To paraphrase Peter Drucker in his book, Post Capitalist Society, what Karl Marx envisioned has been achieved in America, and true capitalism is alive today in China.
Marx wanted the wealth of companies to be in the hands of the workers. This has been achieved in the West through the holdings of pension funds. Capitalism, taking personal financial and business risks to create wealth, is now the China story. So from an economic perspective, China is capitalist and we, in the west, are the opposite. To make this convolution worse, Wall Street hijacked our wealth and lost it. This dark side of the "Post Capitalist Society" kind of sucks!
Drucker also points out that when new capitalists are successful in North America, governments usually go after them, as has happened with Microsoft, Google, Dell, and others. This disturbing and unfortunate reality kind of takes the fun out of pushing the boundaries.
Governments are bringing in more regulations in an attempt to prevent the kind of situations that lead to financial crises from recurring. Many of these regulations require more disclosure from companies in an attempt to create transparency. Transparency should be a good thing, as better information should help individuals be better investors; it takes out the risk. So maybe it is good, but psychologically, more disclosure makes boards of directors and executives cautious and risk-averse. Risk aversion kills innovation and gives true capitalists a significant advantage over the cautious. The cliché no risk, no reward comes to mind.
Fortunately, there are still many innovative companies in America with brave leaders. In large public companies like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and small private ones like Boston Power, innovation is at the heart of their success and our collective future. These companies are part of the bright side of the "Post Capitalist Society" making the world a better place. They are not risk-averse!
Closer to home, the company I run (Lytica) is constantly driving new innovation. One of our products, FreeBenchmarking.com, enables price transparency for electronic components in a secure and confidential manner.
Reflecting on what I have written above, is price transparency good for the electronics supply chain, or, for that matter, any supply chain? My answer is absolutely yes in the near term for the supply chains of early adopters. In the long term, it has the potential of being transformational, which has both good and bad consequences.
Transparency will change the industry. Early adopters will build lower cost and more secure supply chains because of their access to a wealth of new information. Late adopters will spend a lot of their time reacting to intense competition rather than creating it. What’s your answer?
I hope we're not going into a Post-Capitalist society. Capitalism with its 'creative destruction' methods works. Things go up and things go down but it's not always good to abandon things when they don't work out as we would like, especially with the aid of bad economic polies and incentives. Capitalism is still our best option moving forward.
As an ancient American, I can see a long way back, and the mix of private and govenmental ownership of innovation, investment, and recovery is certainly complex and amazingly balanced in my opinion. The semiconductor industry, in which I still work at age 75, is classic example of that messy mix, in spite of some CEO Ayn Rand fans. A regulated economy is much like a "regulated militia" in its various interpretations. Democracy works. China's capitalist model is much like early National Socialist model, and hopefully they have learned by Hitler's bad example not to add world domination by war to the mix. Modern media supported by our chip technology may calm the megalomaniacs or at least let the dissenter's voices be heard. So like it our not, China will learn to share power outside of the single party. A balance will be reached.
I haven't read Drucker, but that sounds like an argument based on stacking the deck. The communist system that Marx envisioned has never been realized, except in fiction. It is a utopian vision. Sure, you could focus on certain component that signify a capitalist system at work in China and contrast them with components that seem socialistic, but that doesn't prove anything except that nothing is simple. We do not have a completely capitalistic society because we do have regulations that prevent us from achieving the utopian vision of people like Ayn Rand. Though her ideals were the opposite of Marx's, they, too, can only live in fiction.
We seem to have lost the ability to control our destiny. You work hard but fall farther behind. You can’t count on much to be "as expected" in the future.
EBN Dialogue enables and encourages you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Not only editors and journalists, but the entire EBN community is able to comment and ask questions. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats.
Archived Dialogues
Thailand Stages a Comeback Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Euro-Crisis: What It Means for High-Tech Firms Join EBN Editor in Chief Bolaji Ojo and Contributing Editor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday, July 12, at 10:00 a.m. EDT for a Live Chat on high-tech and Europe's economic difficulties.
Microsoft Surface: Potential Winners & Losers What are the implications for the electronics industry supply chain of Microsoft Corp.'s decision to launch its own tablet PC? Join industry veteran and EE Times' systems and OEM expert Rick Merritt on Tuesday, July 3, at 12:00 pm EDT for a Live Chat on this subject.
Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
Where are these people? Are universities properly preparing the next generation supply chain professionals? How do train your existing workforce for these new, demanding positions?
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges.
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