Free New Taboos by John Shirley Page A

an unreasonably large profit—which is arguably a form of theft. But what constitutes “unreasonable?”
    I’m talking about thirty-dollar aspirins in hospitals, multi-million-dollar CEO salaries, and undertaxed corporate profits by the major corporations.
    The operating of sweatshops and underpaying laborers shall be T ABOO. Some formula will be agreed upon, respecting percentage of profits, to decide what degree of low payment is taboo.
    It shall be T ABOO to permit unnecessary health risks for workers just for the sake of cutting costs. From factories to movie productions.
    Torture even for “the greater good” will be T ABOO.
    It shall be T ABOO for national leaders to take a country to war through the use of deception, and it shall be taboo to go to war for any reason other than the most dire necessity.

    Taking Care of Business is one thing; one must be tough and competitive in order to be responsible to oneself and one’s family. But lying, cheating, and homicide by negligence (or by sheer cost-cutting callousness) do not constitute Taking Care of Business.
    I now seem to hear the voices of people with tattoos of Don’t Tread on Me flags; they’re reacting to my proposals with weary irritation, or even fury. “Just what we need, another way to impose on us, more people telling us what to do. Or not to do.”
    But taboos should be used (till we mature past the need), only for those social issues most of us agree on—issues that even the most Libertarian, Don’t Tread on Me types would agree on, if they thought it through. Look at my proposals, and you will see that I’ve only taken basic kindergarten rules of behavior and extended them to the bigger playing fields of commerce and politics: You don’t poison the other children. You don’t lie, children, and you don’t steal. You don’t hurt the other kids just to get what you want. You don’t take more than your share of the dessert.
    On the adult scale, we have laws against some of these social transgressions, but much of the time they’re unenforceable. Taboos—if we really integrate them into our society—enforce themselves, for the majority of people. If the taboos are deeply ingrained enough, we don’t need the laws.
    But how do we punish those, in our hypothetical new system of taboos, who are in violation? If the new taboos are really in place, it will be literally revolting to do business with a polluter. Just to think of it might make you physically ill. Do business with someone who, in the long haul, is responsible for increasing leukemia in children? What a revolting thought! They’ll have a social stench about them.
    The very concept of pollution will be repugnant. Nowadays we think with horror on the gutters full offeces of medieval Europe. Someday people will think the same way of our own sluicing of pesticides into the rivers and seas, of our toxification of the air, and our radical diminution of forests. How could they have done that? It’s … sickening! That’s the way we should react, as well, to corporate ripoffs, like the defense industry’s treasonous willingness to sell bad parts (often imported from China) that risk the lives of young men and women in the armed forces. It should truly, deeply, sicken us. We should react to our marrow.
    In order to lend weight to our reactions, we must respond, as a society, to violations of serious ethical and environmental taboos in ways that are clear-cut and strikingly apparent.
    Hence, as indicated, taboos for some violations should come equipped with very serious consequences. One is tempted to suggest electric shock, ghastly medications—and was tarring and feathering such a bad idea? But no! We won’t stoop to barbarism. The enforcement of New Taboos will begin with economic and social ostracism. Repulsion. Institutions for enforcing New Taboos will be unnecessary. Society’s reaction to