INVESTMENT
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
January 20, 2012
The web tells me that originally, in the 14th century, “investment” meant being officially robed as for priesthood or judgeship, with attendant authority and social duty. Several hundred years afterwards investment became a term for owning shares in the British East India Tea Company, entitled to profit privately thereby. I’m ambivalent about investment.
On one hand, I take enrobing oneself in personal commitment seriously, as in assuming lifelong responsibility for a child one has begotten, fostered, sponsored, or otherwise demanded be born.
On the other hand, I have a problem with limiting “investment” to a promise that one will support workers or customers or inventors until one’s financial commitment no longer pays off--until time for shareholders to sell out and move on, which strikes me as a climate of social insecurity. I am heartened as personalized investment takes priority over depersonalized market investment. Love and peace--hal
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