Real vs. Ideal
A very bright man I know was recently told his job would be going away. He's worked at his place of employment for a number of years, and the reason his job is disappearing is that the manufacturing for his company is going to shift to China.
He was angry and frustrated. He's worked there for years, after all, and doesn't look forward to finding a new position elsewhere. But that much, he could stand; what steamed him was the fact that the decision was, blatantly, a suicidal one for the long-term prospects of the company. The place he works is consistently on the cutting edge of developmental tech, and the domestic plants had, in the past, has Chinese scientists quit suddenly, only to have a nationalized Chinese organization pop up with identical new tech a few weeks later. Industrial espionage is always damaging to a tech company; moving the company's research into a place where the espionage will be constant is akin to jumping into a pool without knowing how to swim. If you're surprised that damage ensues, you've made the ghost of Charles Darwin happy.
Meanwhile, the CEO and the Board received not only their standard huge paychecks, but raises and bonuses as well.
My acquaintance, a hardcore right-wing conservative, was trying to square his belief in the success of free markets with the contemporary robber baron aspects of some CEOs. There has to be something, he said, to keep them from killing a company and profiting off of it. And, he pointed out, while the investors theoretically fill that role, in reality they don't, for two reasons. First, a majority of investors don't vote, because their investments are small and diversified; and Second, the institutional groups who control large percentages of stock automatically vote with the CEO.
And here's the point where it gets important.
THERE IS NO IDEAL SOLUTION. There are only a few less than ideal solutions, and we may well have the best one possible in place. Right now, if the investors get motivated (and the institutional groups change their policies) the people with the most to gain or lose by the inept decisions of the business heads are the ones who have the ultimate power. But when they're not paying enough attention, the opportunity for malfeasance or ineptitude is raised. That won't be fixed simply by transferring power to the corporate heads, or to a governmental agency with no stake in the system outside of its own aggrandizement.
We're such a solution-oriented society that we either forget, or never realize, that some problems simply can't be absoutely solved. It goes against our natures to think like that. But most of the time we're simply faced with a variety of choices, none of which is perfect.
Idealism is a wonderful thing. But when it inspires you to abandon or denigrate successful courses of action because they're not perfect, idealism becomes nothing more than a reason to complain without accomplishing anything.
He was angry and frustrated. He's worked there for years, after all, and doesn't look forward to finding a new position elsewhere. But that much, he could stand; what steamed him was the fact that the decision was, blatantly, a suicidal one for the long-term prospects of the company. The place he works is consistently on the cutting edge of developmental tech, and the domestic plants had, in the past, has Chinese scientists quit suddenly, only to have a nationalized Chinese organization pop up with identical new tech a few weeks later. Industrial espionage is always damaging to a tech company; moving the company's research into a place where the espionage will be constant is akin to jumping into a pool without knowing how to swim. If you're surprised that damage ensues, you've made the ghost of Charles Darwin happy.
Meanwhile, the CEO and the Board received not only their standard huge paychecks, but raises and bonuses as well.
My acquaintance, a hardcore right-wing conservative, was trying to square his belief in the success of free markets with the contemporary robber baron aspects of some CEOs. There has to be something, he said, to keep them from killing a company and profiting off of it. And, he pointed out, while the investors theoretically fill that role, in reality they don't, for two reasons. First, a majority of investors don't vote, because their investments are small and diversified; and Second, the institutional groups who control large percentages of stock automatically vote with the CEO.
And here's the point where it gets important.
THERE IS NO IDEAL SOLUTION. There are only a few less than ideal solutions, and we may well have the best one possible in place. Right now, if the investors get motivated (and the institutional groups change their policies) the people with the most to gain or lose by the inept decisions of the business heads are the ones who have the ultimate power. But when they're not paying enough attention, the opportunity for malfeasance or ineptitude is raised. That won't be fixed simply by transferring power to the corporate heads, or to a governmental agency with no stake in the system outside of its own aggrandizement.
We're such a solution-oriented society that we either forget, or never realize, that some problems simply can't be absoutely solved. It goes against our natures to think like that. But most of the time we're simply faced with a variety of choices, none of which is perfect.
Idealism is a wonderful thing. But when it inspires you to abandon or denigrate successful courses of action because they're not perfect, idealism becomes nothing more than a reason to complain without accomplishing anything.
posted by AM | 7:29 PM
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