- Dec 17, 2010
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Hi all,
it seems debate in America - and my home country of Australia seems to be following - is moving further apart. We have less in common than ever before. I'm struck by the way "The New Corporation" portrays the urgency of dealing with Corporate creep into our lives. Corporations are trying to turn us from Citizens into Consumers. I agree with the majority of the movie analysing the problems. The way Corporations are set up they can't help being in a frenzied search for short term profits for this quarter, trying to ‘outsource’ costs to the public purse (like fossil fuels letting the public health care sector carry the burden of all their particulate pollution - thanks a lot oil barons!), offshoring profits into tax havens, and complaining how heavily taxed and unfair it all is as they do so. It’s outrageous!
But then, rather than sensible regulation of corporations - it jumps to Socialism.
What gives? There's a thousand degrees between laissez-faire and Socialist.
(They do interview a few other people after the Socialist lady. But cutting straight to a Socialist after the climax of the Corporate thrashing wasn't a good look in my Ordo-Liberal view.)
What about we use anti-trust to break up some Corporations?
What about new firm structures, like Germany's Mittelstand family-owned firms or even Democratic Worker's Co-ops? They might sound a bit socialist - but really still have to compete in the marketplace like anyone else. What about a thousand other ways to balance and protect our rights as Democratic Citizens while still having the creativity of a free-market, but heavily regulated and contained for the public good?
Let's look at medium sized family firms like Germany's Mittelstand. Germany has vastly more medium sized firms than Australia. We tend to have big corporations, or tiny mom and pop firms.
Anyone can be corrupted and go down the wrong path. But if we’re talking about the systems that might tip behaviour one way or the other, which is more likely to be corrupted and short term in its thinking?
A family owned firm looking to supply a good or service for the next quarter century, or a Corporation in a desperate rush to report a profit to shareholders that quarter?
A German Mittelstand firm training apprentices from high school to hopefully keep for life, who have a real chance of becoming senior accountants or engineers or even the Managing Director - or a Corporation willing to fire whole departments to cut costs for the all important bottom line that quarter?
I've worked in the Australian army, government, and now a Corporation. And the turnover I'm seeing in the Corporation I'm in right now and morale issues and toxic employer employee relations is just unreal. Watch the doco above - but seriously - where's the political middle in America?
it seems debate in America - and my home country of Australia seems to be following - is moving further apart. We have less in common than ever before. I'm struck by the way "The New Corporation" portrays the urgency of dealing with Corporate creep into our lives. Corporations are trying to turn us from Citizens into Consumers. I agree with the majority of the movie analysing the problems. The way Corporations are set up they can't help being in a frenzied search for short term profits for this quarter, trying to ‘outsource’ costs to the public purse (like fossil fuels letting the public health care sector carry the burden of all their particulate pollution - thanks a lot oil barons!), offshoring profits into tax havens, and complaining how heavily taxed and unfair it all is as they do so. It’s outrageous!
But then, rather than sensible regulation of corporations - it jumps to Socialism.
What gives? There's a thousand degrees between laissez-faire and Socialist.
(They do interview a few other people after the Socialist lady. But cutting straight to a Socialist after the climax of the Corporate thrashing wasn't a good look in my Ordo-Liberal view.)
What about we use anti-trust to break up some Corporations?
What about new firm structures, like Germany's Mittelstand family-owned firms or even Democratic Worker's Co-ops? They might sound a bit socialist - but really still have to compete in the marketplace like anyone else. What about a thousand other ways to balance and protect our rights as Democratic Citizens while still having the creativity of a free-market, but heavily regulated and contained for the public good?
Let's look at medium sized family firms like Germany's Mittelstand. Germany has vastly more medium sized firms than Australia. We tend to have big corporations, or tiny mom and pop firms.
Anyone can be corrupted and go down the wrong path. But if we’re talking about the systems that might tip behaviour one way or the other, which is more likely to be corrupted and short term in its thinking?
A family owned firm looking to supply a good or service for the next quarter century, or a Corporation in a desperate rush to report a profit to shareholders that quarter?
A German Mittelstand firm training apprentices from high school to hopefully keep for life, who have a real chance of becoming senior accountants or engineers or even the Managing Director - or a Corporation willing to fire whole departments to cut costs for the all important bottom line that quarter?
I've worked in the Australian army, government, and now a Corporation. And the turnover I'm seeing in the Corporation I'm in right now and morale issues and toxic employer employee relations is just unreal. Watch the doco above - but seriously - where's the political middle in America?
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