This is sort of a continuation to an interesting idea brought in by karembu. To get some sense of context you should probably read this first. Preferably with karim's comments and mine.
To recap, Karim was discussing the corporate machine and how we're all gears in it. And how that machine seems to be bigger than the sum of its parts, sometimes even behaving in a different way than each and every gear hopes it does.
I replied saying that the machine is being rational, and that -given the chance- the gears will try to _use_ the machine in very much the same way the machine uses the gears. Karim doesn't think this is the way things are supposed to be. I know what he means. But the phrase raised this question in my head about who supposes how things should go. I mean supposed to be could be very different in each person's head. After all I am the one who makes up ideas that I like to believe are how things are supposed to be.
Aside from that almost philosophical discussion, I think the corporate machine is indeed tame-able. You can make the coporate machine behave as if it had feelings. How so? Simple, a corporate should have values and goals that it strives to achieve. Arrange the values and align the goals so that they appear "merciful and good-hearted". That's what I think google is trying to do with their motto "Do no evil". At least they are trying to make you think that google (the corporate) is a good corporation not solely devoted to making money. I am not discussing if they're true to their motto, that's irrelevant, I'm just illustrating (in my opinion) how one could create a seemingly humane corporate machine.
And that's possibly why google attracts so much attention and the kind of sympathy they currently do. Most people (maybe even subconsciously) think of google as the good corporate citizen as opposed to the traditional and more prevalent mean corporate citizen.
Google made and still makes loads of money now. Which is what every (traditional/non-humane/mean) corporate tries to do anyway. You can either take that to mean that they were right about what they state: "You can make money without doing evil.".
Or you can take that to mean that google was out to make money in the first place, and that they came with the really brilliant idea to have such a feel-ful (if that's a word) motto to attract attention and compassion which will help them succeed and make money.
That would make google an extra-mean corporate machine in that they not only set out to make money just like everybody else, but they also tried to camouflage their intentions to gather consumer compassion and make even more money. That's of course if you think that's what they set out to accomplish.
And then we'd be back to square one.
Recursion, don't you just love it ;)
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4 comments:
it's not recursion that i love, it's how you made this huuuge conspiracy theory :)
i like..
but am too tired to waste my brain power in thinking :P
Yeah, I put on my tinfoil hat every now and then (a)
yes...google is a very interesting example. personally (maybe because i'm still able to see good in people), i think that google are genuinely interested in being good...so basically what they've done can be looked at as a proof of concept i guess :) but keep in mind a couple of things:
1. when google started, they really didn't have a lot to lose. corporations with countless shareholders really can't decide to "be good" so easily.
2. the caliber of people workng at google is rare. most gears will be less, rather than more, productive if you remove them from the machine.
3. i think the problem is with the system itself. the corporation is owned by a lot of little people. its sole purpose is to create profit for these people. therefore, the corporation will always take the decision that will increase profits. think of manufacturing firms. they will always fire people and replace them with machines if it is cheaper on the long run...and they will always exploit cheap labor in other countries if they can. that's because of the whole culture of materialism where all that matters is making more money. rich countries dump food in the ocean because they don't want the prices of food to drop. it's in their interest that hungry peopel remain hungry. when does it end? the rich keep filling their pockets and what cannot fit in their pockets they would rather burn than give to the poor...and the poor have no prospects. call it dictatorship, democracy, socialism, monarchy, capitalism...it really doesn't matter. why does america want to spread democrary? because they believe they will hold a tighter grip on the middle east when they do that...because they hope that every "democratic" regime in the area will have the USA as its role model. because they want to make sure they control the sources of oil. man...it's a really sad situation.
Whatever...
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