A huge plank of current Republican political ideology is the idea government should be run like a business. Let’s call it USA, Inc. The philosophy is that areas of fiscal waste should be tightened, businesses should be allowed to thrive, our defense should be strong and our international posture should be aggressive. These are corporate virtues, these are right-wing American virtues. Thinking of a government this way has led to decades of US economic and military dominance. But amidst all this growth, a basic aspect of corporate structure has been omitted from USA, Inc. and as a result, morale among its employees is very low. We’re angry. We’re mistrustful. We’re worried about the future. It feels like nobody’s looking after We The People. USA, Inc. doesn’t need tough leadership and a swift kick in the ass to solve these issues of morale. We’re already doing great in terms of performance and productivity, which a firm hand encourages. We now need someone in government to look after the well-being of the workforce, because capital cannot function without cheap, reliable labor.
Just as thinking about the government as a corporation is fairly novel, so too are human resources departments relatively new in the history of business. The first "Personnel Management Department" was started after several strikes and labor disputes at the National Cash Register Company in 1900. The department was responsible for hiring and firing employees, safety training and the training of supervisors. Such departments became more popular in the 1920s. In the 1970s, as corporations expanded thanks to globalization and deregulation they began to focus more on running efficiently. To this end, policies and departments concerned with employee satisfaction, well-being and development became common within corporations. Today, the purpose of a human resources department is to effectively manage human capital, the value of human beings. HR management is all about getting the most out of the employees of a company, but it is also about looking after their well-being as there's a demonstrated causal relationship between high worker morale and high worker productivity. If we’re going to look at the nation as USA, Inc, we need to go all the way with it. USA, Inc. needs a proper Human Resources Department.
Programs which could improve the well-being of USA, Inc.’s human capital are out there, though they go by a different name. Medicare for all, free college and jobs programs and universal basic income would serve the purpose of looking after the welfare of the working class by providing basic protections and considerations in the same way an HR Department looks after the welfare of a company’s employees. The Department of Labor could have oversight over such programs. However, nobody really takes these ideas seriously because they're labelled "socialist" and socialism has a branding problem in America, particularly to anyone over 35. I was born in 1980, raised on Reagan’s America and Superman capitalist imagery. Even though I agree with the intentions of some socialist programs, it’s very difficult for me to align myself with what I was taught is the losing side in a decades-old ideological war for control of planet earth. I already root for UVA basketball, I can't knowingly pick another losing battle. I suspect I'm not alone in this regard. Fears the US will become some brown shirt, Marxist, idealistic, too-good-to-be-true socialist utopia exist, unfounded as they may be, and fears of a government takeover are deeply rooted in American culture. So too are self-interest, self-determination and greed central aspects of the American identity.. Capitalism is in our flesh and blood. It's a hard sell for older generations to accept the idea of a systemic overhaul and Socialism is the ultimate threat to the system they've believed in their whole lives. Perhaps a better solution is to frame these candidates and their proposed programs in a different way.
To think that extending basic protections to our citizens is a threat to capitalism is to misunderstand both the psyche of Americans and the function of these programs. The goals of universal healthcare, free quality education and a universal basic income are to increase morale for the American labor force and to provide a safety net, better equipping the most vulnerable Americans with the tools to successfully compete in the workforce of a capitalist society. This improved morale and sense of self-worth will improve their lives personally, and improve capital's bottom line. The logic for these programs should not to be framed as anti-capitalist or as socialism versus capitalism. Support for these programs can exist under the umbrella of capitalism when one eschews the socialist brand and more accurately characterizes these programs for what they actually are, a very necessary Human Resources Department for USA, Inc.
USA, Inc HR Department FAQs:
Where does the money come from?
The Federal Government is running an $800 billion deficit this year. It is on pace to run a deficit of over One Trillion dollars in Fiscal Year 2020. To start, we simply continue down our path of Keynesian deficit spending. If we can borrow money for weapons we can borrow money for workers.
Isn't the idea of taking money from defense and spending it on people pretty radical?
No. None other than Republican President Dwight Eisenhower provides the basis for my thinking:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Aren't you just some lefty college professor?
I was a Republican from the moment I got my first paycheck at 15. "What is FICA and Why am i paying for it when I won't use it for 50 years, if ever? Why am I footing the bill for someone else's healthcare? Conservatism, particularly fiscal conservatism, made sense to me. Then I went to UVA, read Ayn Rand and thought selfishness was a virtue. Then I went to USC, started regularly smoking weed and became a libertarian, which is just a fancy word for a republican who is stoned. Then I got a retail job while pursuing work in my field and understood why I had to foot the bill for other people's healthcare: outside the protections of my family and my ivory tower institutions, I met living, breathing human beings with hopes and dreams and love and pain who were doing their absolute best, working extremely hard and still could not take care of themselves. Were it not for medicaid, they'd have died. Were it not for Planned Parenthood, they've have borne children into shithole apartments, barren of food. Without help, these people would have become destitute and a far greater burden and danger to society. These experiences, the theft of the 2000 election, the post September 11th fear mongering and the rise of a perversely distorted form of "Christianity," caused me to completely lose my taste for Republicanism and Republicans. I definitely lean left, but my line of thinking is more about improving the lives of labor in the here and now than engaging in any ideological warfare.
Why does it have to be socialist candidates? The current administration bears no resemblance to any form of conservative belief system recognizable as American or democratic, I consider it "fascst" meant to connote it's very close to being fascist but will never have I. Republicans and democrats alike have proven to be self-centered, feckless cowards in the face of executive branch tyranny. The need for swift and substantial political change is apparent and politicians from outside the system, backed by small donors are the only solution remaining.
Just as thinking about the government as a corporation is fairly novel, so too are human resources departments relatively new in the history of business. The first "Personnel Management Department" was started after several strikes and labor disputes at the National Cash Register Company in 1900. The department was responsible for hiring and firing employees, safety training and the training of supervisors. Such departments became more popular in the 1920s. In the 1970s, as corporations expanded thanks to globalization and deregulation they began to focus more on running efficiently. To this end, policies and departments concerned with employee satisfaction, well-being and development became common within corporations. Today, the purpose of a human resources department is to effectively manage human capital, the value of human beings. HR management is all about getting the most out of the employees of a company, but it is also about looking after their well-being as there's a demonstrated causal relationship between high worker morale and high worker productivity. If we’re going to look at the nation as USA, Inc, we need to go all the way with it. USA, Inc. needs a proper Human Resources Department.
Programs which could improve the well-being of USA, Inc.’s human capital are out there, though they go by a different name. Medicare for all, free college and jobs programs and universal basic income would serve the purpose of looking after the welfare of the working class by providing basic protections and considerations in the same way an HR Department looks after the welfare of a company’s employees. The Department of Labor could have oversight over such programs. However, nobody really takes these ideas seriously because they're labelled "socialist" and socialism has a branding problem in America, particularly to anyone over 35. I was born in 1980, raised on Reagan’s America and Superman capitalist imagery. Even though I agree with the intentions of some socialist programs, it’s very difficult for me to align myself with what I was taught is the losing side in a decades-old ideological war for control of planet earth. I already root for UVA basketball, I can't knowingly pick another losing battle. I suspect I'm not alone in this regard. Fears the US will become some brown shirt, Marxist, idealistic, too-good-to-be-true socialist utopia exist, unfounded as they may be, and fears of a government takeover are deeply rooted in American culture. So too are self-interest, self-determination and greed central aspects of the American identity.. Capitalism is in our flesh and blood. It's a hard sell for older generations to accept the idea of a systemic overhaul and Socialism is the ultimate threat to the system they've believed in their whole lives. Perhaps a better solution is to frame these candidates and their proposed programs in a different way.
To think that extending basic protections to our citizens is a threat to capitalism is to misunderstand both the psyche of Americans and the function of these programs. The goals of universal healthcare, free quality education and a universal basic income are to increase morale for the American labor force and to provide a safety net, better equipping the most vulnerable Americans with the tools to successfully compete in the workforce of a capitalist society. This improved morale and sense of self-worth will improve their lives personally, and improve capital's bottom line. The logic for these programs should not to be framed as anti-capitalist or as socialism versus capitalism. Support for these programs can exist under the umbrella of capitalism when one eschews the socialist brand and more accurately characterizes these programs for what they actually are, a very necessary Human Resources Department for USA, Inc.
USA, Inc HR Department FAQs:
Where does the money come from?
The Federal Government is running an $800 billion deficit this year. It is on pace to run a deficit of over One Trillion dollars in Fiscal Year 2020. To start, we simply continue down our path of Keynesian deficit spending. If we can borrow money for weapons we can borrow money for workers.
Isn't the idea of taking money from defense and spending it on people pretty radical?
No. None other than Republican President Dwight Eisenhower provides the basis for my thinking:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
Aren't you just some lefty college professor?
I was a Republican from the moment I got my first paycheck at 15. "What is FICA and Why am i paying for it when I won't use it for 50 years, if ever? Why am I footing the bill for someone else's healthcare? Conservatism, particularly fiscal conservatism, made sense to me. Then I went to UVA, read Ayn Rand and thought selfishness was a virtue. Then I went to USC, started regularly smoking weed and became a libertarian, which is just a fancy word for a republican who is stoned. Then I got a retail job while pursuing work in my field and understood why I had to foot the bill for other people's healthcare: outside the protections of my family and my ivory tower institutions, I met living, breathing human beings with hopes and dreams and love and pain who were doing their absolute best, working extremely hard and still could not take care of themselves. Were it not for medicaid, they'd have died. Were it not for Planned Parenthood, they've have borne children into shithole apartments, barren of food. Without help, these people would have become destitute and a far greater burden and danger to society. These experiences, the theft of the 2000 election, the post September 11th fear mongering and the rise of a perversely distorted form of "Christianity," caused me to completely lose my taste for Republicanism and Republicans. I definitely lean left, but my line of thinking is more about improving the lives of labor in the here and now than engaging in any ideological warfare.
Why does it have to be socialist candidates? The current administration bears no resemblance to any form of conservative belief system recognizable as American or democratic, I consider it "fascst" meant to connote it's very close to being fascist but will never have I. Republicans and democrats alike have proven to be self-centered, feckless cowards in the face of executive branch tyranny. The need for swift and substantial political change is apparent and politicians from outside the system, backed by small donors are the only solution remaining.
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