Capitalistic Socialism?

Capitalistic socialism or socialistic capitalism? An oxymoron? Oil and water, never to blend?

What do we mean by capitalism and socialism?

Socialism was described decades ago as the system of the bogeyman, the heathenistic regime coming to take away your money and freedom.

But, if we give into the fear-mongering of late about socialism, and have integrity, we would have to say we’re willing to put our retirees back into the workforce, under their relatives’ roofs...because they wouldn’t be able to take care of themselves, no longer getting their Social Security checks or access to healthcare through Medicare. We would only have the higher-income kids educated because the others couldn’t afford school fees...as it used to be a few centuries ago.

We fear socialism even though many of the US allies have socialism—democracy and capitalism as well—such as a socialistic health care system provided by the government, e.g. the UK, which includes Canada. Many of the Scandinavian countries as well. In fact, Denmark—that many would say has many successful corporations (Lego, anyone?)—has one of the highest income tax rates to pay for its social programs.

Likewise, US corporations—and some say to hold unions at bay—started to provide health insurance. The owners, stockholders would pay for others’ health care. And we have Social Security and Medicare for the retired amongst us. We have government-provided elementary and secondary education systems.

And don’t consider any state or federal road or transportation systems. We would have to take away the FAA and only have private corporate control over air traffic. It might be a system like the early days of Microsoft’s Word documents trying to be read by Apple’s Pages program...and vice versa. Different airlines could only operate in areas where they ‘subscribed’ to the traffic control system and might have to have several onboard communication hardware/software/radio systems.

Those programs we might admit help our capitalistic economic system because it reduces fear, anxiety of being able to provide for yourself in your working age and in your retirement. It helps us with a smoother infrastructure. Do we really think we want pure capitalism?

The Quarterback is Not the Team—Part 2

In a previous post, I discussed how if the quarterback is the only one who knows the team’s goal is to move the ball past the appropriate end zone goal line, the team won’t be very successful. The whole team needs to know the score, how well they’re doing (i.e. how well the processes are working or not) and what the strategic priorities are. Another take on this: a single player cannot win on their own. In American football, running backs realize they aren’t successful if the offensive line doesn’t do a good job blocking and creating gaps for them to run through (and several MVP running backs have been known to reward their front lines).

In business, we rewarded everyone that was part of the organization. I expressed thanks to the custodial staff when revenues when up because we know that doesn’t happen if our customers don’t appreciate the appearance of our facilities. Everyone, in small and big ways, contributes to the success of the organization. In one study, conducted to modify the profit sharing bonus, we rated the number of decisions against the impact of those decisions. Many of the front line people made hundreds of decisions each day while executives made a mere tens of decisions each week. The impact of those decisions was not the same: each executive decision was worth 1,000 front-line decision. When we looked at the frequency and the extent, executive decisions didn’t have the greatest impact overall; the middle managers and engineers made significantly more decisions than executives and their moderate impact could create significant opportunities for success or put the company at significant risk. So we modified our bonus plan to recognize that all employees do contribute to the success and should be rewarded accordingly.

A friend recently shared a photo of him wearing a Super Bowl championship ring. When asked which player let him wear the ring, he said that it was a person on the team’s maintenance staff. Everyone in the organization gets a championship ring because it’s known that everyone helped make the team successful.

If the NFL, which pays for 150 rings, and the team management, which may buy more rings for more of the organization’s members, think it’s important to recognize everyone...not just the stars...why wouldn’t we?