From: rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: soc.men
Subject: Re: Smelling The Roses (was Re: Companies can afford it, right?)
Date: 11 Apr 92 05:23:27 GMT
Organization: SMDS Inc., Concord, MA

In article <34146@unix.SRI.COM>, maslak@unix.SRI.COM (Valerie Maslak) writes:

> There's one facet of wharfie's arguments thast has been missed so
> far, but that many friends of mine are all too aware of: 4 out of 5
> startups fail.

Ah statistics.  That statistic is true.  However it includes *all*
startups.  The majority of businesses that have anything remotely
resembling a reasonable business plan succeed.  It isn't all that hard
to do a moderately successful startup [particularly if you don't have
venture capital.]

> So for everyone who has a company that even stays in business, four
> others find a boarded up door with a sheriff's sale notice on it.
> As for hitting the big bucks by going public and making those stock
> options worth something...odds are not in your favor, folks.
> Factor that in.

Again, misleading.  Most of the failures are in things like family
restaurants and the like.  However the stock options still aren't likely
to be worth much.  It's not all that hard to start a company.  It is
hard to make it successful enough to grow very large.

> Hey, I've had friends who were with Visicorp, remember
> them? Gone.

Yep, gone.  Were you going to tell us they were a startup company?
They're gone because they coasted on success and time passed them by.
Happens all the time.

> These folks then went to another unnamed startup that went bellyup.
> Never went public. More toilet paper.

>  Where were the presidents of these two companies? Did they stay
> around to thank folks for all their hard work? Forget it.

Now this is very true.  One of the really important lessons of life
is to never put your trust in princes.  You're being too cynical --
the shakers and doers want to do good things for their people.  They
really and truly do.  It's just that, ahem, when the going gets tough
the tough get going.  But what the hey, that's the way it is.  A wise
person takes the effusions of the powerful with a shakerfull of salt.

> So, wharfie, you choose to do it, fine, it's your life.
> But to moan and complain because everyone doesn't think
> that your goals and values are the only worthy ones...
> nah, won't fly. There's something to be said for putting time and
> energy into a family and into relationships. I've been a child :-) and
> I've had two children. If our society doesn't start valuing
> child-raising and allocate resources to it, we'll end up with
> serial killers and drive-by shootings and gang rapes
> in Central Park being the norm...

But Valerie, dear, my perception is that the shoe is on the other foot.
Wharfie took exception to one of the Susan's effusions and stated his
own goals and values and perceptions.  This has been followed by all
and sundry slamdunking him.

I didn't think much of said Susan's comments -- she rather came across
as a drone and a consumer of seed corn in her initial comments.  Her
later comments were more to my taste.

Any way there are a couple of different issues here.  I agree intensely
that our society is short changing our children in a rather suicidal
way.  Susan appears to have the position that it is the responsibility
of business to do something about it, and that they don't because of
nasty corporate greed.  This, I opine, is so much bull and it is this
bull that ticked Wharfie off, IMHO.

The function of widget companies is to manufacture and sell widgets.
What I perceive Susan and others to be espousing is that widget companies
should be taxed [in the form of mandated policies] to solve, in situ,
the problems of society.  Now this is so much rubbish, to my way of
thinking.  A widget company represents a division of labor in the society;
they are the ones with expertise in making and selling widgets.  They
are not and it is counterproductive to the society for them to try to
be experts in human resources.

Let's look at this in a bit more detail.  There are basically four kinds
of businesses -- growing, cash cows, dying, and marginal.  Where does this
tax fall and what is the effect.  The effect on the dying is hasten mortality.
The effect on cash cows is divert corporate waste in human resources
departments.  The effect on the growing is to inhibit growth.  The effect
on the marginal is death.  Consider the effect on employment.  A cash cow,
an AT&T can well afford to pander to the social conscience of the Susan's
of the world.  A uni-whatsis cannot as readily.  The majority of people,
who are not Wharfies, would rather work for the cash cow and its suite of
bennies than for uni-whatsis.  The direct result of "business is responsible"
is to differentially discriminate against the most economically productive
sectors of the economy.

It seems to me to be obvious that there should be a national health care
system, and that there should be a universal child support system.  It
seems to me be that there should be institutional structure to make it
possible to be a care-giving parent without committing economic suicide.
It even seems obvious to me that large, wealthy corporations waste a lot
of economic resources on corporate plushness.

But I also think that this notion that business should assume, under
duress, the responsibility for solving social ills is destructive both
to society and to business.
-- 
Richard Harter: SMDS Inc.  Net address: rh@smds.com Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742.    Fax: 508-369-8272
In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die.