Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts

Monday, 23 March 2009

Post capitalist world still has a long way to go

I was listening to a debate on Andrew Marr's Start the week programme on Radio 4 this morning.

It drifted into the sort of capitalist society that will come out on the other side of the global recession.

The argument said that it will become a more caring capitalism where the needs of wealth creation will be balanced against the needs of the society.For example it was quoted that parents will have more time for their children,people will become more localised etc etc.

Getting there may prove a trifle problematic if this article in the Washington Post is anything to go by.

It reflects that

With the recession forcing businesses to cut back on workers, employees are increasingly doing all they can to hang onto their jobs and are forgoing many of the benefits that once allowed them to balance the demands of work and family life.
adding that


In good times, workers frequently seized the opportunity to use "flex time" and family leave, to telecommute and to take paid sick days. But, according to workplace consultants, human resources specialists and employees themselves, those days are slipping away. More workers are giving up those arrangements, or resisting asking about them in the first place, out of fears that doing so will make them appear less committed to their work and therefore more expendable.


So a huge barrier to overcome,not least that people have to realise that we have to forgo some of the consumer society that we have craved for so long.Break that link and the importance of work is diminished.

Saturday, 28 February 2009

Goodwin is not the failure-It is laissez faire capitalism's fault

I love this piece in this morning's Independent by Derorah Orr,

laissez-faire capitalism says that all companies are fabulous, as long as they are generating wealth for somebody and should all be left to get on with it. That is the problem we have to address, not Sir Fred Goodwin's inappropriate pension.


Reminding us that Sir Fred made his name in the 1990's by his reputation for merging comapanies and shedding jobs a managament style that she says was applauded then and maybe still is

Goodwin has not been a failure. He has been successful, and he is not afraid to display the fact that he knows it. He may have led the company he ran to disaster. But he has been a great success at looking after No 1, and that's why he has more money than any family could ever possibly need.


Are we in a position where we can change the culture? I very much doubt it?