5 ms·

A Man Who Broke Capitalism – Did Jack Welch Destroy Corporate America?

21 points by rawgabbit 4y ago

haspoken 4y ago
https://archive.ph/iEjgz https://archive.ph/iEjgz
cubancigar11 4y ago
By dismantling they mean making public statements about making improvements and then weeding out people who express joy.
manv1 4y ago
This can be put in the same bucket as the "Great Man" theory of history. But really, what was the issue? That corporations today put a greater emphasis on performance, efficiency, and profits? Why is that a bad thing?
- socialismisok 4y ago
  I'll bite, because we're humans. Humans are complex social creatures with many needs that we fulfill throughout our days. Being efficient is good, sure, but being efficient through the alienation of individuals from their communities, their culture, and themselves trades away something essential. I used to believe efficiency above all else. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize that efficiency is only good to a point. After that point we lose what makes us human. Same with profits and performance.
- pixelfarmer 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg (The Corporation) I'm soon leaving a company after having seen it grown from a mere startup to what it is today. It had a goal at the beginning, had to fight an entire industry to get an idea across which is accepted broadly nowadays. But there is also a strong inertia towards making these non-goal "goals" more and more important, which in turn define more and more how this company operates inside and what comes out of it in the end. It requires strong and really good leadership to see this problem in the first place and then prevent such a construct from sliding down that slippery slope. The problem with stuff like socialism, communism, but also capitalism is simple: Humans. You create rules, you have conceptions of how something could work. You add humans, and things go sideways. Even if you aware of the issue, there is potentially no way to create something stable, it requires humans to stop other humans from being dicks, as sad as it sounds. It only needs a few dicks to break pretty much everything into pieces. Worse, more often than not, there was not even real ill-intent in the first place, like with the company I've written about above. The only way we can change things on a larger scale is to change the incentives, to change the overarching goals. Check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs (TED talk Nick Hanauer)
socialismisok 4y ago
I wish he had broke capitalism. Capitalism sure seems pretty powerful to me these days.
- refurb 4y ago
  I’ve lived in non-capitalist countries. No thanks.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    You know there are options besides capitalist hellscape and autocratic state capitalist hellscape, yeah?
    - refurb 4y ago
      Please provide an example. If you mean socialist states like Scandinavia, those are capitalist states. They fund all their social programs through money made by capitalism.
      - socialismisok 4y ago
        I'll provide a few. Indigenous Americans participated in a gift economy quite successfully. African Socialism, notably Ujaama, was a non Stalinist socialist government. Pre (and even part of) Hanseatic league Europe was neither state capitalist nor capitalist. Portions of Spain were socialist and anarchist until state capitalists/Stalinists shut them down for being the wrong kind of socialist.
        refurb 4y ago
        So all your examples failed to sustain themselves?
        socialismisok 4y ago
        Indigenous Americans survived using this method longer than capitalism has been around. Then there was a genocide. Pre Hanseatic league Europe likewise had evolutions of non improvident markets stretching for hundreds of years, when capitalism took over. Ujaama was attempted to be started up right before a brutal oil crisis, and Western attitudes towards a successful and progressive Africa were hardly complementary. Spanish independents faced Stalin literally marching on them. No tiny state can survive one of the world powers deciding you are done. None of these failed due to their governments, and many existed for much, much longer than capitalism has. Besides, my assertion was that other models were possible, and I think I've demonstrated that yes, such models have successfully existed for decades or centuries.

21 points by rawgabbit 4y ago

https://archive.ph/iEjgz https://archive.ph/iEjgz

By dismantling they mean making public statements about making improvements and then weeding out people who express joy.

manv1 4y ago

This can be put in the same bucket as the "Great Man" theory of history. But really, what was the issue? That corporations today put a greater emphasis on performance, efficiency, and profits? Why is that a bad thing?

socialismisok 4y ago
I'll bite, because we're humans. Humans are complex social creatures with many needs that we fulfill throughout our days. Being efficient is good, sure, but being efficient through the alienation of individuals from their communities, their culture, and themselves trades away something essential. I used to believe efficiency above all else. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize that efficiency is only good to a point. After that point we lose what makes us human. Same with profits and performance.
pixelfarmer 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg (The Corporation) I'm soon leaving a company after having seen it grown from a mere startup to what it is today. It had a goal at the beginning, had to fight an entire industry to get an idea across which is accepted broadly nowadays. But there is also a strong inertia towards making these non-goal "goals" more and more important, which in turn define more and more how this company operates inside and what comes out of it in the end. It requires strong and really good leadership to see this problem in the first place and then prevent such a construct from sliding down that slippery slope. The problem with stuff like socialism, communism, but also capitalism is simple: Humans. You create rules, you have conceptions of how something could work. You add humans, and things go sideways. Even if you aware of the issue, there is potentially no way to create something stable, it requires humans to stop other humans from being dicks, as sad as it sounds. It only needs a few dicks to break pretty much everything into pieces. Worse, more often than not, there was not even real ill-intent in the first place, like with the company I've written about above. The only way we can change things on a larger scale is to change the incentives, to change the overarching goals. Check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs (TED talk Nick Hanauer)

socialismisok 4y ago

I wish he had broke capitalism. Capitalism sure seems pretty powerful to me these days.

refurb 4y ago
I’ve lived in non-capitalist countries. No thanks.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  You know there are options besides capitalist hellscape and autocratic state capitalist hellscape, yeah?
  - refurb 4y ago
    Please provide an example. If you mean socialist states like Scandinavia, those are capitalist states. They fund all their social programs through money made by capitalism.
    - socialismisok 4y ago
      I'll provide a few. Indigenous Americans participated in a gift economy quite successfully. African Socialism, notably Ujaama, was a non Stalinist socialist government. Pre (and even part of) Hanseatic league Europe was neither state capitalist nor capitalist. Portions of Spain were socialist and anarchist until state capitalists/Stalinists shut them down for being the wrong kind of socialist.
      - refurb 4y ago
        So all your examples failed to sustain themselves?
        socialismisok 4y ago
        Indigenous Americans survived using this method longer than capitalism has been around. Then there was a genocide. Pre Hanseatic league Europe likewise had evolutions of non improvident markets stretching for hundreds of years, when capitalism took over. Ujaama was attempted to be started up right before a brutal oil crisis, and Western attitudes towards a successful and progressive Africa were hardly complementary. Spanish independents faced Stalin literally marching on them. No tiny state can survive one of the world powers deciding you are done. None of these failed due to their governments, and many existed for much, much longer than capitalism has. Besides, my assertion was that other models were possible, and I think I've demonstrated that yes, such models have successfully existed for decades or centuries.