What? Nope, not even vaguely how big public corporations work. In fact, if you read the business section, CEOs are jettisoned for poor performance all the time (though generally with several million in consolation prizes.)
Or say, another one:
A medical company is a business and so must go out and conquer, pillage, and plunder just as much as every other company.
I would have to assume that drugs like Viagra, Rogaine, and Acutaine have made them much more money than any other drug–and the company which is able to release such a drug–one which has more social than medical value–will certainly have it’s stock price go up.
I don’t know of a single safeguard outside the personal morals of the employees to make sure that they keep working on a cure for AIDS and specifically spending more time and resources on such important research than they would on a breast-size enhancer or what-have-you. And while a person might still be a moral person, spending every day looking at numbers and your stock quote–while I can’t think of a specific example at the moment–I do know that people will oftentimes start worrying more about what is personally giving themselves the most nightmares and focussing only on that.
If McDonalds cuts some corners, there is no issue. But pharmaceuticals, airplanes, automobiles, and such need to be concerned with the lives of people first and foremost.
Just looking at the state of the American automobile industry previous to Japan’s invasion–or if you look at the Tucker–it seems quite obvious that companies can prosper for lengthy periods without needing to innovate (like to improve safety.) And while in the old days, there were still foreign countries to compete (like Japan), but in the modern day where going global is perfectly easy, it becomes easy for a small group of corporations to dominate the entire globe and pinch off nuicances wherever they might be, before ever having a chance.
Public company? Eh?
Actually, as another business programmer, I am not at all bitter about the business world that provided over 20 years of mortgage and food money as well as a heck of a lot of fun.
However, one thing a business programmer learns is that business decisions are rarely made in an atmosphere of rational self-interest, but more frequently as a way for various officers to assert dominance among their peers. We’re the guys who have to come up with the raw data to rationalize the bad decisions and we get to talk to the poor folks who are told to do stupid things to carry out the wishes of some clueless guy on the top floor who got his job by kissing butt until his superior wandered off to better opportunities.
(It is interesting that you lump together programmers and accountants–the two groups who actually see both the process of decision making and the results of decision making across all departments and so have (potentially) the best seats to watch the worst decisions.)
Now, this does not mean that I agree with much of the emotional silliness that Scott has put forth, here. The majority of people in industry get up each morning with the intention of doing a good job so that their company will succeed. The majority of those people succeed at what they intend, otherwise we would have no companies that actually survived for more than a few years apiece. Few of the really bad decisions were made with the express purpose of screwing anyone (customer, shareholder, worker, vendor). “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” The boys in Enron and World Com really are the exception, not the rule. (Often missed in the general reporting of Enron has been the number of people near the top who were replaced by the idiot thieves because they saw both the stupidity and dishonesty and protested.)
However, there is enormous power wielded by people at the top of industry and there are competing interests among all the parties for which we need to keep inventing new methods to level the field. The first response by anyone who had an advantage removed is to look for another advantage–human nature. The typical response by anyone whose advantage is threatened is to protect it–human nature. The ongoing effort of anyone who believes that the advantages are against them is to attempt to change the shape of the field so that they have the advantage–human nature. The “free market” (which is never truly free) does not provide the pure correction that its advocates claim, so other social forces (including government) are applied by whichever group can most easily get a handle on them. And the struggle goes on. At present, corporate management–particularly among the CxOs–generally has both inordiante power and inordinate compensation in the U.S., but this has not always been true and it will not always reeain true. And, despite a general trend, there are certainly CxOs operating in the U.S. who are honest, productive, not overcompensated, etc.
Now, never having been a hippy or all that liberal (and I always strive to be clean), the following does not apply to me.
And I certainly do not think of all my co-workers and clients over the years as evil. However, it is just as wrong to claim that business is wonderful (or even self-correcting) as it is to perceive it and all its denizens as stupid or evil or both.
Question 4:
Democrats dislike business and particularly big business. A lot of this seems to be because businesses are more concerned with making money than who they have to step on to get that money.
For instance, I had a girlfriend who knew a lot of Native Americans. The tribe that she was friends with had lived in the vicinity of a particular mountain and it featured prominently in their beliefs and history. And even though this mountain was part of the reservation, a mining company wanted to mine there (uranium?) and was able to convince the government or someone to give them the land instead. Soon the mountain was a gaping hole.
You all say that businesses exist to improve the lives of everyone–and yeah, perhaps a lot of people were able to get some prime TV time out of their nuclear energy. Why should a business be able to decide that that uranium was worth the entire history of that tribe?
Found it: Big Mountain Uranium (and previous misdeeds)
Where did you get the idea that Democrats hate (big) business? As a general position, Democrats probably feel that the (big) business needs to be watched closely for abuse, but I do not know any serious Democrat who wants to harm or stifle big business.
As to the theft of land: that is standard human avarice. It is not a “business” that wanted the land (or the uranium), it was people who used the business as the device by which they got the government to give them money (in the form of productive land). (And, of course, if this story took place in the 1950s or 1960s, it probably had as much to do with fear that the country would not have enough fissionable material as any explicit desire of a “company” to make money.)
(Any particular nation and mountain involved? Or is that lost in the pages of time?)
OK. I’ve read your link, Sage Rat, (we crossposted, earlier), and the first thing that I noticed about the story as presented is that this was not a case of some major corporation wandering into the Southwest and having its way with people.
Rather, it was (as I initially speculated), typical human greed, exacerbated by government interference, with indigenous peoples fighting even among themselves with a goal of making money. How do we get from there to “business is evil”? Obviously, the mineral was mined by a corporation (and I would not be surprised to discover that it was corporate surveyors who initially discovered the minerals and initiated the battle), but the key players in this tragedy were scattered among a number of different individuals, with the mining company (companies?) being used as tools just as the government was used as a tool, to provide greedy people access to money (in the form of mining rights).
Well…I’m not the one who found himself in the “Don’t we guys!” position that lead to my having to take over business on this front. Plus it’s fun to say…! BIG BUSINESS IS EEEEBIILLLL
Do you think that if the general populace had been aware of this transaction they would have voted for it? Or–since, indeed, that might just be the issue of another age-- to this day* reservation schools are old and falling apart and cannot get proper funding from the government.
The issue as I see it would be getting back to Sage Rat’s statement that things are balanced because the people give the politician his job and the businesses give him his summer home. But Indians are such a minority and so spread out–not to mention living out-of-site of your common-day American–that there is no need for a politician to pander to their vote. Most Americans are aware of problems in the urban city and vote to try and improve the situation there–but how many know that every year the same letter is sent out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Federal government making point that of all minority groups in the US, theirs consisitently ranks at the top or bottom of any statistics list…dependent on which is worse. After alcoholism, diabetes is a prime worry among American Indians being 2.2 times more likely to occur than in an average caucasion–but how many times have you seen a “Save the American Indian, please donate 25 cents” add on TV?
- Or at least, as of 4 years ago, the Bureau of Indian Affairs isn’t displaying the letter they used to.
I shall ponder it and see if I cannot come up with something.
That was fast…
The issue is the centralization of money.
Everyone comes running to squabble because large corporations (with their money) exist. True, human greed is an unsolvable issue in and of itself–but if there is no single mass of wealth worth bothering about, then greed cannot become a factor. By spreading out the money among smaller and smaller businesses, such temptation cannot come to be.
Ahhh the old “small companies are more moral than big companies” argument. It’s too bad that economies of scale make large companies so much more efficient.
Could you expound?
I second that.
P.S. Sage Rat. Thank you for taking up my case.
Insomnia 
Well, no matter the reason, it is pretty of you to debate this, especially now that I have this dare going with Shodan.
Please add in any and all extra questions too. And note that several of my long posts are questions–so don’t feel that you can’t join in.
Well, that was one. Problem is, asking non-leading questions ain’t easy for me. Leading questions aren’t so hard, but that goes against the wording of the agreement.
Ah! Here’s one.
msmith, has MS has a history of evil things, as well as good things?
Large companies are not necessarily more efficient, they are simply cheaper by the dozen.
Dunno, Shodan will have to judge how much is proper.
Generally* when I debate, I assume that everything the other guy says is correct. If Tom says that it is the greed of the people, I say “Okay, it’s the greed of the people.” And if that leaves you with no where to go then you have to end that train of thought. But if you can find a “But if that’s true, then wouldn’t this be true too?” then you can continue.
But again, I haven’t read the fine rules of your agreement–so no worries.
- Generally
