“Well, it works.”
The pathetic proverb of contemporary capitalist dogma. Getting something done with minimal cost and maximal return is what it’s about. Cut corners. Get away with everything you can. Lie. Cheat. Deceive. Embezzle. So long as you’re making money doing it, you’re doing it the right way.
American capitalism, like all other relatively new instantiations of global systems, has brought with it times of uncertainty and imbalance. Emphasis on the goals of the system are well-known, but solid philosophy on the methodology required to reach those goals is scarce at best. Everyone understands the “make money” part, but everyone has his or her own theory on how to go about doing that. When the principal motivator is greed, shortcuts and cheating are bound to dominate.
“Whatever works.” Whatever brings in the bucks! Work seventy hours in a week. Haggle with your vendors while you gouge your customers — it’s the American way. All you need in this life is to “get ahead.” Succeed at all costs — that is, accumulate money. A person is only worth how much he or she has in assets.
There is a lack of Quality in this capitalist world. There is far too small an emphasis on what is right — what has value — and far too great an emphasis on monetary gains. In his first book on the subject, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig sets out to destroy the Aristotelian supreme subject-object dichotomy in favor of value, a single starting point for explaining everything that exists. Thusly the Metaphysics of Quality is born.
The identification of this lack of Quality is an important first step in addressing the problems it creates for every person living in this society. Next we’ll dive deeper into what these problems are, how they fit in with Quality, and what must change.
Careful with that Q-word. Use it much more and you’ll start to sound like the ISO 9000 spec. *shudder*
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Blaming a lack of quality on this “capitalist world” is a horrid over generalization. To me it sounds like you’re to blame moralic quality on capitalism. I’ll agree there are plenty of dishonest and cheating people in business, but there are also plenty of honest people also. Trying to generalize a whole section just doesn’t work. It’s just like me saying all mexicans are lazy thieves.
I shall wait for your followup to this article before I dive deeper!
Indeed, wait for the next iteration.
I don’t think that it’s necessary to find classic ‘evil-doers’ to form a solid argument against most forms of economies (or government, for that matter). Fill the entire system with honest, hard-working individuals (a lot of whom really are around here somewhere) and what you have is a system that still remains fundamentally flawed. Organizations, honest or not and by the very definition of how they function, must charge more for something than it’s worth. Consumers who want the item or service must accept that and proceed to overpay. They then have to go to work (perhaps, for example, for that very same company that made the item they just purchased) and trade their time for a check. No harm in that, save one very simple principle of the mechanism: inflation. Companies want more profits, people want more money, companies want to pay less, people want to pay less… all because every single cog in the mechanism must short-change somebody or something somewhere in order to survive. This is the bit that actually breeds the greed - not the other way around. You can say what you will about how the system has worked and is still working. Really? This ’system’ has only been around for a handful of years in the grand scheme of things — problem is people, especially in the U.S., play this system like it’s divine in some manner. Boil it all down and what you’ve got is a self-feeding, self-destructive machine based on the age-old principle of usery - or charging interest on loans, where making money on money started a downward slide. It will destroy itself — it’s doing it right now, and on tv right in our living rooms. It may not happen tomorrow, or the next day, but rest assured that capitalism is plagued by greed because we lost the eternal vigilance necessary to keep it clean and it will implode.
Interesting insights, though my original complaint is based on a lack of quality in end products and life, which has simply degraded in our capitalist society. I don’t point a finger at capitalism itself. Whether or not capitalism is the best system is another argument entirely.
I’m not sure why you’d take issue with a ‘capitalist society’ if it being capitalist had nothing to do with the problem. But, it’s your blog, you can take issue with whatever you want. :-)
well, though you have very well put your points but i dont think you took a global approach before publishing you article.
I mean yes, quality is going through tough phase but still standards are being maintained so you cant blame entirely upon the ‘capitalistic society’
but anywayz its a nice effort and i look forward for more of your blogs