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President McCoy must be held responsible for the deteriorating performance of Du Pont. Mr. McCoy was hired as the chief executive to serve the stockholders. He was paid by the stockholders to protect and enhance the financial value of Du Pont. A president of an industrial corporation is not paid to solve society's problems or to cure "social ills" with the earnings and property that belong to the stockholders.
Were not other executives also responsible for abandoning capitalistic principles and the resulting poor performance of Du Pont? Yes. And they must also be held responsible to the extent they neglected, misused, and damaged the stockholders' property. In examining the speeches and statements of other major Du Pont executives, however, one discovers a profound difference between some executives and Mr. McCoy. While the speeches and statements of those Du Pont executives contained philosophical errors and varying degrees of compromise to altruism that were contrary to the best interests of Du Pont, their projected views still remained basically pro-capitalistic. To varying degrees, they recognized and upheld the values of Du Pont. In other words, a few executives still displayed viewpoints that, although often blighted with sprinklings of altruism, were nevertheless based on capitalistic premises. Mr. McCoy's views, on the other hand, were based solidly on altruistic premises that were "justified" with bits and pieces of pragmatic "capitalism". That fundamental difference in viewpoints becomes vividly apparent in Table 4 on pages 406-407 in which the mystical statements by altruist president Charles B. McCoy are compared to the honest statements by dedicated executive Pierre S. du Pont who recognized and upheld the values of capitalism.
The profound difference between the viewpoints of those two men is self-evident. Mr. McCoy's sad, guilt-ridden view of man's nature and achievements contrasted sharply to Mr. Pierre du Pont's benevolent, guiltless view of capitalism and the benefits it bestows upon all mankind. On reviewing other speeches and public comments by Mr. McCoy, one fails to find a single word of admiration or recognition of capitalism or the marvelous plethora of material and financial values that emanate from the Du Pont Company.
Mr. McCoy's view of capitalism, technology, achievement, and Du Pont was one of disparagement and effacement as evidenced by the following public statement made in his speech before the Society of Chemical Industry:
"There are people so enthusiastic about technology that they assume it is going to solve all our problems. It's nice to have such trusting friends, but they are operating under an assumption that can only hurt us more than anyone else. We cannot meet this blanket contract. When they discover this, as sooner or later they must, they are likely to be angry as well as disappointed. They will think we let them down. Perhaps to an extent we have brought this on ourselves by claiming so many wondrous products and monumental discoveries. Be that as it may, would we not be well-advised in the future to make doubly sure that our propaganda stays in line with practicality? Could we not profit from a more open and candid acknowledgment that we have limited expertise?"What standard was held by a man who projected technology and human achievement in this manner? What long-range inspiration, daring progress, or heroic achievement could ever evolve from such a standard?
Here a logical question arises: Why did the Board of Directors, the majority of whom are presumably productive men on capitalistic premises, elect Mr. McCoy as the president of Du Pont? What is the underlying reason for their selecting a value-destroying altruist as president? Today, most businessmen are confused and bewildered by the irrational, anticapitalistic culture raging about them. Instead of being hailed as the heroes of mankind that they genuinely are, productive businessmen are maligned and assaulted with blame for the world's "social ills".
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