Hi Michael,
At 14:55 10/07/01 -0700, you wrote:
(MG)
>Quite honestly Keith this is balderdash!
>
>Private corporations are certainly good at certain things--optimizing
>certain fairly narrow forms of technical/organizational behaviours;
>oreganizing resources in support of those optimizations; innovating,
>particularly from an applied technology perspective within fairly narrow
>parameters; but certainly democratic accountability is not one of them.
Despite what you've written above, it is a fact of modern life that the
corporation is investigated, exposed and pressured as never before. They
are certainly becoming more democratically accountable in a wider rather
than a narrower (vote-on-a-ballot paper every few years) sense.
(MG)
>You seem to be making the fairly elemental mistake of mixing up
>"consumers/stakeholders" i.e. folks with an interest in buying into and
>getting some benefit from those rather narrowly defined
>behaviours/innovations/resource optimizations; with "citizens" who have a
>stake in all the other things that aren't included in those equations--like
>the quality of (public) life, shared institutions, a common future and other
>trivial stuff like that.
On the contrary, you are making the mistake of categorising people as one
thing or the other. I am not mixing up "consumers/stakeholders" with
"citizens". Modern life has already done that. Each of us is a voter, a
consumer, a shareholder, a capitalist, a wage-slave, a (potential)
pensioner, an investor, a speculator, and so on. The fact that citizens are
voting less than ever before (about 50% in our recent General election*)
means that he regards his "democratic rights" (in the narrow sense) as less
important than his other roles.
*The turnout was less than any other election in the UK for a century. The
% turnout in the Election after WWI was less but only because 1� million
soldiers (out of a much smaller electorate) were not allowed to vote.
Keith H
>
>Mike Gurstein
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 1:27 PM
>Subject: Re: Short Summaries on Civil Service and Climate Change
>
>
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>> At 01:13 10/07/01 +0200, you wrote:
>> >Hi Keith,
>> >
>> >> (CR)
>> >> >Come on, Keith. If there is any hierarchical undemocratic top-down
>> >> >organization, it is the modern private corporation.
>> >> [KH:]
>> >> Come on, Christoph. How many layers are there in the typical civil
>service
>> >> department? About 30 in the English CS. How many layers in the typical
>> >> corporation? No more than 10 in the very largest I suggest.
>> (CR)
>> >See, there's the "UK-centrism" again. I was thinking of the Swiss civil
>> >service, which is rather de-centralized and uses the "subsidiarity
>> principle",
>> >i.e. decisions are made as low in the hierarchy as possible. And most
>> >importantly, the direct democratic control over lower and higher levels
>is
>> >pretty strong (e.g. direct referendums on projects of a certain size).
>> >The number of layers isn't so high either -- for regional (cantonal)
>> >purposes, about 4-6.
>>
>> I plead guilty to being UK-centric because the UK's civil service is the
>> only one I am fairly knowledgeable about. However, you must agree that the
>> Swiss system is not typical of nation-states. The UK's system is
>> representative of most developed countries and serves as an apt example.
>>
>> (CR)
>> >Compare this with a (transnational) corporation: centralized (with the
>> >center far away), hardly any "subsidiary principle", **no democratic
>> >control at all**, and rather *more* layers than a reasonably regional
>> >government org. (even if it has less layers, the other points spoil
>> >the whole thing..)
>>
>> If there is one thing that multinational corporations have learned in the
>> last 20 years it is that local management and boards of directors are
>> highly desirable. True, strategic decisions are taken at the top, but the
>> profitability/efficiency of different units are very much up to local
>> circumstances.
>>
>> "**no democratic control at all**" Really? What about shareholders?
>What
>> about investment funds? What about business analysts? What about the
>press?
>> What about pensions funds? What about regulators? These may not be
>> democratic in the strictest one-person one-vote sense, but they represent
>> ordinary people/consumers/pensioners and can exert powerful effects on
>> multinationals.
>>
>> Two days ago it was announced that the (new) chief executive of Railtrack
>> in the UK was going to receive a bonus of US$320,000 and share options
>> worth $635,000. Since Railtrack has been incompetently managed hitherto,
>> and since there's no evidence so far that the new chief executive is going
>> to do the job any better, there was instant anger by shareholders and
>> comments in the media. Today, he decided to relinquish his bonus and
>> options. This sort of pressure on companies is growing, particularly in
>the
>> UK and the US.
>>
>> (KH)
>> >> Besides, there
>> >> is one flow of information that is absolutely vital at all times in a
>> >> coporation -- that is from the bottom (customer) to the top.
>> (CR)
>> >It seems that the corporations more and more care about shareholders
>> >rather than about customers. The customer can easily be ignored,
>> >especially if the corporation has a (quasi-)monopoly or a de-facto
>cartel.
>> >Since there is no democratic accountability, customers (even groups of)
>> >can't do much.
>>
>> Without well-satisfied customers shareholders won't receive dividends and
>> management won't receive salaries. Yes, of course, cartels don't care a
>> great deal for customers but they tend not to last for long in modern
>times.
>>
>> I'll cut the rest because I'll only repeat myself.
>>
>> Keith H
>> ___________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
>> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>> Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
>> mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________________________________
