A
new report
by the Conference Board of Canada laments the country's lagging
productivity, measured by factors such as business and technology
literacy, innovation and investment in R&D. To this extent they
have a point. However,
their prescription for improving the situation is
mostly the same tired, discredited and decidedly un-innovative
'globalization' techniques:
- cutting costs to be
'competitive' with wage-slave countries,
- attracting more foreign
investment (read: takeovers),
- investing in 'commercialization' instead
of imagination and creativity (not sure what we would then have to
commercialize),
- writing more scientific articles and registering more
patents,
- tax cuts for corporations and rich investors (we all
know how
well this has worked in the US), and
- deregulation (so we can have more
Enrons, WorldComs, Arthur Andersens, and then knee-jerk Sarbanes-Oxleys
when corporate crimes rise in response).
With 'ideas' like this -- I've debated often with those
at the
Conference Board, and they're sloggers, mostly competent but short on
imagination and critical thinking -- it's not surprising that we rank
low
in innovation.
So what should
Canada do?
Well, for a start, we should
change how we define and measure 'productivity'. As I've explained
before,
corporatists have (for self-serving reasons) got economists, the media
and others (including, alas, the Conference Board) equating
productivity with corporate profit margins, or, as they put it, the
amount of 'output' (revenue) per unit of 'input' (salaries and other
costs).
By this measure, Canada's 'productivity' is lower that in the US for
two
important sociological reasons: We work significantly fewer average
hours per week, and our participation rate (notably the number of
two-income families) is significantly lower. Is this something we
should define as a problem? Only, I would
suggest, if you're a
corporate shareholder, trying to
squeeze more work out of more workers for lower wages.
Take these
factors out of the equation, and our 'productivity' is directly
comparable to that of the US. And this is despite the fact that the 70%
of larger
Canadian companies that are owned by foreigners invest an average of
one third less
in infrastructure and R&D in their Canadian subsidiaries than
they
do in comparable-sized domestic operations. Go into most Canadian
'branch' plants and warehouses of companies with US parents and you can
see almost
immediately how shabby they are. They get the cast-off systems,
equipment and software of the foreign parent. They get antiquated,
badly laid-out facilities. They get the management rejects from head
office, people who frequently make colossally dumb decisions with zero
knowledge
of the Canadian marketplace.
What's astonishing is that despite this,
they consistently outperform
the head office country's plants in quality -- Canadian auto
plants, for example, are routinely rated among the best in the
world.
I used to think that, for that and other reasons, we should prohibit
foreign
control over
Canadian businesses, and ban foreign ownership of Canadian land and
resources. I'm still not sure that wouldn't be a good idea -- it's
tough to make economic decisions in the best interest of
Canadians when
foreign-owned businesses dominate the Canadian economy (and campaign
contributions to Canadian politicians).
But there's a more effective approach that
the
Conference Board and other non-thinkers never seem to
broach: Supporting Canadian entrepreneurship. Drucker realized that
entrepreneurship is the principal driver of innovation, and that
innovation
(not profit margin) is the driver of real productivity.
It's all about
meeting needs more effectively. It's about making stuff that works, and
is durable, not how cheap you can import throwaway crap.
Canada has, by global standards, a reasonably
entrepreneurial
culture, but we're losing the propaganda war to the corporatists who
think cost reduction is more important than quality, sustainability,
and enterprise.
Until we can change the language of 'productivity' to
something that contributes to the well-being of Canadians instead of
the size of corporate dividend cheques flowing quickly out of the
country to foreign shareholders, the bozos in political office and the
media will keep blathering on about this absurd 'productivity' and GDP
bullshit, and not recognize the urgent need for (and huge
potential ROI from) a major public investment
in Canadian-owned enterprise.
This investment should be focused on three things:
- Education:
Not
MBA courses that purport to teach
'leadership' and
'strategic management', but down-to-earth,
hands-on,continuous
education programs in how to research, establish and operate
sustainable Canadian enterprises that meet real human needs, give
Canadians meaningful work, allow us all to do what we do
best, and
bring an end to chronic underemployment.
- R&D
and Infrastructure: Grants, plus tax
incentives, specifically
for research and for clean,
sustainable
facilities, equipment and technology, with a catch: the recipients must
be 100% Canadian owned and managed, and cannot sell the fruits of this
investment to foreign buyers (that's in violation of the abominable
NAFTA, but
never mind).
- Environmental
Sustainability: A
major funding and legislative commitment now to create a
healthy society and environment. The David Suzuki Foundation
has written the blueprint:
-
Generate
genuine wealth:
Expand the narrow goal of economic growth to the triple-net objective
of genuine wealth and well-being (ecology, economy, and equity).
-
Improve
production eco-effectiveness: Increase the effectiveness
of energy and resource use by a factor of four to 10 times.
-
Shift
to clean energy: Replace fossil fuels with clean,
low-impact renewable sources of energy.
-
Reduce
waste and pollution: Move from a linear "throw-away"
economy to a cyclical "cradle-to-cradle" economy.
-
Protect
and conserve water: Recognize and respect the value of
water in our laws, policies, and actions.
-
Produce
healthy food: Ensure food is healthy, and produced in ways
that do not compromise our land, water, or biodiversity.
-
Conserve,
protect and restore nature: Take effective steps to stop
the decline of biodiversity and revive the health of ecosystems.
-
Build
sustainable cities: End urban sprawl in order to protect
agricultural land and wild places, and improve our quality of life.
-
Promote
global sustainability: Increase affluent nations'
contribution to sustainable development in poor countries.
-
Introduce
fiscal reforms: Shift
taxes
to promote sustainable and to discourage unsustainable production and
consumption, and eliminate perverse subsidies that enable unsustainable
business practices to be hugely profitable and which discourage
innovation and inhibit competition from small enterprises.
-
Respect
all life on Earth: Institute and change laws and
regulations to respect all life on our planet as sacred, not
treat it as mere human 'property'.
A
Canada that accomplishes the eleven objectives in this sustainability
blueprint
(Suzuki says it can be done in a generation) will be the envy of the
world.
How we would measure up by
the corporatists' yardstick
of 'productivity' if we made all
three of the investments above (financed substantially by
a tax shift and a reduction in war and 'defence' spending) is hard to
say. But no
one will care, because we'll be investing in Canadians' well-being,
instead of in a morally and creatively bankrupt and unsustainable
economic system. We're way
overdue replacing 'productivity' and GDP with
measures that matter.
|
MADE IN CANADA
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