Volkswagen outrage shows limits of corporate...
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www.eEpochTimes.com A3 OCTOBER 8–14, 2015 | EPOCH WEEKLY Volkswagen outrage shows limits of corporate power By Carl Rhodes As far as Volkswagen Group is con- cerned, bearing its social responsi- bility has long been at the heart of our corporate culture. So says the company’s official statement of sustainability and responsibility. “Resource conserva- tion” and “climate protection” are touted as values that VW has inte- grated into its business. But those values have turned out to be a sham, aſter Volkswagen was caught out rigging 11 million VW, Audi, Skoda and other vehicles with software to meet US fuel emission standards under test conditions, only to release up to 4000 per cent of the nitrogen oxide allowed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in normal driving. Within days of the EPA releas- ing its report on Sept 18, the media went into over- drive about VW’s transgressions. “Volkswagen in meltdown aſter faked diesel tests” declared e Times in the UK. “Cheating and outrage” led e New York Times. Central to the media coverage has been a sense of moral outrage and indignation. Business ethics experts have suggested the behav- iour of VW’s engineers is “shock- ing”, while VW has been criticised for its “unethical culture”. But from the perspective of the true corporate logic that is veiled by business ethics, VW only did one thing wrong. It got caught. And by getting caught it has shattered the fragile illusion that powerful cor- porations can have any real concern with ethics or responsibility. Other major corporate scandals Despite the outrage at VW, it is just the most recent in a long line of cor- porate scandals ranging from con- niving fraud, to environmental dev- astation, to abuse of workers’ rights. Some companies, such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, did not survive. Others, like BP and Dow Chemi- cals, live on. Dead or alive, the scandalised corporation is rebuked for its lack of ethics and its failure to take responsibility. e proposed solution is to re-inject a healthy dose of ethics into the heart of a company’s culture. But is this simple diagnosis really tenable? e question that fails to be asked is why would anyone accept that cor- porations could possibly be respon- sible and ethical in the first place? Is expecting corporations to take responsibility for social outcomes akin to asking the cat to guard the cream? What we can learn from the goings-on at VW is not that corpo- rations can or should be more ethi- cal, but that ethics is not something that can reasonably be expected to come from the inside corporations. How many corporate scandals do we need before even the potential for ethical legitimacy in a corporation is hollowed out to its core? e increasing popularity of busi- ness ethics and corporate social responsibility over the past 30 years has happened at the same time as the colossal growth of global corpo- rate power. Ours is a time where the share of world trade accounted for by transnational corporations has swelled to 80 per cent, and where more than half of the world’s biggest economies are corporations rather than countries. is has also been an era of massive deregulation of the global markets in which corporations play, as well as the privatisation (that is corporatisation) of previously public enterprises. Business ethics is central to this. It is heralded as a form of corporate self-regulation that replaces the need for state interference into business activities. If there was ever a doctrine of “might is right” it is contemporary business ethics. Volkswagen, as the world’s largest auto manufacturer, is no exception. e trick is simple. First, you pro- claim your own ethical credentials with a slick corporate social respon- sibility program propped up by a range of awards in CSR, sustaina- bility etc. Second, you work to shield yourself from external interference on the basis of your self-stated eth- ical credibility. ird, cloaked in ethics, you carry on with any ruth- less, unscrupulous, damaging and deceitful activities that will further your own pursuit of power. The fallout Caught red-handed, the future of VW has been rendered unclear. At best its reputation is in tatters, and worst its continued existence is in question. e stakes are high. e livelihood of the almost 600,000 people employed by VW across the world could be in jeopardy. A third of the company’s market value was wiped out in less than a week. Trust in the entire German manufacturing sector has been brought into question. CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned, and is now facing criminal investigation. But the news is not all bad. e public outcry over Volkswagen’s highly organised and technically proficient approach to deceiving both its customers and regulators at the expense of the environment is a welcome sign that corporate power does have limits. ese limits are not found in any leather upholstered corporate social responsibility office or the self-congratulatory idolatry of the business ethics awards cer- emony. Instead, they are located in the realm of a democratic society where power can be questioned, protested and held to account. At these limits we find a very dif- ferent form of ethics for business. It is an ethics that is appalled by the excessive abuse of corporate power for the purpose of self-interest. It is an ethics that arises in the demo- cratic sphere as people and the insti- tutions that represent them contest corporate power. It is an ethics that seeks to disturb and resist the power, privilege, arrogance and the wanton disregard for people’s lives that time and time again characterises corpo- rate behaviour. In the last weeks of September, VW has experienced the true poten- tial of ethics in business. e poten- tial for society to hold the powerful to account for their actions. What the VW scandal shows is that busi- ness ethics is far too important to be leſt in the hands of powerful self- interested corporations. Carl Rhodes is a Professor of Man- agement and Organisation Studies, Macquarie University. is article was previously published on eCon- versation. The factory of German carmaker Volkswagen on Sept 28 in Wolfsburg, Germany. Wolfsburg was initially built by authorities under Nazi Germany to house workers and the factory that would produce the ‘KdF Wagen’, the precursor to the Volkswagen Beetle meant as an affordable car for the people. PHOTO BY CARSTEN KOALL/GETTY IMAGES But from the perspective of the true corporate logic that is veiled by business ethics, VW only did one thing wrong. It got caught. By Thomas S Bianchi Global warming is accelerat- ing the thawing of permafrost – soil that has been at or below the freezing point of water for approximately 2 or more years. is releases the potent green- house gas methane to the atmos- phere. is direct release of methane (the main component in natural gas) occurs when methane-pro- ducing bacteria consume organic matter in the rotting soil that has been stored in permafrost over the millennia. us, many sci- entists predict large releases of methane from these sources as a result of global warming. is is likely what you have already heard about permafrost. Indeed, most of the recent news and interest about permafrost thawing is associated with Arc- tic and Antarctic regions, even though alpine permafrost does exist in low latitudes as well. What you have not likely heard about concerns an interesting twist regarding a certain type of organic matter stored in per- mafrost, which scientists have been talking about for the past decade. It is called yedoma, and is generally defined as organic- rich (about 2 per cent by mass) Pleistocene-age permafrost com- prised of 50 per cent to 90 per cent ice, by volume. Yedoma is stored in tens to hundreds of metres of permafrost in the Arctic. We and others have recently shown that as this permafrost thaws, yedoma is released to the surrounding soils and some gets transported by rivers from land to the Arctic Ocean. While most scientists would have predicted that this very old organic matter would not be very digestible to modern- day organisms, such as bacteria, it turns out that it is extremely “fresh” in its composition and consequently highly bio- available to microbes. is, it turns out, has big impli- cations for permafrost and global warming because this process produces another greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide. Frozen vegetables for bacteria Why can modern-day organisms eat ancient organic matter in per- mafrost? Well, it was quickly fro- zen in permafrost over tens to hundreds of thousands years ago before much decay had occurred. In essence, this yedoma is like frozen vegetables, whereby fresh produce is frozen (before the onset of any decay) allowing for the retention of nutrients in a fro- zen state. is is a very different way to view the processing of organic matter on Earth. “Old” stored and buried organic matter is generally viewed as being highly decomposed and having little nutrition to modern-day organ- isms. Yet we have found that this is not the case. So, why should we care about yedoma? Well, we have the posi- tive, or self-reinforcing, feedback of methane release from thawing permafrost on global warming – that is, as methane is released, it induces more warming and per- mafrost thawing. In addition, now we also have a very digestible source of organic matter (yedoma) being released from thawing permafrost that bacteria quickly consume. In the process of doing so, they produce yet another greenhouse gas, car- bon dioxide. Because there are high amounts of methane stored in permafrost ice, the heat-trap- ping potential is higher than the CO2 released from digested yedoma. Scientists are now studying the release of yedoma more closely to better understand its overall impact on the rate of warming. Throwing off carbon dating I will close with yet another inter- esting ramification of yedoma getting incorporated into our modern Arctic ecosystems. In a recent book by Rachel Suss- man entitled e Oldest Living ings in the World, she covers the amazing spectrum of ages of living organisms, spanning from gastrotrich (microscopic worm- like organisms in both freshwa- ter and marine environments) that live only 3 days to bacte- ria found in Siberian perma- frost that are 600,000 to 700,000 years old. If we now imagine large vol- umes of yedoma being released to terrestrial and aquatic ecosys- tems in the Arctic, and we know that it is efficiently incorporated at the lower food chains, it will eventually make its way up to the higher food chain, where organ- isms will be eating organic mat- ter that is tens to thousands of years old. Since “we are what we eat”, this means that the tissues of those organisms, if dated using radiocarbon, should be thou- sands of years old – very strange. So, as the rules continue to change in the Anthropocene, we can add yet another twist in this ever-changing era where a gastrotrich microbe that lives for 3 days can be thousands of years old when it dies. In conjunction with colleagues from different institutions, I will continue to examine how per- mafrost organic matter changes with different seasonal thaw cycles and moves from soils through the watershed to the riv- ers. I am also collaborating with Drs Robert Spencer and Francois Guillemette at Florida State Uni- versity, where we are currently in the process of writing a com- prehensive review on the ramifi- cations of yedoma and how this will continue to change our view [on] the age of organisms in the Arctic. omas S Bianchi is a Professor of Geology at the University of Flor- ida. is article was previously published on eConversation. Permafrost-eating bacteria: A new twist on thawing Arctic and global warming Carbon in some types of ancient permafrost is digested by greenhouse gas-producing microbes. US BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, CC BY-SA
Transcript of Volkswagen outrage shows limits of corporate...
www.TheEpochTimes.com
A3 OCTOBER 8–14, 2015 |EPOCH WEEKLY
Volkswagen outrage shows limits of corporate power
By Carl Rhodes
As far as Volkswagen Group is con-cerned, bearing its social responsi-bility has long been at the heart of our corporate culture.
So says the company’s official statement of sustainability and responsibility. “Resource conserva-tion” and “climate protection” are touted as values that VW has inte-grated into its business.
But those values have turned out to be a sham, after Volkswagen was caught out rigging 11 million VW, Audi, Skoda and other vehicles with
software to meet US fuel emission standards under test conditions, only to release up to 4000 per cent of the nitrogen oxide allowed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in normal driving.
Within days of the EPA releas-ing its report on Sept 18, the media went into over-drive about VW’s
transgressions. “Volkswagen in meltdown after faked diesel tests” declared The Times in the UK. “Cheating and outrage” led The New York Times.
Central to the media coverage has been a sense of moral outrage and indignation. Business ethics experts have suggested the behav-iour of VW’s engineers is “shock-ing”, while VW has been criticised for its “unethical culture”.
But from the perspective of the true corporate logic that is veiled by business ethics, VW only did one thing wrong. It got caught. And by getting caught it has shattered the fragile illusion that powerful cor-porations can have any real concern with ethics or responsibility.
Other major corporate scandalsDespite the outrage at VW, it is just the most recent in a long line of cor-porate scandals ranging from con-niving fraud, to environmental dev-astation, to abuse of workers’ rights. Some companies, such as Enron and Lehman Brothers, did not survive. Others, like BP and Dow Chemi-cals, live on.
Dead or alive, the scandalised
corporation is rebuked for its lack of ethics and its failure to take responsibility. The proposed solution is to re-inject a healthy dose of ethics into the heart of a company’s culture. But is this simple diagnosis really tenable?
The question that fails to be asked is why would anyone accept that cor-porations could possibly be respon-sible and ethical in the first place? Is expecting corporations to take responsibility for social outcomes akin to asking the cat to guard the cream?
What we can learn from the goings-on at VW is not that corpo-rations can or should be more ethi-cal, but that ethics is not something that can reasonably be expected to come from the inside corporations. How many corporate scandals do we need before even the potential for ethical legitimacy in a corporation is hollowed out to its core?
The increasing popularity of busi-ness ethics and corporate social responsibility over the past 30 years has happened at the same time as the colossal growth of global corpo-rate power. Ours is a time where the share of world trade accounted for by transnational corporations has swelled to 80 per cent, and where more than half of the world’s biggest economies are corporations rather than countries.
This has also been an era of massive deregulation of the global markets in which corporations play, as well as the privatisation (that is corporatisation) of previously public enterprises. Business ethics is central to this. It is heralded as a form of corporate self-regulation that replaces the need for state interference into business activities.
If there was ever a doctrine of “might is right” it is contemporary business ethics. Volkswagen, as the world’s largest auto manufacturer, is no exception.
The trick is simple. First, you pro-claim your own ethical credentials with a slick corporate social respon-sibility program propped up by a range of awards in CSR, sustaina-bility etc. Second, you work to shield yourself from external interference on the basis of your self-stated eth-ical credibility. Third, cloaked in ethics, you carry on with any ruth-less, unscrupulous, damaging and deceitful activities that will further your own pursuit of power.
The fallout
Caught red-handed, the future of VW has been rendered unclear. At best its reputation is in tatters, and worst its continued existence is in question. The stakes are high. The livelihood of the almost 600,000 people employed by VW across the world could be in jeopardy. A third of the company’s market value was wiped out in less than a week. Trust in the entire German manufacturing sector has been brought into question. CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned, and is now facing criminal investigation.
But the news is not all bad. The public outcry over Volkswagen’s highly organised and technically proficient approach to deceiving both its customers and regulators
at the expense of the environment is a welcome sign that corporate power does have limits. These limits are not found in any leather upholstered corporate social responsibility office or the self-congratulatory idolatry of the business ethics awards cer-emony. Instead, they are located in the realm of a democratic society where power can be questioned, protested and held to account.
At these limits we find a very dif-ferent form of ethics for business. It is an ethics that is appalled by the excessive abuse of corporate power for the purpose of self-interest. It is an ethics that arises in the demo-cratic sphere as people and the insti-tutions that represent them contest corporate power. It is an ethics that
seeks to disturb and resist the power, privilege, arrogance and the wanton disregard for people’s lives that time and time again characterises corpo-rate behaviour.
In the last weeks of September, VW has experienced the true poten-tial of ethics in business. The poten-tial for society to hold the powerful to account for their actions. What the VW scandal shows is that busi-ness ethics is far too important to be left in the hands of powerful self-interested corporations.
Carl Rhodes is a Professor of Man-agement and Organisation Studies, Macquarie University. This article was previously published on TheCon-versation.
The factory of German carmaker Volkswagen on Sept 28 in Wolfsburg, Germany. Wolfsburg was initially built by authorities under Nazi Germany to house workers and the factory that would produce the ‘KdF Wagen’, the precursor to the Volkswagen Beetle meant as an affordable car for the people.
PHOTO BY CARSTEN KOALL/GETTY IMAGES
But from the perspective of the true corporate logic that is veiled by business ethics, VW only did one thing wrong. It got caught.
By Thomas S Bianchi
Global warming is accelerat-ing the thawing of permafrost – soil that has been at or below the freezing point of water for approximately 2 or more years. This releases the potent green-house gas methane to the atmos-phere.
This direct release of methane (the main component in natural gas) occurs when methane-pro-ducing bacteria consume organic matter in the rotting soil that has been stored in permafrost over the millennia. Thus, many sci-entists predict large releases of methane from these sources as a result of global warming.
This is likely what you have already heard about permafrost. Indeed, most of the recent news and interest about permafrost thawing is associated with Arc-tic and Antarctic regions, even though alpine permafrost does exist in low latitudes as well.
What you have not likely heard about concerns an interesting twist regarding a certain type of organic matter stored in per-mafrost, which scientists have been talking about for the past decade. It is called yedoma, and is generally defined as organic-rich (about 2 per cent by mass) Pleistocene-age permafrost com-prised of 50 per cent to 90 per
cent ice, by volume. Yedoma is stored in tens to hundreds of metres of permafrost in the Arctic.
We and others have recently shown that as this permafrost thaws, yedoma is released to the surrounding soils and some gets transported by rivers from land to the Arctic Ocean.
While most scientists would have predicted that this very old organic matter would not be very digestible to modern-day organisms, such as bacteria, it turns out that it is extremely “fresh” in its composition and consequently highly bio-available to microbes.
This, it turns out, has big impli-cations for permafrost and global warming because this process produces another greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide.
Frozen vegetables for bacteriaWhy can modern-day organisms eat ancient organic matter in per-mafrost? Well, it was quickly fro-zen in permafrost over tens to hundreds of thousands years ago before much decay had occurred. In essence, this yedoma is like frozen vegetables, whereby fresh produce is frozen (before the onset of any decay) allowing for the retention of nutrients in a fro-zen state.
This is a very different way to view the processing of organic
matter on Earth. “Old” stored and buried organic matter is generally viewed as being highly decomposed and having little nutrition to modern-day organ-isms. Yet we have found that this is not the case.
So, why should we care about yedoma? Well, we have the posi-tive, or self-reinforcing, feedback of methane release from thawing permafrost on global warming – that is, as methane is released, it induces more warming and per-mafrost thawing.
In addition, now we also have a very digestible source of organic matter (yedoma) being released
from thawing permafrost that bacteria quickly consume. In the process of doing so, they produce yet another greenhouse gas, car-bon dioxide. Because there are high amounts of methane stored in permafrost ice, the heat-trap-ping potential is higher than the CO2 released from digested yedoma.
Scientists are now studying the release of yedoma more closely to better understand its overall impact on the rate of warming.
Throwing off carbon datingI will close with yet another inter-esting ramification of yedoma
getting incorporated into our modern Arctic ecosystems. In a recent book by Rachel Suss-man entitled The Oldest Living Things in the World, she covers the amazing spectrum of ages of living organisms, spanning from gastrotrich (microscopic worm-like organisms in both freshwa-ter and marine environments) that live only 3 days to bacte-ria found in Siberian perma-frost that are 600,000 to 700,000 years old.
If we now imagine large vol-umes of yedoma being released to terrestrial and aquatic ecosys-tems in the Arctic, and we know
that it is efficiently incorporated at the lower food chains, it will eventually make its way up to the higher food chain, where organ-isms will be eating organic mat-ter that is tens to thousands of years old. Since “we are what we eat”, this means that the tissues of those organisms, if dated using radiocarbon, should be thou-sands of years old – very strange.
So, as the rules continue to change in the Anthropocene, we can add yet another twist in this ever-changing era where a gastrotrich microbe that lives for 3 days can be thousands of years old when it dies.
In conjunction with colleagues from different institutions, I will continue to examine how per-mafrost organic matter changes with different seasonal thaw cycles and moves from soils through the watershed to the riv-ers. I am also collaborating with Drs Robert Spencer and Francois Guillemette at Florida State Uni-versity, where we are currently in the process of writing a com-prehensive review on the ramifi-cations of yedoma and how this will continue to change our view [on] the age of organisms in the Arctic.
Thomas S Bianchi is a Professor of Geology at the University of Flor-ida. This article was previously published on TheConversation.
Permafrost-eating bacteria: A new twist on thawing Arctic and global warming
Carbon in some types of ancient permafrost is digested by greenhouse gas-producing microbes.
US BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, CC BY-SA
