General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Revolution anyone? This is for those among us that think we can always fall back on revolution. [View all]marions ghost
(19,841 posts)--coming from a family of small business owners I know it does take that high (some would say manic) level of motivation to start any business. Vision and determination, also flexibility. You have to like shooting the rapids.
I do agree that "we outnumber them" but they hold way more of the cards. It is not a level playing field. So that's what makes me a skeptic unless you have a more favorable political climate occurring at the same time. In any strategy to turn this around we need to realize we have the numbers. We can do much more together than we can in isolation. I'm for all efforts in the right direction, operating synergistically. When you create enlightened business, you do change attitudes and this can generate receptivity for new ideas in the same vein and it can snowball in time--but takes awhile....
Your vision of a business that people WANT to work for is a good one. I particularly relate to that goal. So many business owners of companies large and small --think the way to get ahead is to turn your people into under-compensated robots. It is the absolute worst way to run any business. Unhappy people don't do good work. And they go through like a revolving door--you don't get loyalty unless you create such dire conditions in society that it becomes slave labor. Then you get forced loyalty. Wage earners are happy for any job (or two or three) and will put up with the worst of conditions. We have that now. I take hope that the fast food workers can unionize and I support their struggle for being treated like human beings instead of machines. But the product needs to change too--many fast food places are dishing out food substance that causes major health problems. Change the attitude toward the workers and toward the product and you could revolutionize that industry anyway.
So I do agree with the "invest in your people" plan--it's what is sorely missing in American business models-- tho there is a lot of lip service to it, it's usually lacking in reality. I don't know how you deal with the fact that automation and robotics makes a lot of jobs obsolete, but I guess we have to be more creative about what constitutes a job. What is really needed for humans to do. What is valued. I don't know how you make people less greedy. It infects the best of 'em when they get some money--I've seen it many times. Then they start to operate from the principle that there's never enough. It takes more and more and more money like a drug. They start to fear loss of it, instead of feeling the benefits of sharing the excess. They become miserly Scrooges. I have seen it happen. "I got mine" (in people of average means as well as the wealthy) is a disease that is crippling this country and destroying civil society.
Cooperative economics, Ujamaa I hear ya. Noble goal of course. But many have tried and failed. You express your ideas clearly--so keep writing, brainstorming, visualizing it--and write a book when you get down to the actual details, the reality. The devil is in the details.
Good luck with it. Report back when you get the model working...