I am, therefore I must think...
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Corporate Socialism
November 27th, 2005, 5:56 pm
When I have my own company I will refuse to take it public, no matter the potential millions I could make by taking this step. Handing my creation over to the will of the public is like handing over a piece of my soul. You can see many examples of publicly traded companies that are at the whim of society. Look at GM, Wal-Mart or any of the great airlines in the past decade. They are subject to the unions they have allowed to form and forced to go the direction that the major share holders and board members wish them to go. GM has had to cut thousands of jobs because of the demands for heath care and retirement pensions. Great airlines like United Airlines and Northwest are bankrupt because these corporate giants did not have the vision of their original creator to foresee the demands of the labor unions. Democratic-socialists are concerned with what corporations are doing to society but they need not worry because their ideals are tearing these companies up from the inside.
I blame corporate socialism largely on the rise of Japan as a competing nation and the willingness of our country to adopt their techniques for efficiency. Just because their model is more competitive than classic United States business models, business schools are rushing to teach the ideals of group work and the corporate “family”. While concern for others is not a necessarily a vice, it is not the reason corporations exist. Corporations exist to make money. Benefits like health care should be secondary benefits IF the company is running past profit expectations. If taking a job at a company was not a volitional choice then you could argue that the system is evil but everyone has multiple choices for jobs in a capitalist nation.
I would love to create a company that produces a useful service or product. It would give me great satisfaction to be a top competitor and to build a small empire on my abilities and the volitional cooperation of those who believe in my vision. However, once I am done I will destroy it unless I can find someone I can trust to carry it on in my vision without ever sacrificing it to the public. I could not live with myself to see a product of my efforts to be used as a societal vice.
Read this story by Chris. It drives home every point I am trying to make with this post, in short story format.
In other news… Debunking the myth of the underprivileged soldier