What would happen to a company if it was run the same way a state is run on social progressive lines? A progressive state where equality actually leads to greater inequality; where fairness leads to unfairness; where justice means injustice; where liberty means tyranny and oppression. For emperical evidence of this just think back to the years that Labour were in power.

The following scary things would quickly happen:

1. The back room office staff would be doubled, with rostered days off, possible 9 day fortnights & committee meetings to decide on which Fair Trade coffee we should all begin drinking! Every office would have a children’s crèche of course. Selling product would immediately become a strangely secondary issue for social progressives where worker rights come first, ahead of making a profit to pay their wages.
2. With all of those extra staff to pay, that in a normal company just aren’t needed, our price list would have to increase. The progressives would absolutely believe that all customers would fully understand that our cost base had markedly increased, but be amazed and would not understand why many would take their business elsewhere in confusion & frustration!
3. If a member of staff saw one our products being used to torture a dog, even though it’s primary use was nothing of the sort, they would clamour for the product to be banned. All the pallets full of this product ready to be shipped to customers would need to be destroyed. The customers would lose their money and would have to go elsewhere for an equivalent product, but of a lesser quality as they had already wasted some of their money. The surprising thing is that the member of staff who clamoured for the product to be banned didn’t know that the product is actually used to enhance people’s lives.
4. Another member of staff notices that some of our customers are doing quite well particularly as they are buying and using our product which saves them money. Due to this brilliant observation, the staff member would think it totally acceptable to single out all these successful customers and charge them more than we charge for all other customers. They would then wonder why the customers call the customer support line with abuse and then disappear, looking elsewhere for their supplies.
5. Our product uses electricity from power companies that pollute the atmosphere. The staff despise this and make an alliance with some flaky inventor in order to use wind or solar electrical power. Due to the flaky nature of the generated electricity, wind is not always blowing and the sun doesn’t always shine, the product now costs twice as much, is twice as big. It also uses half the power, which is seen as a success by the inventor.
6. The new CEO of the company got the job after persuading the share holders that profitability would increase with an increase in turnover and increased sales to get the job, knifing the previous CEO in the back first. Immediately on taking the position they would renegade on the promises, bleating about having never really meant it anyway, or some other nonsensical drivel involving distribution costs and such like. The CEO would then mysteriously ask for management consultants to be brought in, even though their mind was already and obviously made up years ago. All this confusion is a real winner and guarantees absolute staff and customer loyalty. This is of course what the progressive staff think, but few of them have any real world genuine business experience to speak of.
7. The staff handbook would have a section on the new equal opportunity employment policy, though for some reason it hasn’t made much difference to the number of women employed in the noisy dirty greasy factory where we make our products which are made of heavy components. By this time turnover would be plummeting anyway, which would be considered a triumph as it would be male employees who would be made redundant first rather than the female back office staff, thus creating more staff equality. The CEO is a clever speaker and would make all this sound trickily reasonable. But then, some people trained legal matters can be very charming, even when they are totally wrong and have no idea what they are talking about or the real world havoc they seem fond of creating through unintended consequences.
8. When the company gets broken into by some thieves the new management bans the staff from calling them tealeaves and encourages the staff to use the term “socially deprived person”. When the police catch the criminal socially deprived people, staff would be encouraged to talk with them and introduce them to the socially progressive life, including taking them to their own homes. Trouble is, the staff would then arrive home to find all their furniture stolen. When the staff complain to management about the thefts, they will be admonished for thinking that the furniture had been stolen. They will be taught to understand that their furniture had been redistributed to those in serious need of it.
9. Most of the work week is spent attending occupational workplace health and safety courses as the boss in their wisdom believes that none of the staff are truly capable of using common sense and survival instincts. The boss now believes that as they are responsible for the staff, the staff need to show that procedure are followed and so lots of forms are filled in to prove this. All this training would give the new mix of equal numbers of guys and girls something to do as there would be fewer customers to serve anyway.
10. Because the factory is a dangerous place these training courses would need be carried out in a safer place. The CEO would contract the most expensive builders they could find to build temporary looking workplace safety training rooms in the car park of every office. To pay for this work, the CEO would use all the previously accumulated profits to pay the builders. Though the boss thought they had negotiated a brilliant deal with the builders to cut costs even though their quote was expensive as the builders promised to buy our products. Trouble is, the builders thought the CEO was raving mad and instead spent the extra profit they made on sending their workers on overseas holidays and giving them all 42″ LCD TVs. Amazingly, even with the new temporary looking workplace safety training rooms taking up a lot of the car park, they was still plenty of space for customers to park.
11. As a result of the safety training carried out in the temporary looking workplace safety training rooms, the CEO insists that everyone wear hard hats and high visibility vests, even in the canteen. That must be just in case a member of staff trips over a broken biscuit, or worse still, gets bumped by an ever so dangerous fridge door.
12. The new CEO would think it quite acceptable to see the company running at a loss every year, but would promise that it would return to profitability in 2 years time. The fact that the CEO knows this is an absolute inspiration to the staff and an excuse for much needed celebration. However, for the few original staff left this is seen as naively optimistic who aren’t fooled by this erratic behaviour, fudged figures and misplaced utopian idealism. Seeing as the world’s economy resembles an unfolding slow motion train crash, anyone predicting profit earnings in 2 years time must surely be considered unfit to govern anything of any consequence. Let’s be brutally honest and admit that comrade Bob and his lot could never run a medium sized private company. Comrade Bob has never understood the now well proven rule that socialism is wonderful, until you run out of somebody else’s money!

With many thanks to TradeTools.com of Australia for the original inspiration. Mucho kudos to a company that isn’t afraid to stand up against the might of the state. Unlike many other companies that are in the pockets of the state or don’t dare say anything because the state controls them too much already via bureaucracy and regulations and red tape.

H/t Angry Exile via Real World Libertarian.

Gewyne July 13, 2011 at 13:26

A strange sprinkling of “they” in the article.

It starts of amusing, but losses it’s way. Most of us know that the state
is to big, but look at the legal challenges over just cutting back on library
services, or the right of a pensioner to have someone sit with her all night
in case she needs the toilet (because adult nappies are demeaning and violate
her human rights – case no heading to European courts).

Just get used to it, Public spending is still rising and the number of
employees are despite short term variations on a general upward trend.

Engineer July 13, 2011 at 13:47

But how is all that paid for? We’ve run out of tax revenues and have to
pay for 25% of it with borrowings, these days. That can’t go on, can it?

I can’t agree with your entreaty to “just get used to it”. If there’s a
problem, it has to be addressed, and the sooner it is, the less damage it
will cause in the longer term. It isn’t written on tablets of stone that the
public sector must do everything; if the budget is constrained, which it
currently is, then the coat must be cut according to the available
cloth.

Why not privately-run library services? You never know – the disciplines
of the free market might revitalise a service, and have more people willing
to pay for the use of it. Or it may turn out that very few people actually
use it anyway.

Gewyne July 13, 2011 at 13:59

I don’t disagree with you, I would like to see the state slashed to
just security/defence/borders with a few small regulatory bodies.

But even the Tories are not really cutting back the size of the state,
so who will ? LibDems, Labour ? We are tinkering with things such as
pensions, and local services – but how many of these cuts really go
through still remains to be seen, especially with so many being challenged
in the courts.

Is there any party actually a viable party standing on a mandate of
large scale reduction in Public services ?

Michael
Fowke July 13, 2011 at 15:29

“But how is all that paid for? We’ve run out of tax revenues and have
to pay for 25% of it with borrowings, these days. That can’t go on, can
it?”

Exactly. Some people just insist on living in a fantasy world.

SadButMadLad
July 13, 2011 at 17:02

I don’t know how the “they”s got in the article. Must’ve been from the
spell checking and I didn’t check the spell checking. Thanks for pointing it
out.

Now fixed.

Gildas the Monk
July 13, 2011 at 09:19

But none of that would matter. The company would be permitted to borrow so
much money cross guaranteed by other companies that it could not be allowed to
fail, it would get bailed out – but subject to severe wage cuts

Livewire July 13, 2011 at 06:53

Straw men? It’s humorous because all of the attitudes and practices are
recognisable.
Someone of the left, or even better someone who dishes it out
to all and sundry,
could equally describe an extreme right-wing workplace,
run with the attitude of WW1 generals operating a policy of “50% casualties?
Quite acceptable” and industrial relations settled by security guards wielding
pickaxe handles (Walt Disney workplace in the 1930s).
Learn to love satire,
it’s a safety valve (everything leads back to engineering terms, but thats a
separate argument).

Dick
Puddlecote July 12, 2011 at 23:48

Don’t forget the drugs and alcohol policy. It’s now a prerequisite for
those tendering for public sector work in many areas that even office staff
should be banned from partaking alcohol at any time of the day. And that they
should be advised to abstain entirely.

We took our office staff to the pub on petty cash the day we filled that
tender out.

Unity July 12,
2011 at 23:41

If you’ll stop burning straw men for a minute then you might notice that
there are companies which operate on socially progressive lines.

They’re called co-operatives and most of the better known ones, like John
Lewis, Mondragon and, of ocurse, the Co-op itself, are doing very nicely
thanks.

Engineer July 13, 2011 at 08:27

The problem is, Unity, that many a true word is spoken in jest. Many of
us have personal experience of workplaces in which things of this nature
have gone on. Many public services, for a start. It may go a long way to
explaining the current state of the public finances.

True enough that there are companies that conduct their business in more
mutual ways than some others, but they still have to make a profit to
survive. The ones that don’t make a profit don’t survive (British Leyland,
for example, or the NCB – nationalisation, which was supposed to be
mutualality, didn’t work).

The public services don’t apply budgetary responsibility. If they run out
of taxpayers’ cash, they just keep spending. That’s why we’re in a mess, and
it has to be sorted out.

Joe Public July 12, 2011 at 22:38

That’s almost like a small rural, sparsely populated County Council paying
its Chief Executive more than the country’s PM.

JuliaM July 13,
2011 at 05:52

Or the entire civil service…

Andrew July 13, 2011 at 10:45

Too true, Julia!