Re: Enron's Skilling as business philosopher

Petros;

Beautiful analysis!

I do agree that what Skilling  advocates is a belief system that requires a
characteristic act of faith.  Christianity (and other world religions) are
however not on the decline;  they thrive among the working classes.
Humanism flourishes among the capitalists, their managers, and  intellectual
workers; these folks are the ones who need the religion that Skilling
offers.  In the US intellectual culture is so little valued among the masses
that Skilling knows there will be no popular reaction against him for this
obvious contraversion of common sense and the even more egregious shifting
of blame.  Shameless!!!  The persons whose loyalty he strives to maintain,
or better said, to whom he is justifying his actions and his statements
about his actions, are all of those corporate intellectual workers, with
their characteristic identification with the capitalist interests, but who
have received the shaft as it were.  Skilling does have to think about who
might work for him again, if he gets out of this somewhat whole, an
unthinkable outcome yet highly probable, a la Michael Milkin.

Paul H. Dillon



----- Original Message -----
From: Petros Haritatos <haritatos@athenian.net>
To: WSN <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>; PSN <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 4:31 AM
Subject: Enron's Skilling as business philosopher


>
> The BBC carries a fascinating story on
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/business/newsid_1841000/1841824.stm
> in which Enron's former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling insists that he
> had not done nothing wrong and that Enron's collapse was caused by a
> "classic run on the bank".
>
> According to this Harvard MBA, two parties are to blame:
>
> a) those who lost their belief in Enron's integrity (i.e. investors),
> because of
> b) those who spoke of "accounting fraud" (i.e. critics of Enron's
> practices).
>
> This is a "self-evident truth" for a lot of people. In the way that
> flags are tokens of national sentiment, stocks are tokens of monetary
> value. Such tokens are held up by shared belief. Levitation of stock
> prices is also an act of belief, cultivated by a priesthood, Skilling's
> peers and mentors. Those who doubt it, are the new Enlightenment
> challengers of the new Western absolutism.
>
> A key process is at work here, of need and want, demand and supply. For
> good reasons, people need to believe in natural orders. Articulate
> minorities have always catered to this need. They succeed for a period,
> and achieve a close "fit" between what they offer and what most of
> society wants. For example, the widespread devotion to Christianity
> among ordinary people in the West, the gigantic expectations from
> Socialism, the optimistic hopes of equal opportunity in market
> capitalism. But at some point the fit starts to loosen and society (or
> segments of it) seeks another fit, e.g. from Catholicism to
> Protestantism and to secularism. Thus, to talk about "decline of
> religion" is to adopt the viewpoint of a waning priesthood, when what we
> are really seeing is the displacement of belief from one belief system
> to another.
>
>  So what can one expect regarding the currently dominant belief system
> which Skilling expresses so clearly? Are the investors who lost faith in
> Enron stock apostates, or do they simply move to another shrine of the
> same religion? Are we seeing any differenciations within the priesthood,
> any stirrings of a new Reformation?
>
> Petros Haritatos, Athens
>
>
----- Original Message -----
From: Petros Haritatos <haritatos@athenian.net>
To: WSN <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>; PSN <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 4:31 AM
Subject: Enron's Skilling as business philosopher


>
> The BBC carries a fascinating story on
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/business/newsid_1841000/1841824.stm
> in which Enron's former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling insists that he
> had not done nothing wrong and that Enron's collapse was caused by a
> "classic run on the bank".
>
> According to this Harvard MBA, two parties are to blame:
>
> a) those who lost their belief in Enron's integrity (i.e. investors),
> because of
> b) those who spoke of "accounting fraud" (i.e. critics of Enron's
> practices).
>
> This is a "self-evident truth" for a lot of people. In the way that
> flags are tokens of national sentiment, stocks are tokens of monetary
> value. Such tokens are held up by shared belief. Levitation of stock
> prices is also an act of belief, cultivated by a priesthood, Skilling's
> peers and mentors. Those who doubt it, are the new Enlightenment
> challengers of the new Western absolutism.
>
> A key process is at work here, of need and want, demand and supply. For
> good reasons, people need to believe in natural orders. Articulate
> minorities have always catered to this need. They succeed for a period,
> and achieve a close "fit" between what they offer and what most of
> society wants. For example, the widespread devotion to Christianity
> among ordinary people in the West, the gigantic expectations from
> Socialism, the optimistic hopes of equal opportunity in market
> capitalism. But at some point the fit starts to loosen and society (or
> segments of it) seeks another fit, e.g. from Catholicism to
> Protestantism and to secularism. Thus, to talk about "decline of
> religion" is to adopt the viewpoint of a waning priesthood, when what we
> are really seeing is the displacement of belief from one belief system
> to another.
>
>  So what can one expect regarding the currently dominant belief system
> which Skilling expresses so clearly? Are the investors who lost faith in
> Enron stock apostates, or do they simply move to another shrine of the
> same religion? Are we seeing any differenciations within the priesthood,
> any stirrings of a new Reformation?
>
> Petros Haritatos, Athens
>
>