No other country embraces change as a virtue and is so willing to cope with the dislocations of failed businesses. It would be an overstatement to say that American laws encourage individuals and corporations to declare bankruptcy, but there is little of the shame associated with commercial failure in other countries. The American political system has accommodated vast regional dislocations of manufacturers and employees. The polity has concluded that the benefits to consumers are more important than guaranteed jobs for manufacturers. The essential challenge of a capitalist system is change.
Prosperity is a function of the ability to adapt to change.
This will inevitably result in the need to change business direction and to redeploy personnel. This suggests, for America at least, that an employers' obligation towards his employees can best be styled as the commitment to provide them with employable skills. If the employer cannot sustain competitive viability, then his employees will have the chance to work for another employer who can. Only time will tell whether this phenomena is limited to the United States and to expansionary times. One critical component in this process is the creation of approximately 500,000 new jobs a year from venture capital investment.