Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Harvard Business Review on today's capitalist rapaciousness

"Capitalists seem uninterested in capitalism—in supporting the development of market-creating innovations"- Clayton M. Christensen and Derek van Bever,  The Capitalist’s Dilemma, Harvard Business Review, June, 2014


See this article. It used to be that 'innovation' meant investing in research and development (R&D) to create new markets and consumers. Now the capitalists mean by that term cutting costs, usually in the form of cutting jobs. How that relates to the meaning of 'innovation' is explored by the author, as there are different types. The cost cutting kind is for when capital is scarce and not readily available for the costly R&D type. Hence the regressives continual whining about cutting costs and R&D. But the fact is that capital is plentiful right now; according to Bain there is a "capital superabundance."


However the capitalists have discovered that they can make more money with less risk by just cutting costs and jobs than by investing in R&D innovation. Never mind that one of the consequences is the degradation of actual innovation of new products and services. Or that the cost cutting, while making money for the capitalists, hurts the economy overall by reducing the number of people with jobs that can buy things. They don't give a shit about our jobs or our economy, since they can get overseas labor to do the work for far less. And sell their products to other markets. There's no longer a sense of community or responsibility to it; profit is the sole motive.

See the article for the details how how these capitalists just don't give a damn about actual market-based capitalism, just the vulture kind.

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