© Staind
This essay was born out of revulsion to an accidental summer reading that paraded progress as virtue and private equity as its high priest. Every paragraph spoke the same pious language of "sustainable improvement," "societal benefit," and "long-term value creation," as though leverage, asset-stripping, and balance-sheet cosmetics had become moral acts. I found myself revolted not merely by the hypocrisy, but by the vacuousness of it. In our hyper-financialized society, we have come to mistake valuation for value, and activity for achievement. The word 'progress' has been exploited to justify anything that moves — no matter what it destroys. What follows is an act of refusal to bow to the idea that more money is progress. If this essay has a motive, it is contempt for the trivial slogans that pass as thought, and for the hollow theory that confuses financial engineering with human improvement.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.Once upon a time, progress meant a tangible conquest of necessity — something that could be seen, held, and mended. Progress was the story of men and women mastering nature through invention: the plough that turned survival into surplus, the compass that unlocked the seas, the printing press that scattered learning beyond the cloister. Each advance widened the circle of freedom and gave shape to civilization's rise.
Voltaire. La Pucelle d'Orléans. Édition London: [publisher unspecified], 1756. Epilogue.
Comment: Absolutely heart-wrenching...and this is only one account.