How can people be so heartless. How can people be so cruel. Easy to be hard - Easy to be cold.

The American experiment / democracy and capitalism is a moving pendulum that will one day stop. Nothing lasts forever. Growth eventually leads to decay. It is the way of nature, the way of the world. When it will stop is anybody's guess.
 I was reminded the other day of the Management Style adopted by corporate America in the 1980s that was called, "In Search of Excellence". IBM, Disney, the Boston Celtics, were held as examples of companies that did very well in making a profit and keeping their employees happy, motivated, and loyal. It was based on the idea that if you invest in your employees and remember that the greatest is no more important that the least, the return will pay high dividends with the employees themselves investing in their job and the company. Everybody wins!
Now, where did this experiment fail? Not on the employees end. I'll tell you that. Companies that once were the basis for this management style no longer hold to it. Cut throat corporate growth with the primary focus on money - The American way.
The creation of this country by pushing out the native inhabitants was not motivated by bad people. And the saturation of opium into China 150 or more years ago was not propagated by bad people. Although many opportunist were found in both accounts, men of business who would sell their own mothers down the river. But the world needs positive change and some people think that the only way to make for positive change in this world, is to have power. And...money is power. So, if you have to shit on the little guy to gain money and it's subsequent power, then it is okay. It's for their own good.
The people who lose their pensions, lose their jobs, who are sent to Iraq, who have no health insurance, who are hungry.....Remember! It's for the good of the planet. The big guys are looking out for you!
So here's a great big thank you America! A heartfelt salute to the Commander and Chief! It's my pleasure.......

Comments

...After reading the last paragraph of your post I have to ask myself if you're being serious; I sincerely hope you aren't.

Because if you are then your argument fails miserably.

You're assuming that a.) people gain power in order to do good, which is not true a lot of the time (people gain power for power's sake, and for money's sake, to make sure they're as well off as they can possibly manage to be)

and b.) you claim that "in the 80's managers looked after their workers". Why only in the 80's? I think every time period has seen a few kind, considerate managers who place the needs of their workers before profits, but most of the time this isn't the case, even perhaps where a manager would want it to happen.

Since your post proves you have little understanding of basic sociology and economics I'll clear it up for you. In the mid 1970's, we witnessed a shift into "post industrialism", an era marked by a shift to the service sector, outsourcing (the start of globalization), and flexible labour.

Companies are not only forced to turn out more profit every year in order to keep the stockholders happy, they need competitive wages too, which occurs in outsourcing of facilities and factories, and less pay. It has little to do with humanity; many managers and execs nowadays don't have to worry about if or if not the majority of their labour likes their job; there's enough unskilled or semi-skilled labour in the market to fill the place of anyone who isn't happy with the way things work. (The so-called reserve army of labour).

if indeed at any point in time (and that point in time would certainly not be the 80's... more like mid 60's to mid 70's) managers looked after their workers it's because the trade unions were for one reason or the next powerful (although their decline in power has been going on since the late 70's), again, no humanity there; it's just a question of what you can get away with.

You're right when you say that in order to change things one needs to obtain power of some kind. However you're wrong to cite money as being the only means of obtaining power; a majority in anything at all can equal power, depriviation of labour force by strike is power, a collective uprising against certain laws or issues is power. The string of events that Rosa Parks set in motion by refusing to sit at the back of the bus culminated in a powerful movement that forced society (rich and poor alike) to re-think their values.
Or look at Ghandi or Mother Theresa. All of these figures operated in a time in which money already meant power; yet they changed significant events through different means.

When the head of the trade union walked into Henry Ford's office, Ford asked "I am the richest man in the world; why do I need to listen to you"? The head of the trade union replied "because I control your labour". Get the idea?

But as I said before, I hope you were just being sarcastic.
tao1776 said…
Ah yes, my Latin loving friend.....I was being sarcastic - it doesn't become me! I sometimes rattle off posts in frustration and leave well edited and well structured posts in my head and not on the blog where it belongs.
Ah of course ^.^ I have to apologize for sounding harsh there as well, I probably wasn't in the best state of mind to be leaving anybody any comments anyway at the time.

Too bad I only read your "about me" part after I'd already posted for after I'd read it I realized that your post had to have been sarcastic.

All I can say in my defense is that there are in indeed plenty of people around who'd post something like that and (for shame) mean it. >.> Sorry for mistaking you for one of them.

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