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No, the producer of "1 + 1 + 1" was not responsible for such crimes. The responsibility belonged to the corporate management for failing to protect the ideals of Du Pont and competitive capitalism. Men such as the producer of that movie would be powerless without the sanction and support of such quisling managements.
Nearly twenty years before, a movie was produced under a different management -- a management that took Du Pont to the heights of profitability and common-stock values -- the movie was entitled The Du Pont Story. Those who recalled that proud and glamorous movie vividly grasped the opposite philosophical view of that management. That earlier management took Du Pont to the height of profitability and value. The subsequent management replaced that management with "liberal views" as a route to "higher" values. Du Pont stock sold for $278 per share. Eleven years later, Du Pont stock had fallen to $92.50per share. Does that represent higher values? Or do such "higher values" represent value destruction?
McCoy Tells of Need to Cure Social Ills.
Article Headline
Wilmington News-Journal
Casting an undefined pall of guilt on industry for the "social ills" of man, the President of Du Pont, Mr. McCoy, implied that private enterprise had the duty to cure those "social ills". He then declared his intentions to "serve society" through the Du Pont Company. With no reference to serving the stockholders and a perfunctory reference to profits, Mr. McCoy stated the lip-service non sequitur that "nothing is mutually exclusive about making a profit and serving the needs of society."
As Mr. McCoy led Du Pont into the "service of society", the press eagerly reported his views and actions:
Du Pont President sees unique role for industry in solving society's problems.
-- Chemical and Engineering News
Ironically, that same magazine revealed the inevitable results of abandoning capitalistic principles to altruism:
Earnings are still far below their peak, and this year will bring, at best, only a small improvement over last year's performance. Du Pont's stock price is less than half what it was four years ago and it has been falling all year.
-- Chemical and Engineering News
On the same day that Chemical and Engineering News published its article about Mr. McCoy, the Wall Street Journal published comments on the performance of Du Pont. Those two articles provided a grimly realistic cause-and-effect dialogue between altruism and profits as shown in the following Table 3.
| CAUSE -- "Although Mr. McCoy is now faced with the responsibility of getting his vast company really moving again, he also gives very deep thought to the increasingly critical role industry must play in society in the years ahead."
EFFECT -- "The stock may be cheap like some people say -- but where's the incentive to buy when the outlook is so hazy?"
CAUSE -- "The challenge is for industry to devise more imaginative ways to place its technological resources in the service of man; to couple its business goals with the clear and pressing needs of society."
EFFECT -- "How the mighty have fallen," remarked one fund manager. The reference was to the stock of Du Pont.
CAUSE -- "Society will reward those that help unclog our highways, rebuild and revitalize our cities, cleanse our streams, and conquer poverty and disease, not those whose pursuit of the dollar blinds them to such needs."
EFFECT -- "Investors' increasing disenchantment with Du Pont stock is largely based on what Richard Berkley of H. Hentz characterizes as an uninspiring earnings record over the past 10 years."
CAUSE -- "In Mr. McCoy's view, industry has already moved away from the narrow idea that business corporations are merely organizations to make and sell goods to provide a fair return to their owners. Instead, he says, we have to come to look upon our enterprises as mechanisms invented by society to translate scientific knowledge into the goods and services that society needs."
EFFECT -- "But if you're a level-headed investor, you buy performance. And Du Pont -- based on its record over the last 10 years -- hasn't shown it." |
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