Perhaps there is something in the water - worldwide. Or maybe it is a couple of spoiled, unrealistic OECD generations coming to immaturity. Whatever it is, the unreasonable demands and unrestrained actions of groups of people who should know better are getting louder. It happened again in late January when protesters who were turned back from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, rioted in Zurich, burning cars and smashing windows.
The protesters claimed liberalization and globalization of world trade were increasing business profits and personal wealth at the expense of the poor and the environment. It was an uglier replay of similar demonstrations at Seattle, Wash., and Calgary, Alberta. Whatever is at work here is brutal, thuggish and professional, not rational and caring. It is football hooliganism with a respectable façade.
Those are harsh words, you may say. Not so, I contend. Consider Thomas Malthus, a 19th century economist. His Malthusian Theory maintained the world's population would grow at a rate that outstripped the means of its subsistence and, left unchecked by moral restraint or disaster, would result in widespread poverty, famine and death. He was right, as far as he could see. That the world's population did not start down the steep slope to famine and degradation was not due to moral restraint or famine. It was almost entirely due to the newly developing global economy that, coincidentally, resulted in the enrichment of a number of individuals. The world's escape was due to the dissemination of modern agricultural techniques, to the dissemination of advances in medicine, to the spread of technology that enabled progress and escape. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 18th century, the world has been continually saved by technology. To argue that, in any instance from the 18th century until today, this salvation of the larger mass of humanity should have been sacrificed to avoid the creation of an elite industrialist class is absolute absurdity.
As malicious as these miscreants are, they pale beside the legalized, highly focused extortion being practiced by the legal community, primarily in the United States, against industry. Across the board, companies such as Texaco, Coca-Cola, the international air carriers and other large business have been brought to court and assessed, or assented to, ludicrous settlements under laws that encourage such behavior. These thugs, the growing group of plaintiff attorneys specializing in legal shakedowns, are not, as the previous group, in it for the sport and notoriety; they are in it for the big bucks. One need only look at the recent judgement by an Alabama court against Exxon to determine motives. While being docked some US $87 million in compensatory fines for alleged underpayment of royalties to the state, Exxon was fined more than $3 billion, an unimaginably absurd figure, in punitive damages. And Exxon stuck it out in court. Others, such as Texaco, in its recent racial discrimination suit, settled out of court. In many cases, attorney's fees amount to a least one-third of the amount awarded to the plaintiffs.
While the professional rabble-rousers and the attorneys deserve most of the blame for this mounting crisis, we, as important members of the worldwide industrial community, cannot escape blame. Our incessant fear that our images will be blemished in the public eye leaves us partially paralyzed - and open to an outright, old-style, gangland shakedown. If we do not cooperate, we are led to believe, these groups will make it so tough on us - in the court of public opinion and in the legal courts - that we will wish we had never been born.
The situation is only going to get worse if industry does not stand up and say, "Enough." And if we don't, we may wish we had never been born.

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