Wednesday, October 17, 2012

If the corporation is, in the eyes of the laws of justice, an individual, then the corporation is subject to the same Buddhist laws concerning the illusion of a distinct self and the truth of interconnectedness of all beings.  McDonald's is a corporation, for profit, its own profits.  But the trash it generates we all have to deal with in the public garbage dump.  The effects of ill health, the sugar, the fried food, the meager nutrition in say its hamburger buns, these too are public costs.  The corporation would like to believe that its own responsibility ends with the happy customer enjoying a cheeseburger, fries and soda.  Its restaurants have their trash bins and bathrooms, and beyond that, its the risks assumed by the consumer who comes of free will, the growing trash pile and teenage diabetes and obese work adult work force not knowing any better but to eat at McDonalds where it is, at least, cheap, convenient and familiar.  I've been a happy patron myself, more or less, and in high school I worked at one myself.

Free enterprise, beautiful system.  And yet, we are all interconnected, and we are finding this out more and more.  Carbon footprints, global warming, health and well-being.

1 comment:

vic said...

good point about the waste we all have to deal with. I am no glorifier of capitalism. Capitalism obscures great truths, and is a deceptive and wasteful system. Its inimical to Christianity. ITs another corruption upon our world. Hope you are well. Hope I am alerted if you or others comment on a blog I commented on -vi--you see everyone did not get a life. Capitalism purposely obscures that, which Jesus referenced as the kingdom of god....government too these days, takes no account of, government too, is the wrong way to do something. Government is ignorant and lies about the kingdom of god, and is a way of keeping us from solving our own problems, and not really an actual way of solving problems itself.