "consideration," a word, in my mind, closely related to "respect," so when I saw this headline and cover art in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, it stopped me.
I'm not going to go further with Kirsch, and I'm not even going to link to it because the Journal has the strictest paywall anywhere west of the Kremlin and I know just a handful of people who bother subscribing to the paper. As I have said many times, reading the Journal gives you an edge in the business of advertising like nothing else. When clients call me up and say, "George will know what to do, George knows everything," it's because I read the business news in the Journal that they so often say words to that effect. (Of course, reading the Journal has alienated me from so many people. I've made a choice to not watch television and to read the paper instead. When the great score-keeper comes to pen my name, I think my choice will be regarded favorably.)
Nevertheless, back to the matter of respect in business.
Giving respect, I think is like having principles. They're both meaningless until they cost you money. When they do, and you have to show who you are, rather than just say what you are, respect and the like have all the veracity of a hallmark card or a Linked In post from a pladituditator like Seth or Simon.
In advertising, where I plow my fields, a lot of hot air has destroyed a lot of ethical ozone layers as every agency and every holding company blathers on about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
To my glaucoma'd baby-blues, those words have about as truth as you'd find in a typical Bazooka Joe bubble gum cartoon.
If you hold, as I do (and I agree with Journal writer Adam Kirsch here) that "respect is rooted in the idea of equality; being respectful in outward, visible ways--for instance, by giving someone your full attention when they're talking--is a signal that you regard them as a peer."
The words Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in most cases in our modern world are nothing more than placating subterfuges for upholding the primacy of the one-percenters over the masses.
I won't go into excruciating detail, like how WPP, the world's largest communications company has less than two-percent of its employees over the age of 60, when the population of the world is about 20-percent 60+. I've covered that ground before.
But how can any company talk about equity when very few companies actually share equity (like say, through an employee stock ownership plan) or through a fairer allocation of wages. Whereas in the 1970s, the average CEO made about twenty-times the wage of an average worker, today advertising holding company CEOs (all white men) make about 300 times the wage of their median employee.
Seriously, seriously, seriously. Can any holding company DEI person--I know you're reading this--explain where the equity is in supporting that sort of non-equitable compensation infrastructure? If any DEI person responds, I'll give you this space--without any of my editorial oversight--and my audience of roughly 80,000 readers a week, for free.
My experience in holding companies and from the views of associates who are still in holding companies says that there's no diversity, no equity and no inclusion. The big wigs get offices far from the hoi polloi, with working doors and windows, take black cars home when they leave at five, and generally know no one's name outside of the handful of people they come into contact with. I can't possibly think how a system that allows this sort of behavior, embraces it, in fact, can be thought of as inclusive.
I'll end with a personal anecdote.
About 15 years ago I was interviewing for a giant job at the holding company level. It was an idea I hatched to make work better across some of the giant accounts the holding company shared across ten or 15 different companies they owned.
Roughly 30 minutes into the conversation, the CEO I was interviewing with got a cell-phone call.
"It's from my daughter," he said. "Do you mind if I take this?"
I have daughters, too. Of course not.
After a few minutes, he hung up the phone and returned to me. But first he said, "She was thanking me. I bought her a $3,200 handbag for her birthday."
That $3,200 handbag, by the way, is closer to the median salary of the holding company's employees than the salary of this CEO was.
Diversity--except for people we can get away with not hiring.
Equity--except when it comes to distribution of revenue.
Inclusion--except when it comes to people who aren't us.
We're all for it.
HANDBAG MEDIAN CEO COMP
$3,200 x 20 = $64,000 x 275 = $17,600,000
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