Via:      UK.AC.HULL.SEQ; 26 AUG 92 10:29:51 BST
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Original-Sender: R.A.Reese@uk.ac.hull.seq
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Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 05:31:21 -0400
From:         Allan Reese <R.A.Reese@SEQ.HULL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: Commerce and accounting (Sermon continued)

I have been sent details of 1 private and 1 corporate large-scale
unqualified donors in recent times. Both are in the States where
public donation has remained much more normal than in the UK
(aka the Nanny State).  I understand that such donations in the
US are also tax-advantageous; calls to introduce similar incentives
in this country have (as far as I know) been ignored by all governments.
However, I'm not a tax expert. I just pay tax (too much).

Linda Gorman pulls me up with the valid point that I seem to be
anti-commerce.

> There is also
> a body of evidence which suggests that non-profit organizations use
> more resources to accomplish the same tasks as for-profit organizations.
> The principal reason for this is that no one has an incentive to
> monitor costs in the non-profits.  The notion that profits (money-grubbing)
> are bad is naive, dangerous, and all too common among academics.  After
> all, we owe our comfortable academic lives to the unceasing efforts of the
> money-grubbers.

I agree, and had expressed myself badly. I wasn't railing against industry
and commerce, but at a purely accountancy-based view of ALL activity, even
those that can have no direct financial measure. The question of
non-profit vs for-profit is of particular interest in this country, since
we have a history of "nationalization" of moribund and decrepit general
utility companies after WWII, then growing disillusion with "faceless
bureaucrats" and inefficient management, and in the past decade a
quasi-religious fervour to "privatize" all the same activities.

(Personal views follow - not to be taken as definitive or slanderous!) The
UK telephone system has changed dramatically since privatization and looks
very commercial (i.e., they're reducing staff all the time). The water
companies look a far more dubious case; what the public has seen is a
scandal of increasing prices and rocketing executive salaries with little
evidence of improvements in the basic business (water and sewage). The
attitude of the companies is selfishly commercial and not to my mind
conducive to running an essential and continuing public service.

When it comes to education, I'm in two minds. I agree with Linda that
there is insufficient accountability about how we have used resources.
That stems from the attitude that it is "macho" to make management
decisions to spend large sums of money or "initiate projects", less macho
to rake back over the ashes - and often embarrassing. This hits at all
levels. In my own area I know that a lot of talk goes on before
hardware/software is bought but no one wants to ask twelve months later
how well it has been used. On the other hand, I'm deeply distrustful of
the suggestion that we must teach the students "what they want". If we
believe in education and truth (sounds pretentious but I sometimes do), we
often have to push students to do things they don't want/don't
understand/don't have confidence in themselves to do.

--
(R.) Allan Reese        Janet:          r.a.reese@uk.ac.hull
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