100,000 people recently marched on the streets in protest about the way Irish Ferries management is treating its workers. This hasn't prompted Irish Ferries or the Government to act. To the majority of people their action is unacceptable, but to the executives it is entirely rational and the only sensible course of action. The strange fact is that each side is correct from its own viewpoint.

It's tempting for those who don't like what's happening to blame management and judge them as ruthless, uncaring people. My guess is that individually they are no better or worse than most people. There is a systemic issue driving their behaviour. They view their responsibility as maximising returns for shareholders.That's the way the market works. Period. That's why IBEC tacitly supports management. If they can get cheaper labour then this is the only logical course of action. Their shareholders won't thank them for considering the interests of the workers, except insofar as this could have a positive impact on profits. The primary driver of behaviour is the spreadsheet. Its all about numbers; people don't show up on the profit and loss account.

And we, as consumers and investors in pension funds, fundamentally don't want it any other way. How many of us would be willing to decrease our "standard of living" for the sake of others? We insist on low prices and high returns in our pensions. Some of us may buy Fair Trade coffee to make us feel good, but most of our purchasing decisions are based on price. As long as this continues to be the case we can complain as much as we like and nothing much will change.

The Government is not at all happy about the situation. Not primarily because the welfare of the workers (although it would be unfair to suggest they are totally devoid of conscience) but because the situation threatens the Partnership Process with the Unions. The Government just wants this problem to go away. It could cost them votes. It is more or less powerless to take serious action, because our economy profits greatly from globalisation and from multinationals recognising profits in our low tax regime. It is locked in to trade agreements which severely limit its scope for action, even if it had the motivation to do so. It doesn't want to rock the boat and send out the wrong signals to business.

Hundreds of thousands of people marched against the war in Iraq and the use of Shannon Airport and the Government just ignored them. This tells a lot about the limitations of our system of democracy. The people can be ignored so long as they don't destabilise the system and hopefully will have forgotten about the current issue by the time the next election comes along. And the people will have forgotten because we only have elections every four or five years.

As long as money is the primary factor in our lives we cannot expect and should not expect business to behave any differently than Irish Ferries management. A woman brought her overweight child to Gandhi and asked him to tell her son to give up sweets. "Bring him back next week", he told her. A week later she returned with the son. "Stop eating sweets", he said to the child. "Why didn't you say that last week?", she asked. He replied, "first I had to stop eating sweets myself".

As a consultant I run into this dilemma very often. My concern is with helping business become more meaningful and enjoyable. I am not exclusively concerned with shareholders interests. But people want consultancy to be framed in a way that addresses the bottom line. Many of my interventions do in fact have a positive impact on productivity and profit, but for me that is a side effect. I want to have conversations about how we can "do the right thing", how we can work better together, how people's leadership and creativity can be unleashed, what we can do to remove the pain caused by deep, recurring conflict. And I believe that many business people also want to talk about these kinds of things, but that they are self-censored by the dogma that only that which can be entered into a spreadsheet is worthy of consideration.