What Is The Point Of ….

Doh!

Don’t know ….

(Euan)

“global competiveness” is market darwinism. If there’s a good point to it, I haven’t been told.

Well, it ends up mattering when you start thinking about what to protect versus what to let slide - particularly in the face of mounting global competition.

Here’s what I mean: Say you’re a lawyer (which you aren’t) and I’m an environmental economist (which I am). You and I are called to court. At first glance, who should do the talking? You. What if the issue is natural resource management/environmental issues? Maybe me. Why? Competitive advantages.

Multiply by millions of people, throw in natural resources, factor in geographical location and political positioning and the product is global competitiveness.

It’s not who owns the most, but who owns what. It’s an efficiency question. Not a dominance one.

Does that help? Or did I miss your point?

Jeremy - http://www.siftstar.com

Not sure I understand your question. Global competiveness is based on a notion that although people are intrinsically various, what they produce to stay alive is not necessarily so. I think that national competitiveness is a collective ideal based on the percieved performance of companies withihn the a country’s borders.

The point of global competitivess? Well, if you predicate your world view on a global market, and you’re selling widgets, the widgets have to be globally competitive, price and/or delivery and/or feature wise or you wont be selling widgets any more. Maybe you can quit and find a nice job in the food service industry instead though.

These days I think the way off the global treadmill is to be able to arrange our selves as part of the value equation, rather than selling only what we have ‘done’. Need to explore this more I think.

Partly, Jeremy. I understand some of your reasoning, and not all of it.

A key component of your line of argument is based on our societies’ notions of ownership of course, and that is always a good philosophical question, and we can get all the way back to what it is, exactly, who started owning what, and how that happened, and who should, indeed own.

I’m afraid that there’s a couple of bits missing (for me) in the sequence of logic here, in your:

You and I are called to court. At first glance, who should do the talking? You. What if the issue is natural resource management/environmental issues? Maybe me. Why? Competitive advantages.

Multiply by millions of people, throw in natural resources, factor in geographical location and political positioning and the product is global competitivenes

Clearly, if owning and maintaining some sort of advantages are the core goal, there will be friction and conflict over resources, and yes, of course it happens all over the place. And alswyas has, down through history. So have “nations” come to be demarcated, empires created and lost, families rift and friends detested.

And yes, I get the multiplication part, and I do understand how we’ve gotten here. I understand that … I’m not a fool. What I don’t understand as well, and am asking about just to see if the conventional frame can be broken, is what exactly the point is.

These days are … arguably … the first time in the history of humankind when we have a reasonable amount of information flowing, in near-to-real time, about the planet as a hole, and it’s clear that the social and economic arrangments we’ve come up with so far aren’t helping us out, as a whole, as one race of humans in the petri dish we call home, planet earth.

As what are supposed to be the only “conscious” animals, surely we can recognize threats to our environment greater than just our tribe, or company, or such. Surely the social and economic arrangements we know from our long and slow evolution don’t have to be the onews we maintain, just because that’s all we know.

I know of course that I’m naive. You won’t have to come back and tell me so … I already am aware of that.

Thanks, John D.

I picked up on what i believe is a key point in your comment here:

Well, if you predicate your world view on a global market, and you’re selling widgets, the widgets have to be globally competitive, price and/or delivery and/or feature wise or you wont be selling widgets any more.

Yes. The fact that companies or organizations can opertae globally is just a legal convention, designed and implemented to aid the spread of “capitalism”, generally for the enrichment of the capitalists at the top of the companies … with the help of friends and lawyers in the government. Sure, you can tell me that it’s also for the shareholders, and for theprogress of societies and humankind … and of course you’d be right in some instances.

I think much is made of the benefits of capitalism, just as much is made of the “successes” of the Bush administration … it’s more often than not propaganda by the people who “own” the system aimed at justifying the manipulation they have engaged in, and want to continue engaging in.

It’s as much about greed, is global competitiveness, on the part of a few 10’s of thousands of reasonably well-placed people, as anything else. And it serves their purposes to say, over and over, that humans are naturally greedy, and that competitiveness drives progress, and so on.

I think it’s an issue that deserves deeper and wider consideration, that’s all …. because in addition to enabling and aiding progress, it’s killing us all, slowly but surely.

Ah, well now I see (a bit more clearly) what you’re after: In a world of gargantuan social problems, environmental degradation, and economic fragmentation ‘ what’s the point of global competition? If global competitiveness is predicated on ownership ‘ who owns these problems? In a world where we know what everybody’s doing just three days after they’ve done it ‘ why are we still using paradigms built back when it took years to hear rumours, let alone facts on issues like these?

But you never asked these questions at the top. Hence my simplistic answer. I wasn’t assuming you were a fool. I assumed you were bright but didn’t know the answer. The two are different but sometimes result in the same answer.

You wrote, ‘It’s clear that the social and economic arrangements we’ve come up with so far aren’t helping us out, as a whole, as one race of humans in the petri dish we call home, planet earth.’ And, ‘I think much is made of the benefits of capitalism … it’s more often than not propaganda by the people who “own” the system aimed at justifying the manipulation they have engaged in, and want to continue engaging in.’ I think you’re partially right. The big guys have a lot they wish to protect. Greed plays a major factor. And everybody uses whatever they’ve got to leverage toward a best end for themselves. But this isn’t sufficient evidence to say the paradigm is flawed.

Just like Shakespeare, Darwin, and Newton ‘ made in the past doesn’t mean useless. If based on timeless principles it still works even if it’s misused or misunderstood. I’d argue that the solution to the issues you’re on about doesn’t necessarily require a new economic paradigm, just a new application. If we saw water as a commercial input, we’d treat it differently. If we understood gene pools to be the foundation of future human existence, we’d stop devastating the Amazon. Just like we’d stop yanking out our tonsils if we knew what they were for. The principle of ownership is a timeless one. If I own it, I take care of it ‘ at least better care than I would if I didn’t. The application of ownership is the trick, and so far we haven’t got it right.

I don’t think it’s a simple matter of recognizing environmental threats, I thinks it requires owning them. With open-source, horizontal teams, P2P sharing, social networks we will soon find our understanding of ownership shift. But ownership will continue to be key. The economic paradigms built around ownership will continue to be valid. And one day someone will own the P2P network for water sharing, make a killing, be the brunt of disparaging remarks and we’ll all wish we’d thought of that ‘ but we won’t worry about water anymore.

There, now I sound naive too.

Jeremy - http://www.siftstar.com

Thanks, Jeremy. I knew going in to making my post that it would sound simplistic, and of course naive. And it was. And …

Your I don?t think it?s a simple matter of recognizing environmental threats, I thinks it requires owning them. With open-source, horizontal teams, P2P sharing, social networks we will soon find our understanding of ownership shift.

Herman daly, a well-known economist, once wrote a book called “For The Common Good”. He was one of the first (as far as I know, to make the point that our current economic paradigm, and the constructs we use to “manage” it … mainly accounting according to GAAP, was mainly a construct of social psychology, and why didn’t we include “social cost accounting” in the process of resource utilization. triple bottom line and all that stuff.

Arguably, at the far reaches of reasoning, we all “own” our planet, and our mounting problems. Certainly, when the poo really hits the windmill, it will be clear that we’re all in this together … in my opinion.