Goodwill

[AllentownJake]

Corporations have stopped believing in Goodwill. Once upon a time in this country, the GMs, GEs, AT&T's, Bethlehem Steel's of the world believed in Goodwill. They were willing to invest in the communities that they did business in, in order to attract talent, have positive relations with local elected officials, and so that people in the communities would buy their products.

Henry Ford was an asshole, but when he was asked why he treated his workers well, he simply said.

"Than I will have people who can afford to buy the cars I make" (Its a paraphrase).

Somewhere in the 1980s that disappeared. Corporations moved to only caring about their management and their shareholders.

I think it was because the World War II generation was retiring. Many of our business leaders at the time were in the military and understood that it wasn't the Generals that won the battles it was the troops.

I believe we lost something after that generation retired from business. They were replaced by a new generation of leaders...one that got draft deferments.

[saltpoint]

1. The outcome of the second World War afforded us the material

privilege of suburb housing, 1.5 automobiles, a lawn mower, cheap gasoline, and colored television. Our relationship with material things very significantly changed.

During the same period our dependence on tranquilizers rose.

Two brief passages:

- - -

“In only one place do the twin themes of outward prosperity and inward dread come together, and that is in the figures for tranquilizer sales, which rose from $2.2 million in 1955... to $150 million by 1957.”

--Jay Stevens, STORMING HEAVEN


“Perhaps it was natural that a generation weaned on depression and war should have been attracted to material success and teamwork, but this didn’t explain the zeal with which they eradicated all that was distinctive or unusual from their lives.”

--Jay Stevens, STORMING HEAVEN

- - -

It's possible that Americans have never been at ease with material privilege. Corporate chiefs evidently self-eviscerate their moral identities in order to exploit people and circumstances in the name of profit. Otherwise I don't see how they could sleep nights, apart from tranquilizers.

When people flock to the suburbs they are congratulated by advertisers and realtors, etc. for their "success" in accomplishing the American Dream but in some measure they should be condemned for their failure to remain in the core neighborhoods of cities where interaction with others of diverse ethnic and racial and cultural backgrounds was necessary and virtuous.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

2. Ford treated his workers well because he did not want them to unionize.

But his words made a nicer soundbite.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Very interesting post

It is very much the same in the UK. Thatcher made a huge and negative difference. Everything was about profits in the short term; and seeking good will was seen as soft and weak. Even after the Tories went, 'New Labour' emphasized a managerial approach, emphasizing profits and targets that could be measured. Goodwill cannot be measured in the same way - though the New Managers sometimes attempt to, by getting customers to 'rate their transactions'!

Pre-Thatcher, we had the influence of the Evil Socilists, and even some Tories were moderate progressives, partly through Labour influence, and partly through an old 'noblesse oblige' tradition: inadequate and often patronizing, but better than Thatcher's 'There is no such thing as society'.

[Mopar151]

4. A lot of it has to do with accounting rules

and the like, i.e. - much of the pressure to focus on short-term profit and share price come from the mutual funds who now own much of the stock, as their results are judged largely on the last year's "yeild".

[AllentownJake]

5. The Mutual Funds primarily exist because of the 401(k)

This system is so screwed up I can't even begin to describe it.

We essentially have put our retirement into an asset that is destroying us.

[Mopar151]

6. Absolutely

And we have left it in the hands of sociopathic children, and the Shareholder Relations Department