: Found the following at a site about Bhopal. The Interview is with Edmardo Alejandro Munoz, a former director of Union Carbide, and their chief in India when the Bhopal factory was built. I'll let youse read the whole thing, because its interesting, I just want to highlight a couple of illuminating points that the interview reveals about how a capitalist business is run...I'm not sure why you think this capitalist business (Union Carbide) should be an example of how all other capitalist businesses are run. In fact, no two businesses are really managed the same way. Executive managers have their own ideas about operate their businesses. Obviously, this one guy could be upset about something and could be letting off steam for all we know. General Electric's CEO Jack Welch doesn't know how to build a turbine or a plane engine, but he knows how to allocate the human resources and the knowledge to make a quality product. He knows how to motivate people, and how to sell the product. Perhaps the engineer can tell you everything about every moving part in a turbine, but he might not have an inkling of management skills.
Shoot, under socialism, plane engines could be dying in mid-air, hundreds dying in fiery crashes, and it wouldn't bother the people who made them. They've still got their job, and they'll always have a job. So maybe the higher socialist authorities decide to take engineer Joe at GE and put him someplace else where he won't endanger lives. Oh well, Joe is still in the same economic position. Didn't hurt Joe at all. Now he's got an easier job flipping burgers!
: A good illustration of the way in which the top management aren't really in charge, and realy, perhaps don't deserve their obscene pay. Further, though, the interview illustrates the way in whci capitalist firms are prone to the same empire building as all fiscally-budget based bureaucracies...
Capitalist firms that do fall victim to this empire building and bureaucratic mess end up in trouble! Jack Welch has been fixing these problems at GE. Why do you think the company has been so successful? Just looking at some quick financial figures for Union Carbide and they certainly aren't doing so well. Union Carbide isn't bankrupt, but they ain't no GE either!
: Hence why they decided to build a plant that could store tonnes of chemicals the plant didn't need, and costs $10 million, rather than the $2 million the plant managers wanted to have.
Yep! Sounds like the "Fleecing of America"! Something our government would do very easily! Hmmm, the US Gov't is drowning in debt, so I wonder where Union Carbide is headed if stuff like this keeps happening...
: Btw- I got the URL for the Socialist Standard wrong yesterday, appologies...
: Sorry McS....
: --
: McSpotlight: Rats, sorry for not noticing it :P
Who is this McSpotlight character? They never say much, and usually they ask for a clarification of some point, like Bill Clinton on the witness stand!!
Jason
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McSpotlight:
We are the website-makers
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While our overworked web-server steams
World-savers and world-remakers,
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Yes, we are the coders and breakers
Of McSpotlight forever, it seems...
(Apologies to the late O'Shaughnessy)
- basically, we're the moderators of this Debating Room. We make sure that topics stay on-topic, that pointless abuse gets rejected and that the debate stays (reasonably) focussed.
