Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
I ventured over to the school of engineering today to hear a lecture from Boeing's Chief Technological Officer. Being in a "social science," I was looking forward to some good old fashioned capitalist talk. You know, men who wear ties and not track pants, free bottled water, profits, markets, calculus, etc?
The talk was impressive in a sense. The CTO highlighted Boeing's technological successes by showing us videos of the materials testing they had to endure to satisfy the FAA. They basically would bend the wings of a 787 about 25 feet from the tip on each side, making the plane virtually U shaped. They would land 787's all around the world, in freezing cold, in 35-50 mph crosswinds, loaded down with a million pounds of steel. The tests were impressive enough to earn a spontaneous round of applause from the audience of mostly engineers and faculty. Plus, you have to admit, humans went from not being able to fly in 1903 to a jet engine by the 1930's. That's an extraordinary rate of growth!
But then came the truly impressive portion of the talk; environmental progressivism and diversity! According to the CTO, the "most important"... let me say that again ... the MOST IMPORTANT objective technologically for Boeing is environmentally progressive operations. Large portions of research dollars are devoted to bio fuels that are never to be made using drinkable water or food sources. At this point, students began to look around and some rolled their eyes. Some fat bearded grad student laughed... I won't say who. Words like "footprint," "carbon reduction" and "community" were used.
Finally, the whole talk was capped off by something that looked like a University of Iowa brochure that had been shoddily photo shopped. A video was shown that included a virtual ethnic tapestry of diversity; people from all races laughing, pointing at diagrams and whatnot. I looked around the room and wondered if all the nerdy Asian and white guys jived with the whole "diversity" portion of the technological presentation.
Why is it that every company feels the need to pay lip service to climate change and diversity? I wanted to ask the fella, "did someone from the government make you say these things?" Was he jumping through hoops to keep various tax incentives or to keep the FAA and other regulatory agencies happy?
Boeing is one of the world's most technologically advanced companies, to be sure. They can put a man on the moon if they want to. The race and creed of that man and the fact that he flew there on cow farts or jet fuel make absolutely no difference to me. Do these things make a difference to anyone?
Why can't a company be proud of the technological advances they've given to the world, the jobs to their employees and the massive economic growth their technology has produced? Will we conservatives and capitalists ever stop being embarrassed about what we believe in?
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Oct '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
I am an Engineering student and this year we had ''Business and Sustainability'' Module ... and it felt like taking crazy pills too.
We had a lecture about ''built in obsolescence'' and more Green nonsense that I could support.
I seriously don't know why they always kiss up to these people. But was there ever an example of unapologetic Capitalist Business man ? On top of my mind I can only remember Tony Stark from Iron Man
CEO are paid mercenaries it seems to me.
Oct '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Corporate America, especially of the size of Boeing, are simply a voluntary extension of government. The corporatist state is here in all it's perversity, and you either learn to play ball or get off the field.
Besides, this green claptrap sells. Marketing guys are all over it like green on a golf course.
Sep '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
To me your problem is not with Boeing but with the federal government and the two parties that have fostered its growth. What you are complaining about is simply a cost of doing business that has been placed on all businesses by government. Government is twice the size it needs to be in order to carry out its essential functions and therefore involves itself in things it should not be concerned with. No one in the Republican Party is making any serious proposals to change this and the Dems solution is more of the same.
Jun '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
I couldn't tell if they were using "green" for marketing or if they were forced to talk about it by some government initiative or other. Probably both, sadly.
Jun '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Samuel Amaral:
We had a lecture about ''built in obsolescence'' and more Green nonsense that I could support.
Do you feel like the Green nonsense weakens the profession? I couldn't stop thinking that for all the time they wasted trying to figure out how to make tree bark into airplane wings, they could have been developing something that was actually beneficial to mankind.
Dec '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Samwise Gamgee
Samuel Amaral:
We had a lecture about ''built in obsolescence'' and more Green nonsense that I could support.
Do you feel like the Green nonsense weakens the profession? I couldn't stop thinking that for all the time they wasted trying to figure out how to make tree bark into airplane wings, they could have been developing something that was actually beneficial to mankind. · Nov 5 at 6:34am
Well, yea-ah! Lefties would have us believe that capitalism is all about eeevil, greedy, obsceeeeeene prrrrofitts, when, as KC pointed out in another comment thread, it is really about excellence. When you've got your eye on diversity and green technology, you unavoidably have taken your eye off the excellence ball. I can think of no other force as destructive to human flourishing as the Left.
Jun '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Western Chauvinist
I can think of no other force as destructive to human flourishing as the Left.
You're such a chauvinist, haha. I love it.
Apr '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
What a terrific post, Samwise. I particularly liked your closer:
Why can't a company be proud of the technological advances they've given to the world, the jobs to their employees and the massive economic growth their technology has produced? Will we conservatives and capitalists ever stop being embarrassed about what we believe in?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Oct '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Samwise Gamgee
Samuel Amaral:
We had a lecture about ''built in obsolescence'' and more Green nonsense that I could support.
Do you feel like the Green nonsense weakens the profession? I couldn't stop thinking that for all the time they wasted trying to figure out how to make tree bark into airplane wings, they could have been developing something that was actually beneficial to mankind. · Nov 5 at 6:34am
It does weakens the profession, because instead of engineer our way to deal with real problems, we are wasting time to deal with a warming relevant to climatologists, ie irrelevant for the rest of us.
The guys that wrote Freakonomics had some very good engineers devise plant to mitigate global warming and Reason Magazine has a very good study about how global warming is great for agriculture.
Samwise Gamgee
Western Chauvinist
I can think of no other force as destructive to human flourishing as the Left.
You're such a chauvinist, haha. I love it. · Nov 5 at 8:20am
hahahaha, shameless chauvinism ... approved !
Nov '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
This too shall pass. I don't worry about it so much. Everybody understands it and thinks it's ridiculous. Let it play out.
I actually worked for Boeing during the early days of political correctness. Periodically we were forced to attend "sensitivity training" during which we were supposed to engage in childish dialog about how people (esp. minorities & women) can be hurt by unkind comments. These were occasions for great mirth as almost every topic on the agenda brought forth from the scientists an acerbic wit that usually laid dormant beneath professional demeanor. The human resources flak in charge was likewise found to have a sense of humor.
Like so many such things mandated by law, these meetings had exactly the opposite effects intended.
Apr '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
I think this is why "Atlas Shrugged" has remained so popular. It's not that Ayn Rand was the world's greatest novelist (that would probably be Louis McMaster Bujold or James Alan Gardner or ... well, that's a whole other topic). It's just so exciting -- even energizing -- to see a story with characters who are capitalists and are proud of it! It makes one want to come out of the closet.
Apr '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Capitalists are people who invest and organize the deployment of capital to create productive assets. Do not think that corporate management are capitalists. Your lecturer was the CTO--a technocrat, which means he doesn't really see people very well. He's smart enough to realize that Young's modulus and the second law of thermodynamics lack a spiritual dimension. He doesn't understand the moral imperatives satisfied by his using his God-given talents to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people in wondrous ways, provide productive employment for hundreds of thousands, and increase the wealth of society. So when the hucksters of some pseudo-scientific religion like Greenism come along, he's easy pickings.
Oct '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Ah, Master Samwise, you know not the ways of the enlightened culture of the Northwest. From Portland to Seattle, this is the culture you will find on the Left Coast. Boeing, Microsoft, and other mega corporates in our region have long embraced the social culture of liberal progressivism. It is a matter of survival. Now if Boeing's corporate culture had developed in, say, Texas, you would have heard a different tune. But here, green, tolerance and diversity, among other liberal ideals, reign supreme.
Feb '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Grendel..."the CTO--a technocrat, which means he doesn't really see people very well"
It is most unlikely that an individual could rise to a position with management responsibility for hundreds or thousands of people, as a direct report to the CEO of a company like Boeing, without having pretty astute people skills. The fact that someone has an engineering background and responsibilities doesn't automatically make him incapable of good human relationship skills.
Samwise, is this the guy you're talking about? Interesting background...note the job as a high school science teacher.
Oct '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
It's not where they've gone, it's where we're going.
Flying subsonic from point to point on this rock is so last century!
Jun '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
Yes, David, that's him. He was a pretty good speaker aside from all the green nonsense. He had excellent insights to give to the students in terms of pursuing the parts of the field that truly interest them. He told the students about the many failed job applications he has endured to get to where he is today. An impressive man, really.
Jun '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
I didn't consider that... I always associate Boeing with St. Louis, being a southern Midwesterner myself... But I know they are huge in Chicago and Washington state too. Hopefully, as they continue to move production further south they will just focus on excellence and not so much on making people feel warm and fuzzy.
May '10
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
The real capitalists in this country are small businesses under 50 or 100 people where success or failure means keeping their house or not. The people of Boeing are not capitalists. They're engineers and executives. If they waste a few million dollars chasing after feel good green stuff they don't care. It's not their capital.
Apr '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
One of the biggest problems in IT today is the power costs
of running datacenters. I used to work for a company that
made equipment for datacenters and we recently started to try
to reduce power consumption in our products. This was framed
as a "Green" initiative. Signs went up, proposal documents
required a "green" section.
They could have taken a business perspective and presented this
as a competitive advantage crucial to defeating our competitors,
raising our stock price and market share.
They could have presented this as a challenging engineering problem
which is the kind of approach that inspires engineers.
Instead the most visible part of the propaganda program focused on
climate, carbon footprints, the environment and our obligations
to the community.
Apr '11
Re: Where Have All the Capitalists Gone?
david foster: Grendel..."the CTO--a technocrat, which means he doesn't really see people very well"
It is most unlikely that an individual could rise to a position with management responsibility for hundreds or thousands of people, as a direct report to the CEO of a company like Boeing, without having pretty astute people skills.
That's a fair, intuitive point, but people management skills mean putting "resources" in "opportunities". (You ever been called a "resource"?) That's what a technocrat does, on a large or small scale. A first-line manager at IBM told me his boss had told him he wasn't ready for promotion because he hadn't fired enough people.
I wasn't referring to people skills or sensitivity, but to seeing business not from the inside, as a logic of coordinated inputs and outputs, but as an enterprise of rational, purposeful persons contributing to the larger society of rational, purposeful persons. The left claims to to take such a moral view, but it is one of lying and distorting cliches: greed, grim conformity, Profits Before People, fair share of taxes. How much more easily "corporate fraud" rolls off the tongue than "academic fraud".