Comments on: Hardly A Surprise: Health Care Reform Good For Business, Bad For Insurance Companies http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2009/11/13/hardly-a-surprise-health-care-reform-good-for-business-bad-for-insurance-companies/ Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought Wed, 23 May 2012 06:11:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Eclectic Radical http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2009/11/13/hardly-a-surprise-health-care-reform-good-for-business-bad-for-insurance-companies/comment-page-1/#comment-226985 Eclectic Radical Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:31:09 +0000 http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=11076#comment-226985 'Makes sense. How do we explain why corporate culture thinks this way but the government does not?'   This appears to be the problem, as the people most frightened of an authoritarian government do no appear to have any understanding that corporate management is far more authoritarian than government with far less oversight.   As for <strong>why</strong> corporate culture is like this, it's fairly simple: corporate culture is an elitist/aristocratic culture. The aristocracy is one of 'merit', technically, but the thinking processes are aristrocratic rather than democratic. Rather than being responsible <strong>to</strong> their employees, corporate management is responsible <strong>for </strong>their employees. Though they are, in theory, responsible to stockholders the actual degree of communication between public stockholders and the board of directors is very loose. Even on the 'democratic' side of capitalism, the system is more 'aristrocratic' because the votes are linked to stock and the more stock one owns the more votes one has.  So a board of directors with contol of a majority of voting stock is an aristrocratic body that cannot be challenged by the ordinary stockholders.   The system is the very opposite of democratic in every way.   Government, on the other hand, is more properly 'democratic' despite the amount of public authority involved. Someone loses every election, and while the statistics for Congressional elections (both House and Senate) actually favor incumbents by a huge margin one finds that a few incumbents are defeated in every election. So legislators really are responsible <strong>to</strong> their constituents in a practical way and, moreover, most of them legislate accordingly... they work to avoid angering their constituency so they can stay in office. For all our system's genuine flaws, it does a far better job of reflecting the 'will of the people' than we like to admit.   Indeed, one of the biggest roadblocks to meaningful reform has always been the relatively conservative (in the classic sense of maintenance of the status quo rather than the reactionary movement taking the label today) bent to the weight of public opinion. Liberal reform has nearly always had to swim up hill against conservative public opinion until social progress or some cultural upheaval opened the doors for reform. This is why many of the classic radicals of history lost patience with democracy and one of the reasons I am occasionally cynical about it myself, though I tend to agree with Churchill on the matter.   So governmental authority is based on the knowledge that one is always responsible to a higher authority somewhere along the ladder, and even the highest authorities are responsible to a consituency with the power to fire them at whim every so many years. It is also based on a measurable moral scale, even if many officials fall short of what we would call sterling character.  Corporate authority is based on a knowledge that the corporate bottom line is all that matters: there is not a moral scale that figures into it. There is no accountability from above if one produces and no accountability from below at all.   I obviously failed the elevator test, but there is the basic philosophical statement we have to boil down to produce the new left wing political jingle.   I'm finding that '<em>svoboda</em> not <em>volia</em>' just goes over most people's heads. ;)   ‘Makes sense. How do we explain why corporate culture thinks this way but the government does not?’
 
This appears to be the problem, as the people most frightened of an authoritarian government do no appear to have any understanding that corporate management is far more authoritarian than government with far less oversight.
 
As for why corporate culture is like this, it’s fairly simple: corporate culture is an elitist/aristocratic culture. The aristocracy is one of ‘merit’, technically, but the thinking processes are aristrocratic rather than democratic. Rather than being responsible to their employees, corporate management is responsible for their employees. Though they are, in theory, responsible to stockholders the actual degree of communication between public stockholders and the board of directors is very loose. Even on the ‘democratic’ side of capitalism, the system is more ‘aristrocratic’ because the votes are linked to stock and the more stock one owns the more votes one has.  So a board of directors with contol of a majority of voting stock is an aristrocratic body that cannot be challenged by the ordinary stockholders.
 
The system is the very opposite of democratic in every way.
 
Government, on the other hand, is more properly ‘democratic’ despite the amount of public authority involved. Someone loses every election, and while the statistics for Congressional elections (both House and Senate) actually favor incumbents by a huge margin one finds that a few incumbents are defeated in every election. So legislators really are responsible to their constituents in a practical way and, moreover, most of them legislate accordingly… they work to avoid angering their constituency so they can stay in office. For all our system’s genuine flaws, it does a far better job of reflecting the ‘will of the people’ than we like to admit.
 
Indeed, one of the biggest roadblocks to meaningful reform has always been the relatively conservative (in the classic sense of maintenance of the status quo rather than the reactionary movement taking the label today) bent to the weight of public opinion. Liberal reform has nearly always had to swim up hill against conservative public opinion until social progress or some cultural upheaval opened the doors for reform. This is why many of the classic radicals of history lost patience with democracy and one of the reasons I am occasionally cynical about it myself, though I tend to agree with Churchill on the matter.
 
So governmental authority is based on the knowledge that one is always responsible to a higher authority somewhere along the ladder, and even the highest authorities are responsible to a consituency with the power to fire them at whim every so many years. It is also based on a measurable moral scale, even if many officials fall short of what we would call sterling character.  Corporate authority is based on a knowledge that the corporate bottom line is all that matters: there is not a moral scale that figures into it. There is no accountability from above if one produces and no accountability from below at all.
 
I obviously failed the elevator test, but there is the basic philosophical statement we have to boil down to produce the new left wing political jingle.
 
I’m finding that ‘svoboda not volia‘ just goes over most people’s heads. ;)
 

]]> By: Ron Chusid http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2009/11/13/hardly-a-surprise-health-care-reform-good-for-business-bad-for-insurance-companies/comment-page-1/#comment-226912 Ron Chusid Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:41:33 +0000 http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=11076#comment-226912 <p>Makes sense. How do we explain why corporate culture thinks this way but the government does not?</p> <p>This also makes me wonder how medical practice is in the military. I have no first hand experience. I suspect that watching M*A*S*H might not count. We do know from Fort Hood (and all the news accounts on the shooter's background) that they have a hard time getting rid of misfits, but I doubt his case is typical of medical practice in the military.</p> Makes sense. How do we explain why corporate culture thinks this way but the government does not?

This also makes me wonder how medical practice is in the military. I have no first hand experience. I suspect that watching M*A*S*H might not count. We do know from Fort Hood (and all the news accounts on the shooter’s background) that they have a hard time getting rid of misfits, but I doubt his case is typical of medical practice in the military.

]]> By: Eclectic Radical http://liberalvaluesblog.com/2009/11/13/hardly-a-surprise-health-care-reform-good-for-business-bad-for-insurance-companies/comment-page-1/#comment-226881 Eclectic Radical Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:55:42 +0000 http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=11076#comment-226881 'While it is desirable that results of comparative effectiveness research be voluntarily used by physicians, it is dangerous to write this into law.'   One has to take the mindset of a management-level corporate executive into account when considering their positions on the issues...   Generally speaking (there are exceptions) corporate executives are acculturated into a decision making process that is authority oriented. That process includes a controlled degree of input and a controlled degree of debate and than an authoritarian decision is made by one person or a small group of people and then enforced in an authoritarian manner. They believe in 'the best way' to do things and they believe that 'the best way' should be enforced so that everyone must use it, believing in authoritarian enforcement of system rather than individual experimentation and innovation.   Therefore the idea that a panel of 'experts' would find the best way to do everything in the medical field and those decisions should be enforced strictly by law in a systematic way is the only natural opinion one can expect.   It's how the corporate culture thinks.   ‘While it is desirable that results of comparative effectiveness research be voluntarily used by physicians, it is dangerous to write this into law.’
 
One has to take the mindset of a management-level corporate executive into account when considering their positions on the issues…
 
Generally speaking (there are exceptions) corporate executives are acculturated into a decision making process that is authority oriented. That process includes a controlled degree of input and a controlled degree of debate and than an authoritarian decision is made by one person or a small group of people and then enforced in an authoritarian manner. They believe in ‘the best way’ to do things and they believe that ‘the best way’ should be enforced so that everyone must use it, believing in authoritarian enforcement of system rather than individual experimentation and innovation.
 
Therefore the idea that a panel of ‘experts’ would find the best way to do everything in the medical field and those decisions should be enforced strictly by law in a systematic way is the only natural opinion one can expect.
 
It’s how the corporate culture thinks.
 

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