The FT ran an article this past week entitled "Welch condemns share price focus" decisively identifying a key component of capitalistic theory that underlies the core of the problems facing our financial system today.
We are coming to an end of an era when publicly listed companies and their corporate executives shift their attention from sustaining share prices to actually running a sound and solid business. The past few decades, especially, have proven that the Western approach to management has by and large been extensively focused on maintaining short term growth targeting share prices. Executives have had every incentive to base their business decisions directly on the day to day stock quotes. This has been proven to be a fallacy.
Jack Welch declared in an interview for the FT's series on the future of capitalism that "[the idea that shareholder value is a strategy] is a dumb idea." As the preeminent father-figure for the "shareholder value" movement, his words come as a telling sign of the end of an era fraught with mismanagement and corruption.
The purpose of operating a business in order to make profit depends upon focusing on long term, sustainable growth. Share prices are evaluative statistics used to measure success relative to competition and the rest of the market. Just like in any other performance-based activity, statistics are a distraction for the performers. The goal is continued, long-term success.
Things might be looking up for America after all.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friedman and Bernanke?
A wise man once said:
"The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline."
That man was Milton Friedman.
I sincerely doubt that he would be anything close to pleased at Mr. Ben Bernanke & Co.'s constant association between himself and their bailout policies. The media is equally to blame.
"The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-unon-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline."
That man was Milton Friedman.
I sincerely doubt that he would be anything close to pleased at Mr. Ben Bernanke & Co.'s constant association between himself and their bailout policies. The media is equally to blame.
Capitalism's Curses
When the market is tested by scandals and crises, the clamorous voices of opposition and dissent are the loudest. People want a verdict - they want to be able to point their fingers at something and say, 'This is what is wrong, and this is what will be fixed.' They want a logical explanation that can be backed up by fact. Perhaps more acutely, they want to be able to speak to their peers about the subject with some degree of mutual understanding. Notice - some degree: there is no necessity for full understanding. Unfortunate that is, because the result has become a majority of the population in the United States that does not care for the intricacies of running a fully functioning political and financial system and are satisfied with plausible generalities.
To the main point: the flaws of capitalism. Perhaps more succinctly, the flaws of democratic capitalism. They are exacerbated now by the inherent greed of the powerholders. It is a known fact that those in power, want to stay in power. It is this exact trait of officeholding that democracy seeks to offset. If the same people stay in office for too long, they will inevitably tend to abuse that office. Loopholes will be found. Friendships will be upheld for favors. The balance of the system teeters.
Recently we are witnessing the balance teetering in the largest system on the planet. The voices of dissent are crying out for a reason. The powers-that-be have stepped in to level their scepters of conviction. The enemy has been named: capitalism.
... What?
Capitalism is what has given us this great system we tout as the accomplishment of our time. How is it the criminal? Why now do we have to shackle it? For what reason are we implementing regulation to contain its vitality?
For the wrong reasons, I tell you. Capitalism by its nature promotes the pursuit of individual wealth through hard work and dedication, through specialization and proficiency, and through soundly defeating the competition to emerge with the upper hand in a free market. However, the missing factor is not regulation. It is social awareness and social responsibility.
Lack of regulation does not cause companies to pollute in order to gain the upper hand. It does not cause individuals to undermine the positions of others to gain an advantage. It does not drive decision makers to sell products that are inherently flawed and poisonous to society as a whole.
What drives people to make these choices is a lack of understanding of the concept of "society". The corporate executives whose decision it is to allow a company to pursue an environmentally unfriendly strategy, or to destroy an ecosystem, or to sell dangerous products to customers knowing that the product is not as good as it's touted to be, he is acting without consideration for the good of society. The simple reason is that the world was too big for the effects of his products to affect him at all.
The world was too big.
As the pace of communication has quickened towards the instantaneous, and as the scope of international business has driven adverse effects to a global level, corporate decision makers are held more accountable for the effects of their products on society. When a corporation releases toxic waste into the ocean, that corporation now has to deal with the poor water quality that it ends up drinking. When a factory pumps CO2 into the air for years, that factory's owners and workers have to live with horrible air quality. In the past, the decision makers had the luxury of ignorance. Now that luxury is waxing.
As business continues to globalize the concept of "corporate responsibility", meaning responsibility of the corporation to create the most wealth for its shareholders, is becoming "corporate social responsibility". As this realization slowly dawns on the powers-that-be, capitalism will naturally adapt, not to a completely socialistic communistic system, but to cater to the good of society as a whole, and not only to the economic benefit of the shareholders.
To the main point: the flaws of capitalism. Perhaps more succinctly, the flaws of democratic capitalism. They are exacerbated now by the inherent greed of the powerholders. It is a known fact that those in power, want to stay in power. It is this exact trait of officeholding that democracy seeks to offset. If the same people stay in office for too long, they will inevitably tend to abuse that office. Loopholes will be found. Friendships will be upheld for favors. The balance of the system teeters.
Recently we are witnessing the balance teetering in the largest system on the planet. The voices of dissent are crying out for a reason. The powers-that-be have stepped in to level their scepters of conviction. The enemy has been named: capitalism.
... What?
Capitalism is what has given us this great system we tout as the accomplishment of our time. How is it the criminal? Why now do we have to shackle it? For what reason are we implementing regulation to contain its vitality?
For the wrong reasons, I tell you. Capitalism by its nature promotes the pursuit of individual wealth through hard work and dedication, through specialization and proficiency, and through soundly defeating the competition to emerge with the upper hand in a free market. However, the missing factor is not regulation. It is social awareness and social responsibility.
Lack of regulation does not cause companies to pollute in order to gain the upper hand. It does not cause individuals to undermine the positions of others to gain an advantage. It does not drive decision makers to sell products that are inherently flawed and poisonous to society as a whole.
What drives people to make these choices is a lack of understanding of the concept of "society". The corporate executives whose decision it is to allow a company to pursue an environmentally unfriendly strategy, or to destroy an ecosystem, or to sell dangerous products to customers knowing that the product is not as good as it's touted to be, he is acting without consideration for the good of society. The simple reason is that the world was too big for the effects of his products to affect him at all.
The world was too big.
As the pace of communication has quickened towards the instantaneous, and as the scope of international business has driven adverse effects to a global level, corporate decision makers are held more accountable for the effects of their products on society. When a corporation releases toxic waste into the ocean, that corporation now has to deal with the poor water quality that it ends up drinking. When a factory pumps CO2 into the air for years, that factory's owners and workers have to live with horrible air quality. In the past, the decision makers had the luxury of ignorance. Now that luxury is waxing.
As business continues to globalize the concept of "corporate responsibility", meaning responsibility of the corporation to create the most wealth for its shareholders, is becoming "corporate social responsibility". As this realization slowly dawns on the powers-that-be, capitalism will naturally adapt, not to a completely socialistic communistic system, but to cater to the good of society as a whole, and not only to the economic benefit of the shareholders.
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