The Real Meaning Of Productivity

What is the real meaning of Productivity? The classic meaning was when a business produced more with the same amount of inputs- labor and/or capital they were more productive. That meaning has changed. Now the real meaning is producing the same amount of output with less labor. Which means that you get more ‘productive’ by firing workers, and thus Wall Street loves you and boosts your stock price.

This phenomena is aided and abetted by the Wolves vs.. Sheep argument that I have posted on. The wolves fire the sheep and somehow manage to get away with it. The sheep even believe the story they are told. That it is government regulations, or unfair trade, or some other vague force . that is responsible for their being on the unemployment line. The fact that the wolves have stock options and get richer by firing them somehow isn’t a factor.

And the effects of this re-definition of productivity doesn’t end with the downsized. Those who survive find themselves doing more work for the same, or sometimes less pay. If you complain, you’re gone.

This started in manufacturing , in the 80’s for the most part. But it has spread now to the office and everywhere. If you can find Stanley Bing's article “The 0 % Solution” for Fortune Magazine a few years ago (unfortunately I don’t know the issue date) you can see his take on the meaning of productivity.

He and I are not alone. Shoshana Zuboff wrote about the discrepancy between our progress from subjects to citizens in comparison to our status as wage slaves or serfs. (“Evolving”- Fast Company May 2004)

Well, complaining about how the world sucks may be fun, but not particularly useful. How do we deal with this? Is there an answer?

I have some ideas, but want to mention a more discouraging viewpoint first. If you check out “Business Has Not Found Its Copernicus” you will see Michael Skapinker of The Financial Times comments.

I think this problem can be addressed, but I am not Copernicus so I will put these ideas out there and hopefully get some feedback and see what can be developed.

I think a network needs to be created. A network of businesses that follow a different set of rules. A network of more ethically motivated businesses. That are not only driven by the old paradigm of maximizing profits. Companies that value their employees, and their customers at least as much as they do their profits.

How would this network work? I suggest that a set of rules be established and companies can join only if they follow them. They would then get the advantage of having the equivalent of The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Some of the features of this network would be: Flex-Time for employees; P/T work with benefits like the Dutch do so well; Some version of the business structure advocated in “The Share Economy by Martin L Weitzman Harvard Business Press 1984“ ; A limit on the spread between the CEO’s salary and the lowest worker salary; Awareness of the needs of Sustainability; a “Social Contract”; perhaps worker ownership.

These are not brand new ideas. And I am sure that various companies and organizations out there follow some or all of them. But, to me, they are invisible. The mainstream media does not talk about them. I guess they are not “News”.

That's why I think a network, or organization may be necessary. To bring all these people together to help one another, to publicize their approach, and to, hopefully, cause change to happen.

The bottom line is: Will this work? In the current form of market capitalism makes it hard to see it happening. The existing models that are followed will probably out-compete since they (wolves) and the sheep consumers are focused on lowest price, not best overall value.

And if it did begin to succeed, how would the competition respond? By absorbing some or all of these practices? (The Borg?) Or by trying to drive them out of business with predatory pricing and other anti-competitive practices that the regulators, depending on who runs the government, might overlook.

I don’t think it will be easy. But I think the time is right to start trying this or some other similar approach. The current business economic model is in disrepute and vulnerable for the first time in 30 years. We need to strike now.

Man’s Best Friend?

Sheepdogs are what, for now, I will call the people who actually are good people.  At least that's where they usually are coming from.  They tend to be “Liberals” in the American sense of the word. 

They see the problems the wolves cause and try to protect the sheep from them.  I don’t have major problems with that, but I do have problems with where they usually end up.  They are a different sort of control freak than the wolves.  They get their pleasure not from directly getting stuff for themselves, but by getting off on controlling others.  Wolves will try to control you to rip you off.  Sheepdogs do it for your own good.  And theirs too.

I am too into my own freedom to allow someone to tell me what to do this way.  And, as I have indicated above, I don’t entirely trust the motivations of the Sheepdogs.  They may be right in thinking the sheep need protection.  I guess that’s obvious.  But I don’t want to be lumped in together with the sheep. 

Now we get to the nub of the matter for me.  How do I, and the others (hopefully) out there that aren’t falling into any of the categories of Sheep, Wolves, or Sheepdogs, get by in this world.  As I said in an earlier post, we get screwed even if we don’t participate in the insanities of the sheep.  And I just don’t have the personality or desire to be a wolf or a sheepdog.   '

Well there is the idea of separation.  In this globalized world, unless you move to a cave how do you do that?  Well, I have some ideas, but if there’s nobody else out there to join in, it’s not going to work.  So,even  though I am the quintessential modern hermit in certain ways, I will need to join with others to accomplish my goal.  Well, so it goes (Robert A. Heinlein). 

More to come on that front soon.  Meanwhile, what do we call ourselves?  I used the term Vulcans before.  But they are not animals, but fictional characters.  Ah well, my brain is tired.  I’ll think about it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wolf Is At The Door

Wolves don’t require a lot of description, but the type I will focus on here do have some peculiarities.  In general, they are out for themselves to the exclusion of all consideration of others.  Or the impact they have on others.  All that matters is what they want. 

The variety that is prominent now is the hyper-capitalist.  They have taken the pursuit of wealth to heights that are truly amazing.  Someone like Bill Gates who is worth 80 billion dollars or so for example.  That figure is so large that it is inconceivable to most people.  If you put that money in a bank account making 2 percent interest you would get (at simple interest) 1.6 Billion dollars a year in income.  So when people talk about how much money his charity gives away, is it anything near that amount of money? 

But people like him, and Sam Walton, and others are celebrated by the sheep.  They think they are great.  They want to be like them.  So the utterly ruthless tactics that they use to get what they want are mostly ignored.  Or even admired. 

That is the peculiarity of this relationship.  The sheep want to be exploited by the wolves.  They somehow can’t see what is being done to them.  Is it just stupidity or something else?

There are other forms of wolf out there.  For instance the political wolves that inhabit our government.  They are the subjects of future diatribes.  That’s all for now though. 

The Sheep Look Up (Apologies to John Brunner)

I’ve not posted for a while, but I am back, for good or ill.  I’m going to lay down my basic philosophy that will be behind most of what I am going to post from now on.   I put some of it into my last post, Stupid People, but in this post and the next few I will be more detailed. 

In Stupid People I briefly discussed the categories that I think people fall into.  While I need to come up with a better name for me and my fellow travelers than Vulcans, I think the categories work. 

I think that you have to have a basic philosophy underlining what you write and mine is to try, as best as I can, to accept reality, even though it sucks, and start from there to attempt to change it.  If you make suggestions to change the world that are so driven by your particular ideology that you ignore any data that conflicts with that ideology you will end up like the neo-cons who still defend the invasion of Iraq. 

I certainly have an ideology, but most of what I write about is driven by Pragmatism the philosophy, and just trying to find pragmatic solutions to the world.  I want the world to be a certain way, but know that it isn’t and may never get there. 

But,if you start from a position that does not recognize the real world, you will never get anywhere. 

So, lets talk about Sheep.

Sheep make up the biggest part of the world.  They are not very smart on average, and mostly they stopped thinking during their teen years, probably when the hormones started kicking in.  They found out a few things which seemed to be true, decided this is how the world works and that’s it.  You can beat them over the head with something that doesn’t fit in their view and they will never accept it.  To sit down and ponder something and try to figure it out never occurs to them.  After all, thinking makes your head hurt. 

They want someone to tell them what to do.  That’s a lot easier than figuring it out yourself.  So anybody who can sell them on a point of view, usually through looking good and pandering to their pre-conceptions and biases, will get their vote, or dollars.  (See upcoming post on Wolves)  Actual relevance to the real world or any facts is quite beside the point.  Its how they want the world to be that matters and so they sit around drinking beer and begging to be exploited.  And so they are.  By wolves or sheepdogs.  (More on that to come)

Do I sound cynical?  Do I sound frustrated?  Good, that’s what I want to convey.  Because the sheep let the wolves and sheepdogs run the world and those of us who don’t go along with them pay the price for their stupidity also.  So, if you want to change the world, you have to deal with the sheep.  Either by directly exploiting and using them, or by getting the hell out of Dodge.  (My preferred solution, if slightly impractical) 

Ok, well that’s out of my system for now.  Maybe my next post will be less ranting, and more philosophical.  (Which is what I though I was doing)

Stupid People

Premise: The world consists of a great mass of stupid people who are ruthlessly exploited by the greedy. There is a small minority of people who fit in neither category. I am one, and this blog is for those others of you out there.

The unfortunate problem for us is that we are caught up in the chaos created by this situation.

For example, the current economic situation. It is the considered opinion of the mass media that no one foresaw this crisis. That it came upon us without warning and is, as one of the bankers responsible said- a once in a century hurricane.

Well, that's bogus.

A number of well known and respected writers and economists predicted this many times. For example, in the May 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine Michael Hudson puts forth a somewhat leftist, almost conspiracy theory explanation of the then building real estate bubble. This was more than 2 years before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. And in July of 2007 Richard Bookstaber, a hedge fund quant, published his book " A Demon Of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation. This was about the quants bringing on the destruction of Long Term Capital Management. This showed how we were already on the way to the Great Recession. The respected magazine The Economist was talking about the real estate bubble for years prior to the disaster we are all experiencing.
There are many other examples of this. But did anybody pay attention?

Well the great unwashed didn't. The brain dead sheep were getting mortgages for no money down, flipping properties, and dreaming of a real estate market where prices always went up. And the bankers and finance mavens kept dreaming up new ways to package these loans that had no chance of being paid back, earning huge fees along the way, and the regulators who didn't have a clue, rated them as safe investments.

So it went on and on until the train went over the cliff.

But what I want to discuss in this blog is not that specifically, altho with my economics and finance background it is an area of interest and knowledge to me. What I want to talk about is what I will call The Vulcans. For lack of a better term I will call myself and others of a like mind after the rational beings from Star Trek. We didn't invest our life savings in complicated financial instruments, or take out balloon payment mortgages, or take part in the globalized Ponzi Scheme that is international finance, or rip off those who did. But we were dragged over the cliff with them anyway.

This is but the latest example of "The Marching Morons" a book I recommend. We live in this world of sheep and wolves and suffer for it.

So, What is To Be Done?

Well, that is what I will be writing about in the future. Because I don't just want to rant, altho it does feel good sometimes, but to propose solutions, or ideas. And mine will be more in line with those in the above mentioned story, than those of Marx and Engels.

That's all for now folks.

Welcome

Welcome to Critical Mass. This blog is the result of several pounds of warped grey matter trapped within my skull. I am an observer of society, but not the nice face put on it by the spin-meisters, but rather the reality underneath . For surprise-surprise, what appears to be going on out there isn't what's happening. But something else.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, altho I don't totally discount all conspiracies, but I also am not an idiot that believes everything he is told by the powers that be. So my take on the 'reality' of the US and the world will be posted here. With an emphasis on the economics of the situation since that is where my training lies. And it is a good way to tell what is happening. As the boys of the Washington Post were told all those years ago-"Follow The Money"

See you all (?) later.