This article is about what we as a people should and can do to change the situation. I would like to make three points. The first is we need to reshape or reorganize how we do business. The second is we need to treat people fairly and morally and the third is we do vote with our pocket book.
In business college I learned that the bottom line is how much money is made after all expenses are paid. Are we making progress in our system of businesses today?
Our thinking should be more about how we treat people. Until we change this, nothing is going to advance. That is what this article is about.
I was a small business owner and know the hardships it takes to run a business. My friend and his family ran a huge farm and relied on immigrant labor to help make the needed bottom line at the end of the year that the bank required to do the business. Is anyone paying attention to how much we pay for labor?
It is true that government can change the situation. If we truly have a government of the people, by the people and for the people as Lincoln said, then we need to quit lying to ourselves and quit allowing the corporations to use slave labor to create their products. Our minimum wage could be higher; we could provide legal status to immigrant workers; our government could do a lot just by making our laws more people oriented.
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My first point is we need to reshape or reorganize our businesses. The bottom line should not be profit, but people. Successful businesses currently are causing much of the problems in the world today. The example that comes to mind is Wal-Mart. Certainly by our current corporate standards they are successful.
I have an acquaintance that works in management for Wal-Mart and he HATES his job. He is required to be tough, aggressive and mean to the employees under him. They had him fire a group of people to see if he could do it before he became a manager. The people hadn't done anything wrong and should not have been fired. It was a way to find out if this potential manager had what it takes to command a group of underlings.
I believe people are entitled to worthwhile work and wages. We are all entitled to a good life. I have been impressed by the actions of David Korten who started the YES magazine and wrote the book 'The Great Turning'. Mr. Korten says a life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable way of ordering human society based on democratic principles of partnership is a more natural order for corporations instead of empire building.
My second point is we need to treat people fairly and morally. I have written several books lately that have business ideals buried in the story lines. John Abrams book 'The Company We Keep' inspired me to write a science fiction novel called 'Waves of the Future'. My books are available at
http://pollettplayers.com/booksbydeon/.
In my book I have one of the characters saying, "If companies become democratic and have better wages for everyone, I might consider starting a business again."
One of his fellow workers responds with "If you had, your business would probably still be around. It's hard making it in a small business when you are the only one that cares about the outcome."
I was appalled when I found out that Robert Ringer's book 'The Art of Intimidation' was being taught to women in business situations so they could join men in intimidating in the business world. I believe that kind of mentality (which is still being taught in business schools across the land) is one of the problems with the world today. It is why we move corporations to other countries and use slave labor so we can make the products we sell less expensive. Instead of management learning to intimidate we should be learning to work toward consensus and learn how to build loyal employees by treating everyone fairly.
People are more important than that. I believe hiring people for minimum wages is a form of slavery. Slavery should be stopped. One way to rethink how we do business is to give people livable wages and treat them like people instead of slaves. The corporate Union busting that has been going on since the Reagan years makes me sick. The Unions are why we had a good standard of living for many years in this country.
One business class I took quoted a manager in saying, 'It is wise to pay your employees enough to live comfortably on, because then they will be loyal to you.' What has happened to that?
The third point I want to make is we vote by where we shop. I enjoy listening to people like John Perkins on Free Speech TV's Keynote, who said we are voting by where we shop. John Perkins founded the Dream Change Coalition which is an organization that inspires executives to clean up pollution, reshape corporate goals, and form Earth-honoring partnerships with indigenous cultures. One of his books that influenced me most is Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I have been telling this story to all of my acquaintances and to anyone that would listen so we would NOT shop at Wal-Mart. Sure we vote where we shop but we need to rethink how we live as well and not buy things we don't need when there are people living among us that cannot afford the food or rent. Do a little research before you buy.
To summarize we need to reorganize how we do business in our Corporations and in our small businesses and make them more people oriented. We need to think about how others are being treated and quit lying about using illegal immigration or slave labor. We need to realize we vote whenever we spend our dollars on items that are produced by slave labor and companies that do not treat their employees fairly. When we do this our culture will advance and the world will look up to the United States and not fear or hate us.
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