Without Price or Clamour

Abstract

The story of Joseph in the house of Potiphar, the Egyptian official, is a great lesson on the grammar of loyalty. Loyalty is not a virtue of our time. For centuries, companies and institutions have resorted to living with a legacy of loyalty that was generated by the values of hard work and practices of families, churches, communities, and fuelled by the grand narratives, by art and literature. For some decades, we have intentionally stopped creating these values and practices, but the need for loyalty still remains and grows. So, a few decades ago we thought we could replace loyalty with incentives, paying and controlling workers and managers, hoping to make them “loyal” also in the cases when ‘none of the men of the house was there in the house’ to see them and control them. Too bad that now we have to realise, that this substitution only works for simple things but it is harmful when handling important or crucial situations. The radical fragility of our economic and social system derives from a severe deficiency of the virtue of loyalty.

Nekhludoff awoke next morning feeling as if he had been guilty of some iniquity the day before. He began considering. He could not remember having done anything wrong; he had committed no evil act, but he had had evil thoughts. (...) An evil action may not be repeated, and can be repented of; but evil thoughts generate all evil actions.

(Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection)