If for example, environmental laws were to be taken away globally and there was no punishment for corporate pollution, regardless of what we know about it now, companies would very quickly make changes to their production to cut out the unnecessary costs of environmental consideration. If child slave labor was legal, they would be using it for as long as it made financial sense to do so. The only thing that stops companies acting worse than they do is, legal and customer consequence, and both don't seem to be very effective as the legal ramifications are generally less costly than the profits made and the consumer base only cares about getting what they want cheap and conveniently.
I'd say that this is not thaaat simple. Sometimes it's those corporations' best interest to keep such regulations high. Why? Because they are huge and can afford to more or less stick to these regulations, while still earning a shit tonne of money.
Very strict regulations make it harder for a competing company to rise up and effectively destroys the free market. A huge international corporate company employs thousands of lawyers which will get them through anything.
Poland, where I come from, is the best example, where there's a lot of bureaucracy everywhere. If you want to run a company, you are kicked in the ass time after time. Even though we don't have the highest taxes in the EU, we have the most complicated tax policy in the entire EU. Even professionals accountants have a hard time to keep up with all the changes, where you can have a major overhaul to the law every few months. Huge corporations have no problem with that, they have their lawyers. And even if they mess something up, they just pay some laughable low fine and they're good.
On the other hand, if you're a small business owner in Poland, you stress out every day. Should you lose some stupid paper or they make an incognito inspection, where you sell them a stupid lighter without giving the receipt and they will fine the hell out of you (that's a real story, BTW).
This is all very clear. Poland is colonized by many external powers, to the point where it's not rare for people here to compare its situation to Bantustan countries in South Africa.
While bit by bit we are being chipped away at, it is happening globally on a mass scale and we can see this in the increasing speed that the wealth gap is growing. But because we only consider us as an individual in the economy, we are much like the proverbial frog in a pot, and the water is getting warmer.
Eh, fighting for increasing people's awareness is the hardest fight. Especially that powerful parties fight all the time to decrease it.
Haven't been commenting for some time now! Thanks for the post, that was a good read. And great to see you feeling good and posting a lot again after your health issues. Stay healthy and keep up the great work!
Yes, once the company is large enough and holds a monopoly-ish position, this is the case. In many instances, they lobby for more barriers put up once they are at the top. Ones they can meet of course.
Small businesses are getting an unprecedented fucking over at the moment during Covid, all to the benefit of the conglomerates - because they needed more market share.
I have only visited Poland a couple of times, but one thing I noticed was the high amount if hierarchy in the offices, even among the young. It was uncomfortable at times for me, as people enforced their control over people below them, even when it wasn't necessary. Made it hard to train at times.
Out of work though, the same people were easy going and fun. It was strange!
Glad you are finding your comment stride again :)
I think this strange culture comes from multiple sources: one thing was that Poland kept very strict social hierarchy rules much longer than the Western Europe did. With low industrialization levels, basically until WW2 you had clearly defined nobility and serfs. Only a minority people could be considered a middle-class citizens.
In the meantime we also had partitioning of Poland, many uprising, a short independence and then, after WW2 we ended up under the Soviet regime. This also messed people's minds a lot, because it promoted upstart people, who were advancing their social status by cooperating with the authorities and strengthening their regime, and not based on their merits. And even if some people did not take advantage of this, they still built resentments against those which did.
All in all, it makes for a very poor working culture in Poland. Most of us are very hard working and rather competent, but our business culture is very bad.
I was in Lutz (I don't have the fancy L) on a business trip and went out with a couple of the clients for some food and beers. I really like the Polish humour, as there is a down to earth, matter of fact darkness in it :)
Thanks for the insight too. It is really interesting to consider what shapes us through culture and how far back the footprints go.
Yes, once the company is large enough and holds a monopoly-ish position, this is the case. In many instances, they lobby for more barriers put up once they are at the top. Ones they can meet of course.
I have only visited Poland a couple of times, but one thing I noticed was the high amount if hierarchy in the offices, even among the young. It was uncomfortable at times for me, as people enforced their control over people below them, even when it wasn't necessary. Made it hard to train at times.
Out of work though, the same people were easy going and fun. It was strange!
Glad you are finding your comment stride again :)