Posted by
Gene_says: on Thursday, April 12, 2007 12:44:46 PM
At what point does the headlong corporate pursuit of efficiency become a gilded societal decollator that tears us apart, piece by lethargic piece.
We are finding out now that Citibank, the world’s largest bank is cutting 17,000 jobs to increase the efficiency and rapidity of it’s profitability.
Well, the not-so rhetorical question now has to be, what is this efficiency they are creating? Do they not see the ghost in the machine, in their race to attain easy profits for themselves and their shareholders?
I highlight that word easy because the secret ingredient to making profits all-the-while strengthening society is a certain amount of inefficiency in the corporate structure. There should be a certain amount of labor intensity to the gaining of wealth. It is advantageous to us all if you put two or three Americans to work in your climb up the billion-dollar Mtn.
I’m the last person in the world to call for governmental uber-regulation or most types of brakes on the free movement of markets. Nevertheless, at a certain point an unencumbered laissez-faire attitude tends to forget about the very components that create it.
Like a good spice, a little tad of inefficiency makes the end product more pleasing to the consumer. The pleasing aroma of employment and thus wealth is the nutrition that helped build this great land.
As long as Citibank remains just a little less efficient, some college kid might just land that dream mail-room job, thus kick starting his career climb for the next 30 years.
It’s the inefficiencies of some of these large companies that gave the uneducated factory worker enough wealth to put his and her child through college to become the very managers, vice presidents, CEOs of these very companies that are trying to be hyper-efficient.
The quickest way to form a Luddite society is to scare people into thinking our quest for the ultra efficient business model is going to cut them out of meaningful existence in this society.
It would be one thing if this were a struggling sector or a struggling bank, but in fact, the financial sector of our economy for the last three decades has had lulu numbers in the profits arena.
And Citibank, the biggest of the big . . . is not exactly short on cash?