This was the response of a group of eco-businessmen in St David’s, Wales when interviewed by Paul Mason from BBC’s Newsnight for his report on What’s wrong with Britain.
All five businessmen thought the idea of maximising profit was old hat. They tell Paul that they have learnt their lesson from Nature.
"Nothing in nature maximises," said Andy Middleton, adventure company boss and deep green business guru. "Trees don't ask 'how high can I grow?'"
The buzzword today is optimization not maximization. It allows one to manoeuvre and be more flexible. I presume that - rather like in Nature - if you find yourself in a desert, it’s better to be a dwarf shrub rather than a giant redwood. How different from our Victorian predecessors who sought to tame nature to our needs.
The talk is all about decent margins, low margins, tight overheads and labour intensive rather than machine production. A woman who owned a pottery design business boasted about employing lots of local labour in routine, repetitive jobs that would be better done by machines or cheap labour abroad.
Philip Blond from ResPublica argues for devolving power to the users and re-localising the economy.
All of this smacks of less growth or no growth and low horizons.
‘It’s not capitalism’ says Paul Mason.
True enough. It isn’t capitalism and I ought to be happy about that; after all I’ve argued against capitalism since my University days. But I’m not. The alternative suggested here is even less progressive. At least social progress was driven by the self interest of individual capitalist entrepreneurs. These businessmen are eschewing progress in favour of limiting growth, of allowing nature to determine our boundaries.
Britain’s lifestyle businessmen may feel good about shedding the image of ruthless profiteers but their debts are bankrolled by profit-making countries like India and China and our unprofitable industries are being bought up by those self-same countries.
If British bosses are fighting shy of bigger and better then it’s no surprise that many workers in Britain are being told to make do with less. The vitriol spewed over the BA strikers recently, is an illustration of this trend.
We shouldn’t accept this. We need more than a living wage. It’s only by being dissatisfied with our lot and aspiring for more that human progress evolves at all.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Wednesday 17 March 2010
Who’s Afraid of Politics?
Everyone it seems. ‘It’s not political, it’s industrial’ protested Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made the same point with the added epithet that the proposed strike was deplorable.
Who are they kidding? Arguing for or against strike action means taking a political stance and making a political argument for support. In fact, despite their protestations, everyone is taking a political stance.
For the first time in a long while, politics has been pushed onto the agenda by the intrepid stance of BA cabin crew who refuse to accept that they must pay for the recession. Even the hyped-up forthcoming general election hasn’t been able to stir up such a catfight.
Willie Walsh, the British Airway’s chief executive and former trade unionist for the moderate airline pilot’s union at Aer Lingus blames the union’s cynical action for the disruption of his customers travel plans and claims that most of the cabin crew have offered to carry on working. To avoid chaos BA are e-mailing passengers about flight information. They have trained 400 pilots and 600 ground staff to work as temporary cabin crew and have also chartered 22 aircraft and crew to keep some flights running. Mr Walsh warned that he will be forced to implement deeper cuts from the cabin crew budget if the strike goes ahead.
Shareholders have welcomed Mr Walsh’s management style and support his determination to make savings. Share prices in BA have gone up.
The government have rallied around the defiant British Airways management.
Lord Adonis said the strike was ‘totally unjustified’ and argued that the BA strike would destroy the company.
Gordon Brown intoned “It is not in the company’s interest, it is not in the workers’ interest and it is certainly not in the national interest” and branded the strike action as deplorable.
The Tories say they would have deplored the strike action even earlier than Gordon Brown and accused the Labour Party of being in the pockets of Unite; the latter having donated £11m to party funds over a period of three years and whose members have often been putforward to become successful Party candidates.
The media have joined forces in their condemnation of the strike. The Times leader argues ‘Mr Walsh is entirely right to stand his ground. The position of Unite is not just unreasonable, it is self-destructive. It poisons BA’s position with its customers. It harms the union’s own political allies. And it endangers both the future of the airline industry and a flag-carrying British company. In this dispute, Mr Walsh is being reasonable, and greatly to his credit, equally strong-willed.’
On the opposing side, the union appears to be trying hard to defend its position but one gets the feeling that it’s been pushed into a more radical stance by the militant cabin crew and that they are desperate for a deal. Instead of raising the political game and making a strong case for solidarity they continue to plead for talks.
Tony Woodley of Unite claims Mr Walsh is ‘looking for war. He doesn’t want a negotiated settlement.’
Steve Turner, Unite’s national officer for aviation, will meet officials from the Teamsters, a powerful US trade union, to discuss an offer of support. No one knows whether this support will involve solidarity action to frustrate BA flights or simply a gesture of sympathy and possible financial aid.
To be fair, Tony Woodley did make the point on Newsnight on Monday this week that he was proud of the better pay and conditions of BA staff. That shows they are doing a good job as a union, he added. However, it is no surprise that BA cabin crew are looking to replace both general secretaries with one of their own preferred candidates, Len McCluskey who they feel would better represent their interests.
The lesson from all of this is clear. When push comes to shove, you have to take sides and that means being political. In this case, I support the BA cabin crew.
In general these days, political self-interest is rarely expressed and as in the forthcoming general election one is left wondering whether we should bother with politics at all or if there is any side to choose.
If you're wondering whether politics is still worthwhile then, in the spirit of the BA cabin crew, be daring and check out the Institute of Ideas who are getting stuck in at The Battle for Politics this Saturday. I know for a fact that Claire Fox, the director and stalwart of BBC4's The Moral Maze, is not afraid of anything.
Who are they kidding? Arguing for or against strike action means taking a political stance and making a political argument for support. In fact, despite their protestations, everyone is taking a political stance.
For the first time in a long while, politics has been pushed onto the agenda by the intrepid stance of BA cabin crew who refuse to accept that they must pay for the recession. Even the hyped-up forthcoming general election hasn’t been able to stir up such a catfight.
Willie Walsh, the British Airway’s chief executive and former trade unionist for the moderate airline pilot’s union at Aer Lingus blames the union’s cynical action for the disruption of his customers travel plans and claims that most of the cabin crew have offered to carry on working. To avoid chaos BA are e-mailing passengers about flight information. They have trained 400 pilots and 600 ground staff to work as temporary cabin crew and have also chartered 22 aircraft and crew to keep some flights running. Mr Walsh warned that he will be forced to implement deeper cuts from the cabin crew budget if the strike goes ahead.
Shareholders have welcomed Mr Walsh’s management style and support his determination to make savings. Share prices in BA have gone up.
The government have rallied around the defiant British Airways management.
Lord Adonis said the strike was ‘totally unjustified’ and argued that the BA strike would destroy the company.
Gordon Brown intoned “It is not in the company’s interest, it is not in the workers’ interest and it is certainly not in the national interest” and branded the strike action as deplorable.
The Tories say they would have deplored the strike action even earlier than Gordon Brown and accused the Labour Party of being in the pockets of Unite; the latter having donated £11m to party funds over a period of three years and whose members have often been putforward to become successful Party candidates.
The media have joined forces in their condemnation of the strike. The Times leader argues ‘Mr Walsh is entirely right to stand his ground. The position of Unite is not just unreasonable, it is self-destructive. It poisons BA’s position with its customers. It harms the union’s own political allies. And it endangers both the future of the airline industry and a flag-carrying British company. In this dispute, Mr Walsh is being reasonable, and greatly to his credit, equally strong-willed.’
On the opposing side, the union appears to be trying hard to defend its position but one gets the feeling that it’s been pushed into a more radical stance by the militant cabin crew and that they are desperate for a deal. Instead of raising the political game and making a strong case for solidarity they continue to plead for talks.
Tony Woodley of Unite claims Mr Walsh is ‘looking for war. He doesn’t want a negotiated settlement.’
Steve Turner, Unite’s national officer for aviation, will meet officials from the Teamsters, a powerful US trade union, to discuss an offer of support. No one knows whether this support will involve solidarity action to frustrate BA flights or simply a gesture of sympathy and possible financial aid.
To be fair, Tony Woodley did make the point on Newsnight on Monday this week that he was proud of the better pay and conditions of BA staff. That shows they are doing a good job as a union, he added. However, it is no surprise that BA cabin crew are looking to replace both general secretaries with one of their own preferred candidates, Len McCluskey who they feel would better represent their interests.
The lesson from all of this is clear. When push comes to shove, you have to take sides and that means being political. In this case, I support the BA cabin crew.
In general these days, political self-interest is rarely expressed and as in the forthcoming general election one is left wondering whether we should bother with politics at all or if there is any side to choose.
If you're wondering whether politics is still worthwhile then, in the spirit of the BA cabin crew, be daring and check out the Institute of Ideas who are getting stuck in at The Battle for Politics this Saturday. I know for a fact that Claire Fox, the director and stalwart of BBC4's The Moral Maze, is not afraid of anything.
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