As a starting point, if we look at the aircraft construction industry, there are a number of major suppliers, and a few smaller suppliers, who design, build and supply aircraft. Two of those that I can think of are Boeing and Airbus. These two companies probably both have good engineers, but if they don't win work to pay for salaries and costs, they will lose those people - whether through not being able to pay as good salaries and provide as good benefits as their competition, or simply through having to sack people because they don't have enough income.
The assumption made by economists tends to be that good people will be picked up by the competition, but that isn't necessarily so: there is, in fact, a chance that these people could possibly be lost from the profession.
In my industry, which was reformed by the Victorian Governments of the 1980s and 1990s, this is exactly what happened - despite some belated attempts to keep key people by designating them as being crucial, and excluding them from voluntary redundancy offers. The changes to the industry were enough for some of those people to leave - and the pressure I've been under recently at work has been enough for me to consider leaving the profession I work in (which is not aeronautical engineering, in case anyone is inclined to think so in response to me using Boeing and Airbus as an opening example :) ).
It's not only that change can be a difficult thing to manage - people can get tired or worn out (burned out) by constant pressure, the constant to compete and win work on a cut-throat basis, and just want a quieter, less stressful lifestyle. That is probably known about in terms of people making a "sea change" or "tree change", but not everyone is able to make that sort of change - many don't have the money (I was going to type "resources", but let's not beat around the bush here: it basically comes down to money).
What happens to them? Well, break downs, mental health problems, and lifestyles of desperation, in a nutshell.
And why are people driven to these circumstances? Because, in my opinion, we have ingrained the mantra of "growth and competition" into our social fabric.
The accepted view is that we have to have competition to prevent overpricing because of a monopoly - and woe to anyone who tries to suggest otherwise! Well, I'm about to suggest otherwise ...
As one such alternative, how about the "Star Trek" approach of "no corporations": people do their bit, and money is not used. Or ... how about Sue-Ann Post's suggestion of paying EVERYONE a wage of $500/week - in order to sell goods, prices might actually come down. Of course, the formerly rich would no longer be able to indulge themselves in ostentatious displays of Porches and the like, but I don't see them living the same sort of lifestyle as the rest of humanity as necessarily being a problem :)
I've read in a number of channelled books suggestions that the economy work on the basis of 10% profit at each stage, with the vagaries of supply and demand pricing consigned to history.
It's a suggestion. It has its advantages and disadvantages like all of the approaches I've mentioned. For instance, do you know that business typically allow 2 - 5% of their annual costs for the costs of competing to win work? Doesn't that count as a disadvantage - true, maybe not as significant as the overpricing of a monopoly, but it still exists as a disadvantage - especially if everyone in the monopoly was actually behaving as ethical, spiritual people ...
So too does the human and environmental price of our growth and competition based economy - in fact, those are the main costs of our addiction to competition.
Sadly, I suspect the people who make decisions think the people who drop off the system aren't worthy of being counted, but, apart from the wrongness of such a discounting of human life, I also know from my personal experience just how much valuable experience, knowledge and skills are being lost as a result. One of my former team members once said that I should be available as a skill for all in my industry to use - sadly, knowledge has become a locked up commercial resource, rather than for greatest benefit of greatest number of people.
I also consider Adam Smith's advocacy of growth (if it was him - I need to check that) to be environmentally unsustainable - it is like a pyramid scheme, and there will come a crunch when no resources are left on our finite planet to sustain the extra growth.
Well, it's all just something to think about - and nothing is forever. As an example, in the ancient Celtic system days used to start at sunset, not midnight ... and during the Middle Ages east could be at the top of the map rather than north ... and once upon a time forks had three tines, not four. It all can change :)
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
Notes:
- To be a little flippant, I could say my personal breaking poiint is measured by 5 decades of gender identity issues (after transition the endemic discrimination is an issue) + 3.5 decades of comeptititive private industry consulting engineering (hence this post) + 1 decade of increasing health problems + being ashore for 1 decade + some personal stuff i won't go into here + GFC induced job insecurity + pressure for a work trip to a location where there was a good chance of me not returning ... fortunately the last of these, the trip, was cancelled, and I am starting to get back into doing the things I know I need to do - apologies for the quiet while I've been dealing with all this -although, mind, it is now my turn to - GLADLY - repay the support I received during that crisis to someone near and dear to me.
Tags: economy, attitudes, society, social engineering, competitiveness, about me,
First published: Frysdagr, 23rd September, 2011
Last edited:Friday, 23rd September, 2011
