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One of the best pieces of text I had read. Please take the time to read it

Anything related to matters of the mind

OldFaithful

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Sorry but I couldn't finish it. The author and I differ substantially on the role/purpose of business, and the moral efficacy of being in business.
 

ilrein

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How come @OldFaithful ?

This article is filled with nuggets like:

Life does not promise you stability. IT PROMISES YOU A LABORATORY.
and
It’s a partnership of corporation and government and college to enslave you.

I'm enjoying so far.
 
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OldFaithful

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@ilrein it's also filled with the following:

"Employees are paid salaries that allow the shareholders to extract as much profit as possible."
What does the use of the word "extract" imply here???

"And innovation forces the gap wider between the needs of the shareholders at the top and the employees who are moving closer to the bottom."
Sound like the popular anti-business rhetoric to me...

"Corporations want to ultimately fire you, whether you like your job or not. Their entire purpose is to create and squeeze the efficiencies out of you until you drop dead or are no longer needed."
What does this suggest to the reader about the business owner(s)? What does the phrase "drop dead" convey to the reader?

"Eventually they will squeeze every bit of profit out of you."
Where does profit really come from? Hint...it's not an extract to be squeezed out of an employee.

Can you see why someone on a value based business forum might find this to be conflicting?
 

ilrein

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Definitely.

But he also says there's a difference between Corporatism and Capitalism. What you've quoted is his description of the former.

As usual, the height of wisdom is to see the greys in the otherwise binary blanket statements. He's commenting on the traditional structure of big business, which in practise does actually emit those evils, and why half the world seems to think Capitalism is the worst thing since sliced bread -- and probably what inspired guys like MJ to think about breaking the time/reward feedback loop.

He's not hating on entrepreneurship, he's hating on soul-sucking corps.
 

MJ DeMarco

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@ilrein it's also filled with the following:

"Employees are paid salaries that allow the shareholders to extract as much profit as possible."
What does the use of the word "extract" imply here???

"And innovation forces the gap wider between the needs of the shareholders at the top and the employees who are moving closer to the bottom."
Sound like the popular anti-business rhetoric to me...

"Corporations want to ultimately fire you, whether you like your job or not. Their entire purpose is to create and squeeze the efficiencies out of you until you drop dead or are no longer needed."
What does this suggest to the reader about the business owner(s)? What does the phrase "drop dead" convey to the reader?

"Eventually they will squeeze every bit of profit out of you."
Where does profit really come from? Hint...it's not an extract to be squeezed out of an employee.

Can you see why someone on a value based business forum might find this to be conflicting?

I think he is referencing corporate oligarchs, not necessarily small business entrepreneurs. While I don't agree with the wording, I understand his point.
 
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Carlitos

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I enjoyed the Article op, it also helped me open up more to reality. A lot of the things are true, because I have experienced it, and currently experiencing some of the things I didn't know I was, until I read it and relate to it.
 

OldFaithful

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I think he is referencing corporate oligarchs, not necessarily small business entrepreneurs.
True, but it's a small leap for the popular culture to categorize small business owners with large business owners. Consider it...equal opportunity "hate & envy". It's something I've faced many times, as I've only worked at small to medium sized business. Many of my peers considered the small business owner (that they worked for) to be evil, manipulative, greedy, just as the media describes. The more we endorse the theme that large businesses are evil, the more we label the small businesses as evil.

In contrast, I saw the lifestyle of the business owner and decided that I wanted the same freedom. Instead of hating them, I asked myself "How do I become the business owner?" It's good for any business to look for ways to reduce cost, and if we label large business as evil we may find ourselves in an openly socialist structure very soon. Business in not evil, but there are evil people in business just as there are evil people in every walk of life.

The author of the article is embracing the populist propaganda against business, and that is what I resist.
 

devine

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True, but it's a small leap for the popular culture to categorize small business owners with large business owners. Consider it...equal opportunity "hate & envy". It's something I've faced many times, as I've only worked at small to medium sized business. Many of my peers considered the small business owner (that they worked for) to be evil, manipulative, greedy, just as the media describes. The more we endorse the theme that large businesses are evil, the more we label the small businesses as evil.

In contrast, I saw the lifestyle of the business owner and decided that I wanted the same freedom. Instead of hating them, I asked myself "How do I become the business owner?" It's good for any business to look for ways to reduce cost, and if we label large business as evil we may find ourselves in an openly socialist structure very soon. Business in not evil, but there are evil people in business just as there are evil people in every walk of life.

The author of the article is embracing the populist propaganda against business, and that is what I resist.
The author tells the truth, no matter if you like it or not. If you accept it or not.
People are greedy in general, therefore their businesses are not any different.
It's good for businesses to reduce their cost, but not by saving on everything and especially not by taking advatage of your employees.
It's not efficient as it makes you save pennies while you lose fortune.

Business is not about making as much money as you can from what you have, just because you have an opportunity to do so. It's never cost-effective.
Business is about increasing the number of opportunities and creating a sustainable environment that involves as little waste expenses as possible. Paying lower salaries to your employees has nothing to do with it.
But unfortunately, this is what "99%" of businesses is about.
 
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OldFaithful

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Thank you for your perspective @devine. It's always interesting to hear what folks from other cultures think on various issues.

We certainly agree on the following, in principle:
It's good for businesses to reduce their cost, but not by saving on everything and especially not by taking advatage of your employees.
It's not efficient as it makes you save pennies while you lose fortune.
We agree that it's good for business to reduce cost, and that offering the absolute minimum pay is not efficient. For example, we might both agree that it would be good for an employer to voluntarily pay more than a minimum wage in order to get the best employees possible. That is efficient because that better employee is typically much more valuable/productive than the minimum wage employee.

The phrase "taking advantage of your employees" is straight from the current anti-business propaganda. We might all agree that the employee is in a voluntary arrangement with the employer. For example, if at any time the employee doesn't like the decisions/actions of the employer, he or she can quit. The idea that the employer is "taking advantage" is a twist on the voluntary nature of the relationship and implies an obligation or force that doesn't exist in the real world. (In my opinion, the average employee is just lazy and doesn't want to go thru the process of finding another job.) They abrogate the strength of their position and instead they just want the employer to conform to their wishes.

The popular propaganda against business must be resisted if we are to stop this from taking over our businesses.
 
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devine

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Thank you for your perspective @devine. It's always interesting to hear what folks from other cultures think on various issues.

We certainly agree on the following, in principle:

We agree that it's good for business to reduce cost, and that offering the absolute minimum pay is not efficient. For example, we might both agree that it would be good for an employer to voluntarily pay more a minimum wage in order to get the best employees possible. That is efficient because that better employee is typically much more valuable/productive than the minimum wage employee.

The phrase "taking advantage of your employees" is straight from the current anti-business propaganda. We might all agree that the employee is in a voluntary arrangement with the employer. For example, if at any time the employee doesn't like the decisions/actions of the employer, he or she can quit. The idea that the employer is "taking advantage" is a twist on the voluntary nature of the relationship and implies an obligation or force that doesn't exist in the real world. (In my opinion, the average employee is just lazy and doesn't want to go thru the process of finding another job.) They abrogate the strength of their position and instead they just want the employer to conform to their wishes.

The popular propaganda against business must be resisted if we are to stop this from taking over our businesses.
You are right and in theory it works perfectly.
In real world it's not always, not often and not even usually possible. Relationships have voluntary nature, but the world we live in puts a pressure on us to determine what choices we can or cannot make.

I usually say "Quit university", "Lose your job", "Break your relationships" and other things, but that's from my perspective. Someone else may end up dead month later.
Last year I had a partner who now probably works at Squarespace for pennies. He quit his previous, really high paying job following my advice and we managed to work for 2 months together, but he had to stop due to situation in his family which he couldn't handle. It would be easy to me, but it was depleting him every time. Was it his fault? Of course. Would he have a chance to avoid it? Most likely not.
So yes, we're mostly in voluntary relationships, but sometimes it doesn't change a lot. Sometimes the best choice is to quit and hope for the best, but nobody can guarantee that you will have a slight degree of success.

My friend who has struggled for 8 years to make serious cash as entrepreneur said a great thing: "Sometimes it's easier to just die than to make a change".
And I totally agree with it.
 

ilrein

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True, but it's a small leap for the popular culture to categorize small business owners with large business owners. Consider it...equal opportunity "hate & envy". It's something I've faced many times, as I've only worked at small to medium sized business. Many of my peers considered the small business owner (that they worked for) to be evil, manipulative, greedy, just as the media describes. The more we endorse the theme that large businesses are evil, the more we label the small businesses as evil.

In contrast, I saw the lifestyle of the business owner and decided that I wanted the same freedom. Instead of hating them, I asked myself "How do I become the business owner?" It's good for any business to look for ways to reduce cost, and if we label large business as evil we may find ourselves in an openly socialist structure very soon. Business in not evil, but there are evil people in business just as there are evil people in every walk of life.

The author of the article is embracing the populist propaganda against business, and that is what I resist.

And I completely concur with you. Because the line is short in the perspective of the uneducated (from entrepreneur to business),in public/principle I always resist anti-business/anti-capitalism notions, even if it means defending corportism sometimes, if only briefly.

But in a safe place like this forum, I have no such scruples. We don't follow business stereotypes here, we make them.
 
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B V Marlon

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The anti-business propaganda has risen because of the treatment of employees by large corporations and as has been pointed out, all businesses are starting to be tarnished with the same brush to a certain extent. It doesn't help when you hear stories of people being forced into zero hours contracts, and worked virtually to death on minimum wage (or below), while the bosses pay themselves millions. Look up Sports Direct for a good example of what I'm talking about.

The good news is that the tide seems to be turning. Even Walmart, notorious for paying employees as little as they can get away with, are changing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/u...igher-sales-it-paid-its-people-more.html?_r=1

Somewhere along the line, these major corporations seem to have forgotten that without their people, they don't have a business. I think it stems from the size of the companies - people just become numbers, distanced from those making the decisions. They are reduced to being a cost. Just another 'resource' to be managed. That's one of the reasons I dislike the phrase 'Human Resources' intensely.

It's not a new thing though. This is an excerpt from a speech by John Spedan Lewis in 1957:

"The present state of affairs is really a perversion of the proper working of capitalism. It is all
wrong to have millionaires before you have ceased to have slums. Capitalism has done
enormous good and suits human nature far too well to be given up as long as human nature
remains the same. But the perversion has given us too unstable a society. Differences of
reward must be large enough to induce people to do their best but the present differences are
far too great.

If we do not find some way of correcting that perversion of capitalism, our society will break
down. We shall find ourselves back in some form of government without the consent of the
governed, some form of police state.

The dividends of some shareholders exceed their own highest hopes, hopes that may have
been much too greedy, and the incomes of the more fortunate of the captains of industry are
many times as great as would have caused the same persons to work just as hard and for just
as many years if, instead of going into business, they had happened to become, say, lawyers
or doctors

This is quite wrong."

(As an aside, if you have a few minutes, the whole speech is worth reading: https://www.johnlewispartnership.co...under/Our_Founder_Dear_to_my_Heart_Speech.pdf)

Unfortunately, what he wrote back then is equally applicable today, more so in some ways.

In my opinion, the Quaker founded business of the Victorian age had it about right. The Quakers were as much about community as they were about business, so they saw survival of the business as their responsibility to their community. A large part of that was through increased profitability by improved technology.

A portion of profits were allocated to helping their staff by giving them Saturdays off, building good housing and leisure facilities. They also looked after their employees welfare by providing doctors and also encouraging attendance at evening classes. Cadburys Chocolate
is the largest company that springs to mind when writing this, but there were many others. These were generally very successful businesses.

I can't help but feel if we could instill more of these values in these large corporations, we'd see a compete transformation. Of course, the great thing is we can do our bit to incorporate as many of these values as we want to/can in our own businesses, if we choose to do so.
 

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