living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Monday, January 03, 2005 Call me naïve I did complain from time to time about scant share of material wealth, while deep inside I indulge in the self-admiration of intelligentsia image. Being in school for my whole life, and married to a man who has no interest at any type of science that serves business or production, I was fostered an ignorance, sometime a contempt, to business world. Call me naiveté; I did not recognize the power of money until recently. I thought power comes from knowledge, from intelligence, from social capital, or determination. No, no, no, all these are nothing to the world without being transformed into money. Cuiqing, my college roommates back to China ran a small manufactory with her husband for several years. Making Mah-Jongg, the so-called national quintessence of China, is a very competitive business-All manufactures are tough nowadays. Compared to the money they made when they worked for press and advertising, they made less money. They are both well-educated and can just starting anything new or quit the business. ‘But what about my 100 something workers?’ she said, ‘They can at least brought home 1000RMB today. I have to work hard for them.’ Well, though she was the girl used to sleep under my bunk, she was way too beyond me now. I believe there are tow kinds of people in the world, the innovators, the very few, and the consumers, the rest of us. I just came to realize without consumers, rich or poor, all innovations, technological or artistic, are in vein and may not be made possible. Business bridges the functions of these two groups, and the key persons in business, who controlled the money flow, makes the world different, for good or for bad. Read an article from MIT technology review the other day forecasting the doomed defeat of Google by Microsoft. The author, who sold FrontPage to Microsoft for $130 million 8 years ago, justified Bill Gates’ ruthless business expansion by his philanthropic ambition. Leila, Bin’s English tutor back to Buffalo, who hated everything the big corporations and this administration stands for, once said ‘I would not mind people like Bill Gates make a lot of money’. In such a cynical world, it’s hard to declare one’s life goal as noble as fighting for world-peace, human rights, better environment, saving the poor and homeless. People who does that, well, they are so… well, alternative. While these alternative/Bohemian/liberal/idealists are quite preoccupied by all kinds of humanity courses and most of them not afraid to take the pain of those who suffer, the ones really make big difference are the ones hold the money bag. The man who initiated the prop 71 and now head of California stem cell policy board is not a biologist or a physician, but a successful real estate developer who has a son with diabetes. Amazon, Starbucks and Wal-mart are among the first groups, much earlier than President Bush remembered to express his shock at his Crawford ranch, to initiate donation for the South Asia tsunami. Each of them generate as much as money as the initial relief fund from any single nation. I guess the world is better off with business or corporate, as long as these rich business men are not busy in expanding their ambition at the cost of people’s (employees, consumers and, well, people) interests and not only busy in ‘conspicuous consumption’(Verblen’s term to describe the rich using ornament and glitz to show off their class and wealth). On the other side of the coin, these two things are not necessarily leading to only negative results. For one thing, huge profit from big corporations often means big charities or art patrons; second, the willingness for extravagant spending, in a lot of occasions, indicates a spirit of innovators or early adoption of new innovations, which generally is a good thing in the process of civilization. In a nutshell, frog leaping from a naiveté to a sophisticator in a one night like I did, we still can’t see the world in black and white. posted by lmeimei @5:45 PM| permanent link| | |
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