I’m not going to make the mistake of appealing to your patriotism: It’s a deflating currency these days, and an ambiguous one. But I would like to pu… - Charles Stross

The unspoken ideology of capitalism didn’t admit, back then, of any corporate duty beyond making a return on investment for the shareholders while obeying the law.
Then the terrible teens hit, with a global recession followed by a stuttering shock wave of corporate scandals as rock-ribbed enterprises were exposed as hollow husks run by conscience-free predators who were even less community-minded and altruistic than gangsters. The ravenous supermarket chains had gutted the entire logistic and retail sector, replacing high-street banks and post offices as well as food stores and gas stations, recklessly destroying community infrastructure; manufacturers had outsourced production to the cheapest overseas bidders, hollowing out the middle-class incomes on which consumer capitalism depended: The prison-industrial complex, higher education, and private medical sectors were intent on milking a public purse that no longer had a solid tax base with which to pay. Maximizing short-term profit worked brilliantly for sociopathic executives looking to climb the promotion ladder—but as a long-term strategy for stability, a spiraling Gini coefficient left a lot to be desired.

I was hoping you might be able to help me with a question of character."
"Character." Angleton doesn't seem at all put out by Lockhart's refusal; he leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "There's a word I don't hear often enough these days. Especially coming from you."
"Of course not." Lockhart is dismissive. "It's a subjective value judgment and those don't sit comfortably with ticky-boxes and objective performance metrics."

If there’s one thing extreme god-botherers of every stripe have in common, it’s that they don’t have any sense of humor at all where their beliefs are concerned.