The Divine Right of Capital

1The Sacred Texts

THE PRINCIPLE OF WORLDVIEW

In the worldview of corporate financial statements,the aim is to pay stockholders as much as possible,and employees as little as possible.

I grew up with bombs in the house. Two, actually. They were part of my father’s collection of antique war implements: a motley assortment of swords, masks, rifles, and these two shells—tall as a two-year-old child, standing upright on the long brick hearth in our basement. It wasn’t until my dad died and my mother moved out—after eight children had grown up wrestling near those bombs—that we discovered one shell was live. It could have gone off any time.

These days I collect tamer antiques than my dad: old magazines, cobalt blue Fiestaware. Mostly I collect antique ...