martindtanderson wrote:
So only Big companies can offer services to communities, and profit is essential to good society????
What has the UK government got to do with jobs in India? And while we are at it, if it wasn't for Thatcherism, and the thirst for greed and profit, companies wouldn't need to hire cheap labour abroad in order to "Maximise Profit". The UK Government's duty is to its citizens, and the Minimum Wage (which the Tories voted AGAINST) has been one of the best ways to ensure employers don't exploit UK workers (as much as workers were exploited under Thatcher and other Tory administrations).
This is a crucial point that the typical left often misses (and I've love to know why) - profits are good. That's not a party political point, it's a comment about a market economy.
Profits are the very reason that the vast majority of businesses are in business; even charities - their aim is to maximise the surplus of income over expenditure so that it can be used on their cause. Conversely if a business can't cover it's costs they generally don't hang around for long.
They key point when talking about business and profits is to consider that they don't operate entirely on their own, they interact with a whole plethora of other individuals and organisations. In the vast majority of cases businesses will have competitors both for customers and employees (and resources too, but we'll leave that for now).
This competition is key, it stops exploitation of workers and exploitation of customers. That statement is quite bold, but most criticisms of it come back to a lack of true, fair competition.
If a business faces competition, it could exploit it's position in the short term but it will be punished in the future as customers leave to the competitor. Even in cases where there isn't an existing competitor, businesses will still avoid exploitation if there is a risk of a competitor entering the market. They may also sponsor community projects and cut their emissions - in good businesses they will be key ideas that run through - but essentially they are policies to attract customers and/employees with an aim of maximising profits.
The same scenario works for employment - wages are a function of several different factors (largely education, scarcity, productivity and the ability to monitor output). Why would somebody take job where they were being "exploited" if there was a better one next door? The key point then, is that businesses are competing for workers, even on a minimum wage businesses still want honest, hard working employees; they also want retain employees because it is much cheaper than recruiting someone new and training them. To attract and retain quality they need to offer different things, better wages, holidays, training, conditions, hours.
In both cases a business can't just make massive profits and exploit workers. They must be offering a product or service that the customer wants, and attracting employees more effectively than the competitors.
martindtanderson wrote:
So if the company isn't making a profit, it is the duty of government to shut them down?!?! Even though they employed tens of thousands of people, and whole towns were supported and relied on these ports, and quarries, and mines, and factories. And let us look at Royal Mail and BA...
BA has a CEO who is determined to destroy the unions, just like the Tories wish to, and they would sacrifice staff and possibly safety in order to "maximize profits", when they have some of the more expensive ticket prices, and have in the past been involved in price fixing. Is this a shining example of good business?!
And the Royal Mail, who are forcing their workers to do more and more, and to carry heavier and heavier loads for the same pay, regardless of what the workers think. Adam Crozier was a tyrant, and a typical example of a Tory leaning boss.
It's absolutely not the business of the government to close things down that aren't making a profit - but that's the problem you have if the government are engaged in activities that they shouldn't be.
(Looking back) Is there a valid reason for a government to run an airline? Or own car manufacturer? Or a house-movers? Or a travel agents?
They key problem with nationalised industries is that they don't face competitive pressures from customers and (possibly) not from employees. They don't have the profit incentive, so have no internal drive to improve services or lower costs.
Looking briefly at unions - they hurt employees, time and time again. In a competitive economy (which airlines, and the delivery sectors are), why would cabin crew, or postal workers work for BA or the Royal Mail if they were such awful employers?
It is in the interest of Unions to protect the current employees but that doesn't help the labour market in general. Businesses should be able to flex over time - making redundancies and cut backs where necessary rather than being deadlocked by a union and losing yet more money.
My description above is quite difference from the way the two main parties engage with businesses - they are keen to win support and donations from big business, which can then shape the regulatory framework against this competition.
The Digital Economy Bill (constructed and poorly timetabled by Labour, and supported by the Conservatives) is a classic example of pandering to existing industries at the expense of developing a sensible framework for intellectual property which can (and is) resulting in a wealth of new businesses. Some people will lose out - why should musical artists be so well rewarded (often they aren't -the principal issue is public recognition that the internet is a massive positive for, the other is record companies which increasingly have less of a core purpose) for releasing recorded music? What's fair (much like wages) is often entirely arbitrary and based heavily around the status quo. Should blacksmiths have been protected from the nasty car industry?
IMHO the key economic policy for a Government should be setting the correct regulatory structure for business and allowing it to flourish. Something we've heard little about from either main party in the form of positive action.
On balance the Conservatives favour a smaller state and more private industry, although that doesn't mean to say that they've done enough to win my vote.
