Quoting on, she explained in the pages of Business Week:
"Each
day's economic news leaves me haunted by Hannah Arendt's ruminations on Nazi
war criminal Adolph Eichmann as she reported on his trial in Jerusalem for The
New Yorker 45 years
ago. Arendt pondered "the strange interdependence of thoughtlessness and
evil" and sought to capture it with her famous formulation "the
banality of evil." Arendt found Eichmann neither "perverted nor
sadistic," but "terribly and terrifyingly normal."
She even
found a way of comparing the economic catastrophe that so many of us are living
through to the Holocaust, although back stepped, no doubt in fear of provoking
too strong a dismissive reaction from those who see that crime s uniquely
horrific in history.
"The
economic crisis is not the Holocaust but, I would argue, it derives from a
business model that routinely produced a similar kind of remoteness and
thoughtlessness, compounded by a widespread abrogation of individual moral
judgment. As we learn more about the behavior within our financial
institutions, we see that just about everyone accepted a reckless system that
rewards transactions but rejects responsibility for the consequences of those
transactions. Bankers, brokers, and financial specialists were all willing
participants in a self-centered business model that celebrates what's good for organization
insiders while dehumanizing and distancing everyone else--the outsiders."
It is
precisely this framework though, steeped in moral as well as economic lessons
that we need to adopt to judge the vast human rights implications of the
decisions and practices that led to the massive unemployment, homelessness,
foreclosures, downward mobility and poverty that grips our world.
Is there
the slightest chance of a remote possibility that a UN body, made up, as it is
by politicians and nation states, would acknowledge the need for, much less the
desirability of, prosecuting financial institutions and the governments that
cover up for them, often in the name of protecting the social and economic
rights of vulnerable people caught in the matrix of downward mobility?
At a
time when the "right to protect" is so much in vogue, that is, when it involves
bombing and drone attacks that actually cause additional harm to vulnerable
civilians trapped in wars, can it be reframed as an affirmative duty for an
international body to step in where national governments are unwilling to tread
to stand up for the rights millions facing poverty and joblessness because of
the deregulation and decriminalization by legislators compromised by corruption
and payoffs.
In what
everyone agrees is a GLOBAL crisis, is there not a need for Global solutions
that go beyond somewhat stronger national regulations and "reforms" that have
proven illusionary. Even the overdue Tobin Tax on financial transactions is not
international and inadequate.
Where
are the global rules outlawing risky derivatives and casino-like gambling with
people's lives in financial markets?
Where
are the safeguards against the offshore hoarding of corporate funds and great
fortunes? Are these abuses not as serious as insider trading?
Where
is the exposure of the economic austerity programs launched with official
knowledge about the pain they will cause to ordinary people who are not
responsible for the economic meltdown? Can the UN protect them?
Where
is the outrage against programs and policies that deepen economic inequality,
or violently repress peaceful protests by citizens working for economic
justice?
Hasn't
the UN been tracking the international abuses against non-violent Occupy
Movements worldwide?
Is all
the police overreach--surveillance, spying and the use of provocateurs to
promote violence--not worthy of UN attention and condemnation as it is taking
place worldwide and across borders?
Where
is the global determination to investigate more deeply, name and shame the
financial violators of human rights, indict the guilty and prosecute them in
the name of global justice?
*Why all
the silence in the face of this ongoing onslaught against democracy and
economic prosperity.
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