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"The big power-hungry forces, from ideologies to big business, have got where they are without any help from me." (The writer John Wain).

There are many, many schools in this country which can't make the same claim. To be more exact, decision-makers in these schools can't make the same claim. They have given help to forces which are powerful, opportunistic, ruthless, forces which are damaging to the local community, to small businesses, to farming, to the consumers who mistakenly and uncritically use them - or are forced to use them, often, because the supermarkets have deprived whole communities of real choice. No matter what may be good, enlightened, exceptional about the education provided by these schools, this is hidden from view, to some extent. The public face of these schools is very different: as advertising hoardings. These are just a few of these 'advertising hoardings with a good school behind them.'

Peak Forest Church of England Primary School, Derbyshire. Headteacher: Mr David Gordon (Mr David Tesco-Gordon.)

Hope Primary School, Derbyshire. Headteacher: Ms Samantha Fisher(Ms Samantha Sainsbury-Fisher.)

Compare this advertisement for Sainsbury's, kindly provided by Hope Primary School, with the writer Julie Burchill's devastating if over-stated comment about the cook Jamie Oliver: "Oliver basically passed on any right to be taken seriously the day he took the Sainsbury’s shilling; it sounds puritanical, but I’m of the same opinion as Bill Hicks that the day you are first paid to advertise something, you lose the right to be believed on anything, ever again."

This is an urban school promoting Sainsbury's, Rivelin Primary School, Sheffield. Headteacher: Mrs Yvonne Twelvetree (Mrs Yvonne Sainsbury-Twelvetree.) Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

The motto or 'mission statement' of the school on a nearby board is "Sowing the seeds for a lifetime's love of learning." True, very true, I'm sure - but promoting too a lifetime of supermarket shopping and helping to sow the seeds of rank weeds, choking the life out of small businesses in the area.

This school is situated next to an extensive allotment site. Jane Grigson wrote, in the introduction to 'Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book,' "In my most optimistic moments, I see every town ringed again with small gardens, nurseries, allotments, greenhouses, orchards, as it was in the past, an assertion of delight and human scale." The 'vision' of so many schools, or their decision-makers, is very different: "every town ringed with massive supermarkets, an assertion of alienation and inhuman scale."

And here is a school in Sheffield which advertises Tesco's, Lydgate Junior School, Sheffield. Headteacher: Mrs Susan Havenhand (Mrs Susan Tesco-Havenhand.) Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

The reason for calling these Headteachers by alternative names will be obvious enough, but I give further information here.

If supermarkets are weeds then Tesco is the Japanese knot-weed of British retailing. Richard Mabey writes in 'Flora Britannica' of "its rampaging spread across Britain...advancing...aggressively...the most pernicious weed in Britain..."

Although it's the unhealthy relationship between supermarkets and schools which concerns me here, this is part of a wider problem, of course. For example, in many schools, it's the Coca-Cola logo which appears on the school litter bins. One example from many is Tapton School, Sheffield. Headteacher: Mr David Bowes (Mr David Coca-Cola Bowes.) When the Coca-Cola corporation tried to advertize in schools in Seattle, the campaigner Ralph Nader, of Commercial Alert, wrote a letter to the President of the Seattle school board which began "It is not the function of the public schools to deliver a captive audience of ... impressionable children to multinational corporations. The public schools are supposed to be a refuge, a sanctuary from commercial hucksters - not yet another place for corporations to peddle their products." Commercial Alert describes its objective as "to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy."

John Alm, President and Chief Operating Officer, Coca-Cola Enterprises: 'The school system is where you build brand loyalty.' (Quoted in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, April 6, 2003.)

Some supermarkets, like the Coca-Cola corporation and so many other large commercial concerns, are insatiable. Not content with TV advertising, radio advertising, advertising on hoardings, in newspapers and magazines, some of them want to advertise outside schools - and a large number of schools allow it. Let schools at least be a refuge, a sanctuary, from this commercial bombardment.

I never shop in a supermarket, but this page isn't primarily concerned with the arguments against supermarkets, even though I give some of them. It's mainly concerned with one specific issue - schools advertising supermarkets. I hope that people who sometimes shop in these places, who mostly do their shopping there, as well as people who do nearly all their shopping at supermarkets, won't support the practice of schools advertising supermarkets, or will actively oppose it. There are institutions which should be as far as possible free from bias. An independent judiciary, a planning system which decides the merits of a case not on economic power but by considering fair-mindedly the merits of an application using criteria such as congestion, social need, existing provision, the preservation of the character or beauty of a place - and an educational system which isn't open to the highest bidder, which recognizes that in a case like this, where there are serious, principled objections to these businesses, based on evidence, it's completely wrong to give them this uncritical support.

I oppose the promotion of supermarkets by schools in general, in big cities such as Sheffield as well as in villages such as Hope and tiny hamlets such as Peak Forest. A concern for the preservation of the visual environment, the built environment and the natural environment, is important everywhere, of course, but even more so in a National Park. Both of the Derbyshire schools above are in the Peak District National Park. If you're making the journey towards Castleton, after passing the tawdry advertisement for Tesco outside Peak Forest Primary School, you'll be confronted by the stark beauty of Winnats Pass:

If you're making the journey from Hope to Edale, where the Pennine Way begins, to end in Scotland, after passing the demeaning advertisement for Sainsbury outside Hope Primary School, you'll travel past a beautiful skyline to your left, of real grandeur, but intimate rather than intimidating.

But the advertisements provided by these schools amount to a reduction of contrast, of the distinctiveness of the Peak District. If you go to the Cotswolds or rural Devon or Northumbria - the length and breadth of the country, in fact - you'll no doubt find schools imposing on us exactly the same jarring and completely unnecessary intrusions. An organization which has made an outstanding contribution to the appreciation of local distinctiveness and its active defence is Common Ground. Their Web sites are at http://www.commonground.org.uk and http://www.england-in-particular.info See also their valuable book 'England in Particular,' in which the village of Hope is mentioned.

The objections to supermarkets go well beyond their dismal environmental record. Here, very belatedly, they are taking steps to improve, although many of the improvements are cosmetic rather than real. Very important to me, and others, are a range of other objections. The blandness, the uniformity, the cloning that result when the supermarkets get their stranglehold on retailing. Compare Italy with this country. I visited Poland not so long ago, and because I don't fly when I can go overland I went by coach. (I haven't flown anywhere for thirty years but I don't have a censorious attitude to occasional flying, or to frequent flying which isn't recreational and where there's no realistic alternative.)

The journey to Poland took over a day, but it was no hardship. Journeys of this length are nothing. [A digression, on long overland journeys. See the wonderful site 'The man in seat sixty-one,' http://www.seat61.com. In connection with the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok - a journey that takes seven days - and other destinations, he writes: "Don't fly to Moscow..! Flying to Moscow to pick up the Trans-Siberian Railway is like agreeing to run a marathon then accepting a lift in someone's car for the first mile... Don't cheat..! If you're going to go overland to the far East, do it properly, starting at London Waterloo and staying firmly on the ground. It's easy to travel from London to Moscow by train."]

The journey to Poland allowed me to see something of the countries on the way. Travelling from Wroclaw through Silesia to Krakow, I saw huge Tesco stores at intervals - a graphic demonstration of the way in which the interesting differences between countries become lessened: a 'reduction in contrast.' I've never travelled on the Trans-Siberian Railway, but perhaps even now, as the train passes settlements in the birch forest, the traveller sees one Tesco store after another - and later, in the permafrost, beneath the Northern Lights, yet another Tesco...

Wherever the school may be, in an inner city, the suburbs, a village or a remote hamlet, a school has absolutely no right to promote very powerful businesses at the expense of small businesses. Parents of children at the school may well own a shop: a baker's, a fruit and vegetable shop, a hardware shop, a newsagent's, or whatever it may be. These businesses can't possibly afford to give out vouchers to customers for school equipment. A school has no right to undermine the livelihood of these people. Pupils who look for work in a business at the end of secondary education, further education or higher education should be able to choose from various possibilities, which include going into a family business and starting up a business themselves. They should not be faced with one alternative only, being hired by some massive corporation, or only one realistic alternative, since so many of the small businesses have gone out of business.

A school should be concerned with teaching the subjects of the curriculum and in encouraging values which deserve to be encouraged, not in acting as the agents of supermarkets. Schools should teach critical thinking to older pupils - should put no unnecessary obstacles in the way of critical thinking. They should encourage a fair-mindedness that will welcome any arguments in favour of supermarkets as well as the arguments against them. What they should never do is try to give the impression that supermarkets are beyond scrutiny, beyond criticism, obviously the place where shopping has to be done. There is no responsibility at all to further the corporate well-being of Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Netto, Morrison's, Kwik-Save, Asda, Lidl, the Co-op and the rest.

This page is intended as a contribution to activism, to ending abuses, but I also apply to supermarkets some of the ideas I use in other parts of the site. Most important of all to me is the recognition of complexity, which involves fair-mindedness but also criticism which goes beyond the criticism of activists - and this includes criticism of teachers in some cases.

Ted Wragg, who used to oppose some of the idiocies of the educational system in the pages of 'The Times Educational Supplement.' The idiocies of the educational system in this country are a very rich field and Ted Wragg, although prolific, hardly scratched the surface. In pointing out the harmful and grotesque effects of political meddling in education he was accurate and very often devastating. But he completely - almost systematically - neglected the harm brought about by the passivity of some teachers, their complicity in their own burdens and difficulties, their complicity in the harm to society and to human values. He never, so far as I know, criticized the dangers to thought, freedom and human values posed by 'the corporate takeover of Britain.' (the sub-title of George Monbiot's 'Captive State.') Many teachers, and even more Head-teachers, dread the inspectors, dread the visitations of Ofsted. But the criticisms of Ofsted - often, but not always - unfair, routine, predictable ("a failure to implement ICT in food technology lessons") don't address such matters as these. Actors and actresses, directors and producers, poets and novelists, instrumentalists and conductors, are used to facing the judgements of critics. There's no reason at all why teachers shouldn't face legitimate and reasonable criticism. They can't claim, in the term I use, 'exemption.'

Teachers generally face enormous pressures and levels of stress, but they often overlook the pressures faced by people in very different occupations, such as the pressures faced by farmers and other suppliers, and by small traders. Teachers at least are well paid and have long holidays. They don't expect to spend a demanding day at work and come away with very little. Can they enter into the world of a dairy farmer, who is paid about as much for the milk as it costs him or her to produce it? Or less. Can they imagine their bitterness? Farmers and other suppliers often live in a climate of fear. The supermarkets have such power over them that they feel they can't speak to the media.

Other criticisms of the harmful effects of supermarkets and calls for action. (None of the writers or organizations or Web sites I quote from and refer to on this page would necessarily endorse the approach I take on this page). All of these criticisms are common knowledge to anti-supermarket campaigners, to anyone, in fact, reasonably in touch with modern life. Why would anyone go out of their way to actively promote supermarkets if they're aware of such arguments as these? Do they have an answer to these arguments?

Essential Web sites:

http://www.breakingthearmlock.com

http://www.tescopoly.com

'Tescopoly' is an on-line alliance of more than 200 local anti-supermarket campaigns.

The National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI)

'The NFWI has been concerned for some time about the market dominance of the big supermarkets, and the impact of that dominance on consumers, suppliers and small independent shops. The NFWI is not convinced that price cuts in the big supermarkets are in the best interest of consumers in the long run. Destroying farming in this country will not serve consumers' long term interests, neither will pushing small independent stores out of business, often the life blood of local communities.

The National Federation of Women's Institutes does not want to see the demise of our vibrant communities. It strongly supports local independent shops and a sustainable British farming industry.

Change your shopping habits

If you are concerned about the power the major supermarkets are having over small independent businesses and farmers both at home and abroad then take action! Support non-supermarket shopping alternatives wherever you can: buy your newspapers at the newsagents, your meat from the butchers and use your local pharmacy for prescriptions. Every sale diverted from the supermarkets will help independent stores flourish.

A study by the New Economics Foundation found that £10 spent on a local organic box scheme can generate £25 for the local economy (a radius of 24km from the farm), compared with £14, if the same initial amount is spent in a supermarket

Think twice about going to the supermarket; if you're jumping in the car every time you need a loaf of bread, ask yourself if the trip is really necessary - is there a local shop you could walk to instead?

Try cutting the number of trips that you make to the supermarket; if you go once a week, try going once a fortnight, if you go once a fortnight, try making if every three weeks instead. You'll often find cheaper, better quality local produce elsewhere.

Get informed about alternative shopping possibilities. Are there farmers' markets or box and mail order schemes in your area? Some independent shops also offer home delivery schemes.'

From the Web-site of the activist and writer George Monbiot:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/category/supermarkets/

Monbiot.com

The pages include such topics as these:

"The superstores are on the verge of cornering the news market, with disastrous implications for democracy

The superstores are mopping up the last pockets of resistance

The supermarkets could kill organic farming’s potential to revolutionise the foodchain

The Competition Commission has given the superstores permission to destroy the rest of Britain’s food economy

The Office of Fair Trading is giving Britain’s superstores exactly what they want

Why do we believe what the superstores tell us?

The superstores are dumping their costs on all of us

Superstores are destroying the local economy

The superstores are changing the world to suit themselves"

Joanna Blythman's book 'Shopped: the shocking power of British Supermarkets'

Buy this book, if you possibly can, and preferably at an independent bookshop - there are ones left.

Some of the main themes in the book (listed on the cover):

High Streets killed by megastores
Bullied suppliers
Fake choice
Pesticide-covered fruit and veg
Third world producers exploited
Local jobs destroyed
Cult-like staff indoctrination
Massive profits and rock-bottom pay

From the review in The Guardian:

'Shocking and galvanising...it is still possible to avert a future in which Tesco provides for all our needs from womb to tomb.'

What are the prospects of reversing this disastrous trend towards domination by the supermarkets? Things are serious, but I'm far from being a complete pessimist. There are heartening signs of a reaction to the power of the supermarkets, signs that they, and their supporters, are on the defensive, and rightly so.

Schools that claim that getting sports equipment or computer equipment or other gifts from the supermarkets is a "regrettable necessity" are trying to fool us. I worked as a teacher for many, many years, and I know that many of the stories about the poverty-stricken status of schools are exaggerated for public consumption. Whatever the case, a moral course may entail a sacrifice. The weak and un-moral course is to take the money, forget any idea of sacrifice, even if the sacrifice is not all that great, and do what the 'benefactor' demands.

For much of my teaching career, I taught part-time. Debts piled up. Then there came the remarkable government initiative called applying for 'threshold.' To me, and to some other teachers, this seemed completely unacceptable. (Ted Wragg didn't oppose threshold. I think he found it impossible to criticize teachers, only politicians and bureaucrats, and the vast majority of teachers who were eligible for threshold applied for it.) The teacher had to fill in a long form, and was in effect paid extra for duties that the teacher was supposed to be fulfilling anyway. Threshold also seemed to give far too much power to the Headteacher. A proportion of Headteachers are outright megalomaniacs, I think, a proportion of their teaching staff are cowed and cowardly. It was out of the question that I would apply for threshold.. So far as I know, all the teachers at the school who could apply for it, apart from me, did apply for it, and none of them was refused threshold. By not applying, I lost over the years many thousands of pounds - about the amount needed to pay off debts. I won't exaggerate the extent of this sacrifice. A far more remarkable insight into values comes from John Wain, who as a freelance writer didn't have the advantage of a monthly pay cheque.

John Wain on money - or lack of it - and human values

John Wain was quoted at the beginning of this page. More of his article deserves to be quoted. It comes from 'Not a profession but a condition,' published in 'Author! Author!' edited by Richard Findlater. John Wain wasn't a major writer, but he was someone of real moral stature.

'I have a fair-sized family to support, my health is no great shakes, I haven't a penny of private income of any kind, I own no property. I have saved no money, I have made no provision for my old age. By the standards of ordinary middle-class life I am, at forty-seven, a failure. Imagine a bank manager or doctor who, at my time of life, had such a record! Yet the fact is that I don't feel like a failure. I think, amazingly enough, that I haven't done so badly. In those twenty years, I may have been forced to overproduce; I may have written hundreds of articles and general odds and ends, as well as the shelf-full of books that represent my 'real' work, and some of them have been pretty thin. But then I think, on the other hand, of the things I haven't done. I haven't written any pornography, or crime thrillers, or scripted any trashy films or television series, and as a critic I've never printed an opinion that I didn't whole-heartedly believe was true. All of which makes me holy? Certainly not. But I feel a solid satisfaction at the fact that, whether or not I've made any money, I have at least spent the last twenty years in activity that has done no one any harm and may conceivably have done a few people some good (interested them, opened their eyes to things they hadn't noticed, enriched their thinking and feeling a little bit.) And without ministering to any of the tendencies that cheapen and darken our world. The big power-hungry forces, from ideologies to big businesses, have got where they are without any help from me.' To repeat what I wrote earlier, there are many, many schools which can't make the same claim.

Now for some necessary qualifications.

There's a linkage based on shared convictions between myself and other people who oppose supermarkets, whether in part or completely. That's not to say that there's a general linkage between me and those people. In matters of national security, support for the armed forces, opposition to political correctness and a range of other issues, I may well be on the same side as many of the people in the supermarket aisles and on the opposite side to many anti-supermarket campaigners. Supermarket shoppers include outstanding people as well as mediocrities - just like wholefood shops, in fact.

In this site, again and again I oppose the mechanical response. I don't in the least claim that all small concerns are better than all large concerns. There are some small food retailers which are abysmal. Animal rights/animal welfare is a very important issue to me. I live in an area where I have no difficulty in buying free range eggs in a small shop. I'm a vegetarian, but if I did eat meat, I'd be able to buy meat produced to very high welfare standards at another small shop not too far away, a branch of the 'Real Meat Company.' Some small shops sell nothing but battery chicken eggs. If, hypothetically, the only choice in a locality is to buy battery chicken eggs at a small shop or free-range eggs at a supermarket, then the choice should be obvious: use the supermarket. But so often, the issue doesn't arise. There are small shops selling high quality cheese, eggs, meat, beer, wine and the rest. Why buy a newspaper or magazine in a supermarket when there are innumerable small newsagents? (for the time being.) There are small shops, many, many small shops, with an outstanding stock, which are usually not busy at all. They deserve the support of the public, but the public is so often buying elsewhere, because the mechanical response of well-drilled consumers is to shop at a supermarket.

Marks and Spencer claims not to be a supermarket, and I accept the claim. Its record on animal welfare is outstanding. It sells no battery chicken eggs at all, for example. (When it did sell battery chicken eggs, a long time ago, I went and put leaflets amongst the egg packs in one store, to point out the cruelty involved.) It took the decision to phase out all products that contain battery chicken eggs. Its record for welfare meat is outstanding too. Even though I respect the policies of Marks and Spencer very much, I would still urge that eggs and other products should be bought at a small shop, wherever feasible. For example, a small shop may well have an arrangement with a local producer. In rural areas and even in parts of towns and cities, the eggs may come from a small farm which is nearby. Large-scale free range egg farms which supply Marks and Spencer and the supermarkets are obviously infinitely preferable to the disgusting sheds that supply battery chicken eggs (to schools, for example, which generally support factory farming by their purchasing - in hideous contradiction with any claim to be places of such enlightenment and sensitivity), but small egg farms are even better. Someone who keeps a small number of chickens, free to run around, in magnificent condition, can sell surplus eggs to a small shop, but not to a supermarket. And so for small-scale producers of many other products, who have done everything to deserve our support.

The most insidious propaganda of all is that which makes a linkage between buying in a supermarket and 'helping the children.' (Compare the raising of money for children's charities and other causes by means of bullfights in France and Spain. Who could possibly oppose bullfighting when it helps the children? Well, I and many other people certainly can.) This is an extract from a devastatingly effective piece written by Francis Beckett in the New Statesman. You can read more at

http://www.newstatesman.com/199910110008

'The companies naturally like to pretend that these schemes are something to do with corporate generosity. Ring Tesco's PR consultants and they will send you a feelgood factsheet - how many computers they have "given away", the value of this largesse, how many balloons were released to launch the scheme, how many MPs (135) have been dragged in to present certificates, that sort of thing.

Here's what it doesn't tell you. Tesco will "give" your local school an Apple iMac in return for 9,250 vouchers. Each voucher represents £10 that the parents have to spend in Tesco. So the iMac represents parental expenditure of £92,500. Tesco does not reveal its profit margin, but it cannot be far from the average food retailers' margin of 5.9 per cent. On that basis, each iMac brings in a profit to Tesco of £5,457.

At PC World, you can buy the iMac 333 - newer and better than the one Tesco offers - for just £915, including VAT. Tesco is unlikely to be paying the full retail price. But assume that it is: then Tesco is making nearly six times the value of the computer in profit. And the scheme enables the company to use children as stage props in shabby local PR exercises and to talk sanctimonious rubbish about "putting something back into the community". No wonder companies are queueing up to "give" things to schools.

Tesco's great rival, Sainsbury's, asks its customers to register the name of their children's schools. A point is awarded to the school for every £10 the parents spend, and the school can purchase necessary items, such as a Canon colour printer for 2,200 points. So parents have to spend £22,000, and the profit, calculated on the same basis as for Tesco, is £1,298. That's not bad for a £99 printer. But Sainsbury's is marginally better value than Tesco, where the same printer costs 2,500 vouchers.

Tesco argues that these figures are unfair, because the profits would have been made anyway. It isn't true. My local Tesco is packed with anxious parents adding up their weekly shopping and then putting something else into their trolley to bring it up to £60, or £70, or whatever the next multiple of ten is. Sainsbury's is more honest. "Customers do increase their basket spend during the promotional period," says a spokeswoman."

Campaigning techniques

In campaigning, I think it's essential to distinguish two things: (1) The most effective techniques to win. This will often demand short, vivid messages, simple slogans, and arguments presented very briefly -and action which is concentrated rather than diffuse, ruthless in spirit rather than genteel. In the case of this issue, I deliberately rename the Headteacher to include the supermarket chain which they are helping to promote. If the Headteacher considers that this is demeaning and undignified, then I would answer that this is simply to draw attention to the demeaning and undignified position which has been adapted by the school of which they are the Head. If the supermarket chain is determined to use schools for promotion, and to expect educationalists to forfeit dignity, why not use the name of the Headteacher too? This is simply a form of poetic justice. The renaming is similar to the Welsh naming which reflects the job or some other characteristic of the person, such as the baker 'Dai the bread,' or the man with just a single tooth in the middle of his mouth humorously named 'Dai Central Eating.' Renaming is to use and reshape language as a tactic. Drop the supermarket promotion and 'Tesco-Smith' becomes simply 'Smith.'
(2) The reasoning which underlies the action. This should not be simple. It should be comprehensive (covering all relevant aspects of the subject rather than a few), fair-minded (taking every care to avoid distortions of reality, taking note of possible objections), sophisticated in moral argument, and, also, factually correct.

Supermarkets and 'themes'

This page, like other pages in this section of the site, is intended to discuss issues in terms of a distinctive system of thought, which includes the 'themes:' a technical term. To see the page in which I discuss {restriction}, a theme with particular relevance to this page, please click here. (The page is a fairly recent one and will be extended.) I make the point there that the industrial revolution was beneficial to a great extent, that modern industrial society, quite legitimately, has to make use of massive factories and warehouses, modern transportation systems, computer-controlled stock systems - but that it's essential to practise limitation, an aspect of {restriction}, to be more exact, a sub-theme of {restriction}. Industrial methods have been applied indiscriminately, irrationally, to areas where their disadvantages far exceed their advantages, where they involve cruelty to animals, very severe losses to people and communities and a range of other problems. Massive supermarkets and factory farming of animals represent an uncritical, a disastrously misguided application of industrial methods. They represent a wrong-turning, which it's essential to correct. Although obviously it's possible to extend these disastrous systems and to support them as consumers, limitation should be applied: boycott them. A boycott of factory-farmed produce should be absolute, as I see it and a boycott of supermarkets should be as extensive as possible.

People may feel uneasy about the powerful forces I and others oppose, they may even have a healthy contempt for these forces, but feel that they are too powerful to be resisted: all that can be done, with regret, is to go along with them. I think this is very much mistaken. There are encouraging signs that resistance is growing. To be alive, or fully alive, is to resist, to some extent, not to be completely passive. An analogy: a person who has drowned is necessarily completely passive and can't resist, is carried by the current wherever the current may go. To be alive is to do everything possible to resist currents, to swim against currents, to refuse to be passive. The currents of modern life are very powerful, but not so powerful as to make resistance futile. There are choices which are stark and dramatic: amongst them, the easy life or self-respect.

To look at these matters from the perspective of linkage, or lack of linkage, can transform our outlook, I think. Is there a linkage between massive financial power, such as the power of a company beginning to monopolize the market, on the one hand, and massive social benefits and moral authority on the other? Surely not. There's no linkage between the two things. No advertisements or public relations consultants or any amount of money or popular support can alter this lack of linkage. By the concept I call diversification, success isn't of one kind, deserved success, or success which is beneficial. There's also undeserved success, success which has disastrous consequences.

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