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	July 17, 2004

AMERICAN PROGRESSIVES GET ANGRY, AND BUSY A few interesting lefty sites to look at as weekend reading: The indomitable Bill Moyers tells why progressives should be angry, and not complacent, about what has happened to the political, social, educational and economic systems in the US in the past few decades. My favourite excerpts: A profound transformation is occurring in America: the balance between wealth and the commonwealth is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to what the Commonwealth Foundation calls “a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power.” From land, water and other natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for ‘political debate’ in this country has become a cynical charade behind which the real business goes on –the not-so scrupulous business of getting and keeping power in order to divide up the spoils...Let’s face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs – if this isn’t class war, what is? It’s un-American. It’s unpatriotic. And it’s wrong...What we need is a mass movement of people like you. Get mad, yes – there’s plenty to be mad about. Then get organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives. And he quotes this gem from Time magazine: “When powerful interests shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they often get what they want. But it’s ordinary citizens and firms that pay the price and most of them never see it coming. This is what happens if you don’t contribute to their campaigns or spend generously on lobbying. You pick up a disproportionate share of America’s tax bill. You pay higher prices for a broad range of products from peanuts to prescriptions. You pay taxes that others in a similar situation have been excused from paying. You’re compelled to abide by laws while others are granted immunity from them. You must pay debts that you incur while others do not. You’re barred from writing off on your tax returns some of the money spent on necessities while others deduct the cost of their entertainment. You must run your business by one set of rules, while the government creates another set for your competitors. In contrast, the fortunate few who contribute to the right politicians and hire the right lobbyists enjoy all the benefits of their special status. Make a bad business deal; the government bails them out. If they want to hire workers at below market wages, the government provides the means to do so. If they want more time to pay their debts, the government gives them an extension. If they want immunity from certain laws, the government gives it. If they want to ignore rules their competition must comply with, the government gives its approval. If they want to kill legislation that is intended for the public, it gets killed.” This is part of the Demos website. Thanks to GentleBreeze's excellent blog for the link. And once they're angry enough, American Progressives now have an organizing body to do something about this travesty: The Progressive Vote PAC's United Progressive Alliance is working at the grassroots level to reform the Democratic Party into a genuinely progressive party, or at least get some progressive planks in its platform, from the bottom up. 12:56:38 PM  trackback []  comment []

THE CONFERENCE BOARD ON INNOVATION The Conference Board of Canada recently conducted a survey that revealed six common features of "highly innovative" firms (those that get more than 20% of their revenues from new products).. The six features: Draw on customers as the primary source of new ideas and an integral part of the decision-making process. Collaborate extensively with universities and colleges on research and to access expertise. Operate a defined R&D process. Have formal processes for generating, testing and commercializing new ideas, including incentives for participating employees. Use both evaluative processes and intuition in deciding on innovation projects and investments. Have an appointed internal "innovation champion" and at least one "pathfinder" customer to collaborate on innovation projects. These aren't rocket science, or particular surprising findings, but from my personal observation some or all of these six features are not only often absent from large organizations, but have often been abandoned by such organizations as part of the past few years of cost-cutting and 'rationalization'. I have been astonished to hear senior executives of large organizations essentially say they can no longer 'afford' innovation -- that is has become a luxury that does not engender enough short term return on investment to warrant any expenditure. This is classical large corporate myopia, of course -- since you're rewarded only for what is measured in the latest fiscal quarter, you're overwhelmingly tempted to outsource, offshore, slash staff, eliminate training and otherwise cut costs that will increase short-term profits at the expense of longer-term viability. Any investment in infrastructure -- new technology, knowledge, fundamental research, education, support processes that improve front-line worker productivity -- is frowned upon. It's insanely dysfunctional behaviour, but increasingly commonplace in corporations driven by tyrannical demands of shareholders for constant double-digit profit growth to justify wildly inflated stock prices. And just like the parent who tells his child that he has to go out to work at 18, rather than investing in a university education, this short-sightedness will have profound and lasting long-term negative consequences. When will the overpaid clods in the corner offices learn that you can't cut your way to greatness? 12:51:21 PM  trackback []  comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave Pollard. Last update: 02/08/2004; 3:42:07 PM.