27 thoughts on “Is Rupert Murdoch History’s Greatest Criminal?”
This “old man” speaking “with such certainty” reminds me of something similar back in 1965 before Saturday morning pre-confirmation classes at Saint Paul’s Lutheran church. A few of us were also science enthusiasts and our Minister overheard us talking about “continental drift” (now know as “plate tectonics”) and “radioisotope dating” (now known as “radiometric dating”). I remember the small group being marched down to the church office then presented with books from his library assuring us that all this stuff was speculative and wrong. But it was presented “with such certainty”! That minister has been dead for 30 years now, but they found like-minded persons to replace him. Denial continues…
What a ridiculous question – he’s not remotely in the same league as Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc. He’s greedy. And he’s a bully, pushing his employees to the point where they show poor judgement and sometimes break the law (not just his journalists). He is also probably the most successful newspaper publisher that’s ever lived and has used those newspapers incredibly effectively to build a political power base which ruthlessly promotes his commercial interests and his fairly extreme neo-con ideology. The man is a complete one-off and a brilliant commercial gambler.
The tragedy, for him and his family, is that he lost his moral compass along the way – profit is his master, not servant.
The tragedy for the rest of us is that governing authorities, within the western world in particular, have lost sight of one of the key requirements for an effective capitalist society – free and fair competition. Murdoch has been allowed to build market shares in many of his businesses that give him too great a power, economic and political. But he is not alone in that achievement – the market share of the powerful in many business sectors (banking, grocers, defense, retail, food production, oil and gas etc) must have the great Adam Smith turning in his grave.
This “old man” speaking “with such certainty” reminds me of something similar back in 1965 before Saturday morning pre-confirmation classes at Saint Paul’s Lutheran church. A few of us were also science enthusiasts and our Minister overheard us talking about “continental drift” (now know as “plate tectonics”) and “radioisotope dating” (now known as “radiometric dating”). I remember the small group being marched down to the church office then presented with books from his library assuring us that all this stuff was speculative and wrong. But it was presented “with such certainty”! That minister has been dead for 30 years now, but they found like-minded persons to replace him. Denial continues…
Murdoch keeps papers, Coalition in line on climate, clean energy
What a ridiculous question – he’s not remotely in the same league as Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc. He’s greedy. And he’s a bully, pushing his employees to the point where they show poor judgement and sometimes break the law (not just his journalists). He is also probably the most successful newspaper publisher that’s ever lived and has used those newspapers incredibly effectively to build a political power base which ruthlessly promotes his commercial interests and his fairly extreme neo-con ideology. The man is a complete one-off and a brilliant commercial gambler.
The tragedy, for him and his family, is that he lost his moral compass along the way – profit is his master, not servant.
The tragedy for the rest of us is that governing authorities, within the western world in particular, have lost sight of one of the key requirements for an effective capitalist society – free and fair competition. Murdoch has been allowed to build market shares in many of his businesses that give him too great a power, economic and political. But he is not alone in that achievement – the market share of the powerful in many business sectors (banking, grocers, defense, retail, food production, oil and gas etc) must have the great Adam Smith turning in his grave.
Rupert isn’t done extending his empire – his recent $80 billion bid for Time Warner got rebuffed but it’s not likely he’ll give up so easily.