Blair Sandler writes:
Shawgi, on the other hand, writes that "monopoly capitalists are not
interested in the well-being of workers. Their aim is maximum capitalist
profits." This may be so, but I don't want to teach my students that the
only way to be successful in business is to squeeze the workers dry and
suck the marrow out of their bones by any means possible. If one of my
students ever reaches a position of some authority, I'd like to think that,
perhaps in part due to my influence, s/he might be inclined to adopt
strategies that exploit by producing environmentally-friendly rather than
exploit by producing environmentally destructive commodities; strategies
that exploit by increasing real wages rather than decreasing them (it is
elementary Marxian theory how real wages and exploitation can increase
apace, no?), and so on.
Comment: Of course any capitalist is or ought to be interested in the
well-being of workers insofar as this is a necessary condition for maximizing
profit. However, if company A treats it workers better than company B and
the better treatment lowers profits capital investment will tend to
flow into companies
such as B rather than A. The situation is complicated by the fact that it is
managers not capitalists who determine policies in the first instance and they
may be interested in such things as increasing size of the firm market share,
their own perks etc. rather than maximizing investor return. No doubt
capitalists wish that companies maximise profits and attempt to get them to do
this but it may be no simple task. By the by are not
workers, profs, etc. also all implicated indirectly in this through the
investment of our pension funds? Do we all insist that our pension money be
invested in environmentally friendly companies and those who treate workers
well or are we more concerned to get the best returns and maximize pension
benefits?
In the present times of restructuring downsizing etc. it seems a bit
utopian to expect that overall real wages will increase. What if you had real
wage increases at the expense of growth in unemployment? Even though
environmentally friendly products are desirable they may be more costly.If
product prices were to reflect their true environmental costs they might be
much more expensive.
In a market economy this may not bother those who are upper middle
class or rich but it certainly will not impress those at the lower ends of the
income scale. While everyone benefits by more environmentally friendly products
the cost burden may very well be higher at lower income levels.
I just returned from a conference on Ethics and Restructuring. The
presentation by a representative of ScotiaBank was interesting in that it went
against what seemed a consensus among business representatives that downsizing
was necessary and profitable. She took the opposite view. Scotiabank has
not given any layoff notices apparently. As part of their long term plan
any necessary reductions are made almost entirely by attrition. She didn't even
mention that they had early retirement incentives. They invest heavily in
retraining so that when one job becomes redundant their staff has been
trained to perform a new job. Although there has been some
decline in overall employment, many new jobs are created as others become
redundant so that the overall job loss can be covered by attrition. She thought
that Scotiabank policy created a much more loyal and productive work force.
She did not take the line that there could be no job security any longer.
QUite the opposite, she thought it quite significant in ensuring commitment
to the company and productivity.
Some other business representatives on the panel looked at her as if
she were from another planet. A manufacturing representative seemed
to be of the opinion that in many manufacturing plants her policy was a
non-starter because of the magnitude of changes taking place. He seemed to
think that huge cuts were coming and that in the end there would be a much
smaller workforce of well-paid jobs in manufacturing.
CHeers, Ken Hanly
