G. J. Meyer, Part Two: Is There a Cure for the Executive Blues? interviewed by Harry Goldstein	"There is not going to be a big change for the better soon, and in the near term each of us has to work out his or her own destiny. For young people it's partly, maybe mainly, a matter of making career choices." G. J. Meyer was a certified success story following the American dream — the youngest-ever vice-president of McDonnell Douglas at the age of 40. At the age of 50, he was unemployed and on the flip side of that dream, a victim of corporate downsizing. His bewildering journey from corporate success to white-collar joblessness was detailed in Executive Blues: Down and Out in Corporate America, a memoir Forbes magazine called "brilliant, original, and raging." In that book and this interview, Meyer raises hard questions about the old adage that "hard work and ability equals success" — and about economic survival during career transition. Part One of this exclusive interview dealt with Meyer's early career, the ways in which it went disastrously off-track, and his belief that "if the power of the corporations is not brought into balance with other things and other elements of society, we are as a culture doomed." Tripod: You'll get no argument from me about corporations needing to be brought under control. The question is, of course, how do we do it? When I was covering the presidential campaign for Tripod this year, I went to a Ralph Nader rally. It was a psuedo-rally, really, to match his psuedo-campaign. But he was able to passionately articulate solutions for reigning in corporate America. Sadly, very few people listened — even those on the Left tuned him out, held their noses, and voted for Clinton. G. J. Meyer: Michael Moore has had great success preaching to the masses, but even he can't keep TV Nation on the air. The kind of massive paradigm shift that's needed to gain control of our lives seems out of reach and completely impossible to most people. There are fringe parties starting out, like the Labor Party and the New Party and the Green Party, that are all grappling with the same question — how do you mobilize people to action? If I could wave a magic wand and make one thing happen in connection with what we've been discussing, I would wave my wand and get corporate money out of politics. That would make an immense difference. I believe — and in my new book, I express the belief — that democracy is dead in America, and that the cause of death is corporate money.
We are probably stuck unless something akin to a new Depression comes along to wake people up — and by then it may be too late.	What are our chances of accomplishing anything in the absence of a magic wand? Personally, I think they are virtually nonexistent for the foreseeable future. We are probably stuck unless something akin to a new Depression comes along to wake people up — and by then it may be too late. So many things are changing for the worse. There are lots of specific things that could be done legislatively to make things better. For example, we could make it difficult to fire workers who try to organize unions. We could tax accumulated capital more and the incomes of working people less. The list is endless. The real point for me, though, is that NONE of this stuff can possibly happen so long as the corporations own the system. Making lists of specific political remedies is, under the circumstances, mere masturbation. How do the corporations get away with this? Why does it constantly become easier for them to get away with more and more? I see the American public as increasingly stupefied by television and other mass entertainments, zonked out on the oceans of alchohol and legal and illegal drugs consumed in this country every year, dehumanized by constant sexual stimulation and the other cravings that mass marketing exists to create and inflame, intellectually impotent as a result of the degenerate state of our educational system, and generally incapable of understanding or caring or reacting. The very concept of individual human dignity seems to have lost much of its meaning. Instead of citizens we have consumers. The fact that the American electorate allowed the Republicans to retain control of Congress after getting a good look at who the Republicans are and what they want tells me there is little to be hoped for in the near term.
If we want to live sanely and peacefully we have to find what the Buddhists call Right Livelihood. And that doesn't mean that all of us have to run for the woods and fight over the wild nuts and berries.	I think we have to be on the lookout for good political leadership and ready to support it vigorously wherever it is found — if any ever shows up. But there is not going to be a big change for the better soon, and in the near term each of us has to work out his or her own destiny. For young people it's partly, maybe mainly, a matter of making career choices. If we want to live sanely and peacefully we have to find what the Buddhists call Right Livelihood. And that doesn't mean that all of us have to run for the woods and fight over the wild nuts and berries. I'd say it's much better, for example, to be a real estate agent than a junior executive within a big company. The real estate agent gets the rewards of his or her achievements, can achieve something closely akin to independence, doesn't have to worry about what any boss thinks so long as the basic job gets done, probably isn't doing much or even anything to add to the general level of insanity, etc. etc. What I'm saying is that it seems to me that right now we have to work this thing out one person at a time, one day at a time. The political system is not functioning, and none of us can make it function under present circumstances. I couldn't take Nader's candidacy seriously because he didn't seem to take it seriously enough to put anything into it. Dole was out of the question, but I found (and continue to find) Clinton utterly repulsive. For the first time in my adult life, I didn't vote. I was told that voting would make me subject to being called for jury duty, and that was too high a price to pay this time around. Tripod: Two people are waking up, getting ready for their first day of work at their first job out of college. One of them has known since birth that she was destined to be an advertising exec and is thrilled to be starting as an assistant. The other person took a job as a temp word processor at an insurance company, positive that he can do anything to support himself as he tries to make it as a musician. What would you say to them before they head out the door? GJM: There is something very important about both of the people you describe — something that sets them apart, and for which they should be grateful. This is the fact that they know what they want and are doing what they can to achieve it. This is no less true of the advertising novice than of the musician, and it distinguishes them from the millions of people who simply drift through life aimlessly.
Any young person who knows what he or she should be doing — and is in fact doing it — is better off than the vast majority.	My advice is simply that they should subordinate everything else to the pursuit of their goals until their hearts tell them it is time to do otherwise. I would advise them to try to avoid — or at least delay — compromises that will make the pursuit of the goal more difficult. This will be easier for the one who wants to be in advertising, because persistence and progress in such a commercial field will lead pretty directly to financial rewards. The aspiring musician is likely to have all the troubles of the artist, and is likely before getting established to be tempted to take jobs or enter into relationships that will interfere with or even stop progress toward the main goal. This is what makes the life of the bona fide artist so difficult — and real artists so damned tough. But again, any young person who knows what he or she should be doing — and is in fact doing it — is better off than the vast majority. As I indicated in one of my earlier diatribes, too many people are just consumers, with as much intellectual or spiritual vitality as cattle. One word more. Let's say that the beginner in advertising and the beginning word processing temp both do well in their jobs and are offered nice promotions. For the advertising youngster, this is a triumph. For the word processor who wants to be a musician, it's a dilemma and a potentially dangerous temptation. Here again we have the difference between commerce and art. Don't miss Harry Goldstein's Dad and the Executive Blues. © 1997 Tripod, Inc. All rights reserved.