Summary
Woodhouse lays out
the format and problems with the hierarchy and authoritarian nature of most
businesses in the modern world in this chapter. He argues that the market
playing field should be equal between employees, executives, the government and
social organizations or associations. This can be done through an auction
mechanism, which raise funds, automatically set market priorities, allow new
innovators to decide when/if to progress, and account for exceptions for
high-priority innovations, valuable innovations and smaller innovations that
needn't be put through the system. In his terms, consumers and innovators need
to consider, "is technological society in greater trouble because of a
shortage of innovations, or because of lack of attention to those that do
occur?" (101) Then the system can take time and effort into making a new,
more thorough system of addressing innovations.
Analysis & Synthesis
I feel that there
will always be the ongoing struggle with technology of how it redefines our
roles in society. Woodhouse highlighted this struggle throughout this chapter,
focusing on how our current system often progresses to the disadvantage of
employees. His first example was that of environmental solutions. There have
been many suggestions to executives to implement more environmentally friendly
practices, to which they respond with the threat to our jobs or employment
opportunities to pick up the cost. This prevents progression, harms employee
relations and shoots down any opportunity given to environmental organizations.
Woodhouse's approach to this solution was twofold: first, that "the tax
rate might be increased every few years until it became obvious that the
contest between business and other social interests became more equal"
(97), and having employees act as consumer representatives, the hope being
"if it were known that workers had a share in decision making, environmental
organizations or other groups might as workers to speak on their behalf"
(97). I have two questions in response. First, we have been trying to make tax
changes for a very long time, and in recent political battles the discussion of
raising taxes as well as enacting tax raises have been implemented. See Occupy
Wall Street. This is clearly not a simple or easy answer; consumers will
complain or revolt until it is changed. Woodhouse gave the example of how
"Spanish workers still have the right to vote to hire and fire their
bosses", and that he "wonders why that simple idea has not become
better known and more widely tried" (98). It would not surprise me if
businesses put conditions into place that would allow workers to technically
have a say, but would limit them to which decisions they could make, or what
exactly they could say, how they could say it, etc. I don't think it would be
an effective system, at least with the general tendencies of the business
market right now. Somehow we need to break this "trend toward fewer
employees per cracker or car [that] has been in place for a century, with no
end in sight." (99)
Our current system
catches us in this vicious cycle of authoritarianism based on profit incentives
and ideas of power & dominance, which I described in my previous blog post.
Still, I wonder if we could ideally implement Woodhouse's system, with employees
holding comparable power and say to executives. Wouldn't this also be a
self-feeding and driving system? Better pay, input into what goes on in the
company would make employees enthusiastic about their work and the growth of
their company. Consumers would know more about the products they are seeing and
what goes on behind it, encouraging them to purchase the products of companies
with these policies and fair treatment. Employees would purchase their
company's products out of pride and support for their hard work. Thus, the
economy would be stimulated from within and on fair and powerful principles
that would allow for change via personality and the input of the citizenry the
company is involved in. Executives would learn from employees and be held
accountable for the effects their decisions make, and would only become wiser
and more responsible. In this ideal world, our economy would thrive and reflect
the culture and drive of its consumers and workers, citizens would have a
healthy, clear view of products and would be able to make change through what
they do every day.
