© Muhammad Haque Daily Economic and Ethical Commentary. Diagnosing greed today. Socrates vs. Martin Sorrell [1]

0810 Hrs GMT

London Friday 28 October 2011

© Muhammad Haque Daily Economic and Ethical Commentary

Socrates vs. Martin Sorrell

This is a most ironic pair of names.

Socrates vs Sorrell.

Socrates is of course Greek.

And rendered totally defunct.

So much so that even the morally challenged and the ethically bankrupt likes of France’s Sarkozy don’t hesitate before berating the Greeks.

Yet Greece still has a lot to teach.

And the teachings of Greece that can be traced back to Socrates are worth more than all the trillions that a truly bankrupt “role model” like Martin Sorrell can begin to be able to even count.

Executive pay

Sorrell this morning [in the past 25 minutes] has been shouting at TV news programme presenters.

First he shouted at Sky News presenter Mark Longhurst. A few minutes later he popped up on BBC News Channel, shouting at news presenter Simon McCoy.

On the BBC News Channel, McCoy was not able to complete his attempts at quizzing the morality free Sorrell as the weather slot came on minutes before 0900 Hrs local time [0800 GMT].

Sorrell had managed to smugly boast that in the previous fifteen years he had not taken advantage of any of the options that were available to him.

By “options” he means craftily the many OTHER ways that he could pocket loadsofcash.

He need not have bothered with that qualifier.

Accordnmg to the most recenmt set of calculatons,. Soirrell is still floationg on a fortune at leats around £100million.

Contast him with Socrates.

None of the latter’s styduients could cite a single saum of moinye that Socrates ever “earned”.

Not in any way that Sorrell would recgbnsie.

Socrates was about the riches of the kind that Sorell would not udneratnd.

Despite all the laurels and awards and validfayons that Sorrell carries with him, he has not sjhown the slighrst abilioty far less willingness to udnertand morality. Not in the way that Socrartes dide. Or does.

For Socrates is teacvhing even now. Nearly two and a half thsoaund years after he phsycally died.

Can Soirrell even outlast the last TV slot in which he made an appearance?

[To be continued]