From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Aug 09 2003 - 16:15:55 MDT
--- Spudboy100@aol.com wrote:
> Rafal:
> <<### No, it's exactly the opposite. Money which
> would otherwise be spent on
> overpaying some employees can be divided between
> cheaper but better foreign
> workers, local consumers who will benefit from lower
> prices, and researchers
> wherever they can be found. Research output will
> skyrocket.>>
>
> A collapsed middle class will benefit nobody, here.
> But those who hate the US
> will seek to, as Lenin said, "give the capitalists,
> enough rope in which to
> hang themselves." In fact this is not capitalists
> that are driving this change,
> but members of an exclusive club of "management
> types", and maketing
> schmucks, who have never in their lives ever created
> a business from scratch.
>
It's interesting how free-enterprise slash unfettered
capitalism slash free-marketeers suddenly change their
tune when the "downturn in the business cycle" hits
them personally. If a conservative is a liberal who's
been mugged, then a born again liberal is a
conservative who's been "downsized". However, I'm not
here to gloat or do the "I told you so" dance.
Capitaism has its problems, as does socialism. The
bottom line is that life is a bumpy ride, no matter
"the system" and, at the risk of seeming like a Miss
America contestant, we need to be prepared, when
bruised by act of god or man, to help each other out.
I have no problem with the underlying theory of
capitalism: one works, generates a surplus, invests
the surplus so as to further increase their wealth.
But the simple reasonableness of this principle--which
increases the wealth of the individual AND the wealth
of the community--can be corrupted by (among other
things) greed coupled with systemic structural flaws.
This is where I would suggest a qualifier to Mitch's
indictment of the managerial class.
Structural flaws provide the opportunity to take
advantage of "the system" (corporate and
governemnt)and aggrandized oneself at the expense of
others. And, tending to make matters much worse is
the further flaw in the system, whereby abusing it
confers an advantage, ie. crime pays, and the crime of
one, like a cancer, infects, compels, encourages, and
for a while legitimizes, the crime/corruption of
others. "Everyone was doing it."
The structural flaw as I see it lies in the unbalanced
power of exectutives and massive non-accountability.
They make the decisions, make the rules, control the
paper trail. When the shepherd is the wolfman, look
out for the full moon. Same problem as when the coke
dealer starts dipping into his inventory. It's
Rousseau's cautionary note on representative
government: "How do you keep the representatives from
serving themselves at the expense of their
constituents?" Just so, corporate execs can stray
from the ethical path and cook the books. Plus the
government is right in there with them--the other
executive class(small "e", includes the congress and
the judiciary)--infected by and contributing to the
corruption. Two words: campaign finance. Then,
having been bought, they make the laws governing
corporate structure, regulation, and third party
oversight. A guild of meta-foxes in charge of the
henhouse nation.
But not all managers are corrupt. Not even most.
They're a necessary part of the engine of production,
the more highly skilled, the more valuable.(Well,
duh!) Give 'em their due, don't lump them all with the
bad apples. And they're all human, like you and me.
Regarding the idea that managers are somehow unworthy
because they run businesses but rarely build them: it
seems entirely reasonable to me that these are two
different specialties, running vs building. At least
that's a theory I've heard somewhere. Why not? And
those skilled at one may not be as skilled at the
other.
So fix the problem. Stop the war before it becomes a
war. Correct the structural flaws. Spread out the
power, strengthen oversight, put some teeth into
accountability.
And regarding accountablity, I have a dream. Take all
the corporate and government rat bastards and put them
in a fenced in (as opposed to gated) community. A
community of tar-paper, dirt floor shacks. On one
side, the up-wind side, is the local sewage treatment
plant, on another the local freeway, elevated and
gently banked so the passers-by can get a good look;
the garbage dump and local recycling center on a
third--with open access to the pariah class so they
may freely avail themselves of home furnishings and
other collectables--and on the forth perhaps a
pleasant little park slash community garden,...built
atop a "reclaimed" toxic waste dump. And each morning
a fleet of rusty, clanking, old school busses, like
those used to transport farmworkers and Baptists,
arrives at the freeway bus stop to pick them up and
take them to work, cleaning out the grease traps in
the fast food outlets of the world, there to be looked
down upon by their betters, the pimple-faced teen-age
burger-flippers and third-world immigrant ethicists.
For all eternity.
Or not. And wait for the war.
Best, Jeff Davis
"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!"
Louie Armstrong
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