Communism, Capitalism and Corporations

Business leaders are the epitome of capitalism.

It is perceived wisdom that capitalism works well in democracies (China re-writing the rules on that one a bit, but stay with me).

So, what are the key principles of capitalism?

- light but clear regulation

- markets rule

- lots of information and disclosure to help markets

- encourage competition, and ease of choice (mobile capital, mobile labour etc)

- bottom up rules, top down stinks

This compared with the key, increasingly discredited, principles of communism

- collective ownership

- high state control

- politburos

- five year plans

- top down rules (at least in practice, even if Marx had other ideas)

So, the point is, how do these business leaders, the epitome of capitalism, run their own corporations?

Like communists!

- Five year plans

- Culture of confidentiality

- Deployment behaviour (not empowerment)

- Low mobility of labour

- Minimise internal competition (in interests of synergy, avoiding duplication etc etc)

Just a thought. If you want to test whether a leader is a true capitalist, ask them their view of open resourcing. OR is a modern attempt to drive capitalist principles into corporations. Hooray for the visionary leaders who forced it through (maybe the competition and labour market forced it, but at least we made it). But - we have been back pedalling ever since! Both in rules (skill pools, MOR) and in behaviours (preferred candidates, stated or otherwise).

I don't get it. I'm all for longer tenures, but implement it in a capitalist way - send a signal to the market that people who have a track record of long tenures are more valuable, then let the people respond to the signal. And really clamp down on the OR scammers, especially those who condone it in HR.

Apart from this hobby horse of mine, look at the rest of our practice and behaviour in GS, and it is the nearest thing there is in Shell to capitalism at work. Internal competition can be good! Decentralisation is good too. Empowerment works.

Am I being simplistic here, this Friday afternoon?