Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Always nice when they admit it
It's been obvious for a while that American big business no longer operates on the profit motive. Its main variable, the goal of all activity, is stock price, not profit. And this is exactly why American business no longer serves the basic purpose of commerce in general, why it no longer wants American employees or American consumers, why it no longer deserves support or respect.
But it's been hard to find straightforward admissions of this fact; most "debates" follow the Agreed-On Lie that American business seeks profit. As always, the brand-D side says profit is bad and the brand-R side says profit is good. As always, they're "arguing" about a myth.
Here's Jim Manzi, a big business insider, comparing teacher evaluations with retail sales evaluations:
Note the completely matter-of-fact tone.
But it's been hard to find straightforward admissions of this fact; most "debates" follow the Agreed-On Lie that American business seeks profit. As always, the brand-D side says profit is bad and the brand-R side says profit is good. As always, they're "arguing" about a myth.
Here's Jim Manzi, a big business insider, comparing teacher evaluations with retail sales evaluations:
Beyond this, no list of metrics can usually adequately summarize performance, either. In absolute theory, what we would want to know in a business would be the impact of a given employee’s behavior on company stock price. But we can never really measure that. Instead, we have a bunch of proxies that we believe collectively approximate this.
Note the completely matter-of-fact tone.
Labels: the broken circle
¶ 7:00 AM
