[PLUG] OT, FYI...IBM Layoff

[Preston Crawford]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 06:40, Neil Anuskiewicz wrote:
> And they manage the production of workers. A good manager makes sure that
> workers are working on the *right* things in addition to being productive.
> That is, he or she sets priorities that align with business/organizational
> goals.
> 
> I've seen productive, hard working, talented people off working
> on something they find personally interesting or satisfying rather than
> what is best for the organization and its goals.

That's not what I've seen in most cases. In most cases if you've hired
professionals, then they'll be professionals.

> I think a fair number of businesses are organized around different
> principles. For example, REI is a cooperative. There are food cooperatives
> and community supported agricultural in many communities. There are a
> number of employee owned businesses out there and people are free to set
> them up as they wish.

And generally you're free to be crushed by the market-controlling,
bribe-giving, larger corporations.
 
> Imposing idealogy and shoe horning a new system onto society. That is the
> domain of tyrants.
> 
> By far, history's worst murderers and oppressors were those who thought
> that way: Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Isn't there something in between murderous tyrants and unfettered,
screw-the-little-guy capitalism? I mean, look around you? With all the
trouble we're having in the middle east and elsewhere it should be clear
that the entire world doesn't agree with you that we live in the best
time ever. Maybe that's because they're the WORKERS and the workers get
paid pennies, especially overseas while the executives get paid millions
to make brilliant decisions like moving factories to foreign nations
where they don't have to pay a living wage or live up to environmental
standards similar to what they'd have to in the US. Capitalism is a sick
destructive beast in its own right. It's the best system humans have
devised thus far, but without protections against abuse by the wealthy
it's as bad for some people as the systems run by the tyrants you've
mentioned. It may be good for us in the US. I'm glad you're comfortabl,
but there are kids without limbs in Sierra Leone who might disagree with
your assesment.

So, once again, I ask, putting your inflammatory rhetoric aside, is it
possible to envision a system somewhere between Hitler and Stalin and
the win-at-all-costs system we have today? I'd like to think so. Problem
is, human nature and greed will always prevent us from finding it, I
fear. There's a reason the rich are rich and they aim to stay that way.
And part of the way they stay that way is by convincing the Sheeple that
anything less than unfettered capitalism puts us on the slippery slope
towards genocidal tyranny.

Preston