We live in an American era in which “the boss” is rarely
popular. It’s a time when some focus on the economic
“inequalities” they perceive, though they almost always
ignore other inequalities which don’t fit into their political
agenda.
For example, selectively using statistics, they point out the
income differences between many corporate executives
and their employees at various levels, but they conveniently
ignore equally great inequalities between most Americans
and, say, professional sports personalities and so many
entertainment industry personalities. The CEOs and the
entrepreneurs are villains, but the baseball player who
makes eight figures a year, the rock music star who makes
even more, or the overpaid film celebrity who parrots their
political bias --- well, those economic revenue imbalances
are either o.k. or not for public discussion.
Actually, bosses historically have not been very often
popular figures. They have always been an obvious target.
Some bosses, of course, deserve the criticism. The
economic question aside, some persons do not manage
others well or fairly. And some CEOs of publicly-held
companies are grossly overpaid. Lots of persons, as well,
are not paid what they are worth. It is an evolving but
timeless contest.
But in spite of my discussion so far, the headline above
is neither an economic nor a management question.
Understandably, we naturally focus on the human
dimension in our daily lives.
The answer to my question, as we have once again been
reminded, is not about men and women.
The real boss has no human form. We usually call it
“Nature.” It has immensely more force than any device of
ours, even usually much larger than our super bombs.
It takes the form of earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes
and cyclones, volcanoes, extreme cold or hot weather,
storms, floods, droughts and epidemics. While we debate
our human impact on climate, it rebuts all our theories and
our presumptions of controlling it.
Our planet is very old in human terms, but rather young in
galactic terms. Our planet is a moving, internally and
externally dynamic body hurtling through the vast space
we only barely perceive.
The daily organic and natural life of our planet is the real
boss. Our petty disputes --- between persons, groups and
nations --- are dwarfed by this real boss who apparently
views any inequality as the very nature of things.
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Copyright (c) 2017 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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