But please let's not leave out the lowly delivery folks.
A worker, including the lowly ones (in fact, especially the lowly ones), hopes that the loyalty he shows to management will also be shown to him. Is it a two way street?
President Bush calls for business to assume a greater share of responsibility (in addressing workers' requirements), thereby to free up taxpayers, and governments, for more pressing exigencies. Surely the obligation of accepting responsibility -- particularly responsibilities owed to those whose labor makes your own success possible -- is a moral and ethical duty. It is also the spirit of the law here in America.
But even in America, it is sometimes possible for those in positions of power and privilege, to defy the spirit of the law. It is sometimes possible for the rich and the mighty to pretend to obey the letter of the law, while blatantly disobeying the core values of ethics and social obligation.
Thomas Carlyle warned of this aspect of capitalism and runaway greed, where simpler human values were trampled by those with little allegiance to the outmoded "medieval" verities. The American slave apologist, George Fitzhugh, echoed some of Carlyle's indictment of this malicious, and hypocritical money-grubbing modernism as practiced by nothern capitalists.
We must not forget the important role played by those in power. Responsibility is a heavy burden to be borne, and it tends to be the wealthy and socially influential who wind up doing it (if they but will). Yet those who are struggling, those who are hurting, they also have temptations. (Such as the tendency to "flatter" the powerful.) God calls us to work within the system, in order to improve the system. If He has to "send in the Marines" the price we all pay may be a steep one.
