Ideas about a Company's Place in Society

Dennis G. Allard

December 9, 1992

 

Businesses operate in a society, affect that society, and are affected by it. A company has to deal with issues of power hierarchies, salary determination, employee evaluation, profit sharing, health care, and community and environmental issues. Since I am trying to help start a new company, I want put my political views on the table from the outset, because I hope these views to be part of what shapes the politics of the company as it grows. I also wish to convey the kind of atmosphere I want to see in the company, where a free discussion of all issues is encouraged.

In the past, I've pretty much kept my political and professional lives separate. I've changed in the past couple of years. I started to wonder why I spent so much time worrying about US. foreign policy in places like Nicaragua and Cuba, and so little time doing anything about things here in my own country. I did have a good reason for my interest in foreign policy, which I still have. It is because our foreign policy shows us for what we really are. A country which bullies smaller countries which do not conform to our capitalist system. If I couldn't help affect change as to how we treat the world, wasting incredible tax resources to prop up the interests of multinational corporations, then why bother trying to improve things at home? Well, I've given up hoping that US. foreign policy will become benevolent. Much like the Hollywood producers who decide what movies will be made and who will make them, the political leaders of our country will continue into the foreseeable future to be part of the worldwide elite who pay for governments and elections and benefit from the military.

I now believe an adage of the Green party. Think globally. Act locally. We will find the solutions to our problems by working outside of conventional bureaucracies, be they governmental or large corporate ones. This is one of my reasons for going into business. I want to try a different approach. Not as an employee of a militarily funded mafia. Not as an employee of a large corporation. But as a person interacting on a politically more equal basis with my fellow beings. And if our company grows, as I have the ambition to believe it will, we will strive to maintain an approach which avoids the power hierarchies which are the status quo of the conventional bureaucracies.

Recently, IBM stock dropped to less than half of what it was just a year ago. Microsoft, meanwhile, thrives. Is Microsoft the new IBM? Is IBM starting its demise? I doubt it. I predict that Microsoft will start having problems in a two or three years once everyone realizes that the machines which can run Windows NT can also run Unix and that Unix is both less proprietary and is the operating system of choice for the likes of Sun Microsystems, Hewlit Packard, and AT&T, all of whom produce hardware on which Unix already runs quite well. But the battles between large computer corporations don't really matter. What is important in the computer industry is the set of people who have years of education and training and are ably applying those skills to build upon the technology base established by our ancestors. Companies come and companies go, but what remains is the reality of people with their lives and interests and abilities. The companies -- Microsoft, Borland, Sun Microsystems, and all the others -- are merely gigantic accounting mechanisms. The reason they exist is as arbiters of people's actions in our capitalist system. They are ultimately unimportant. What is important are the people and ideas who will remain no matter what company survives.

We are starting a new company, Ocean Park Software. I want to see us be community and democracy oriented. We will do our part to be visible in the community, whether we have two employees or two hundred. As we grow, we will try to bring in people lacking in some skills and give them those skills. We will encourage low cost network availability to every household and business and will do technical work towards that goal. We will use the new networking technology to build a power base among our peers, others who share our desire for a broad coalition of interacting free agents, working together to build technology unencumbered by limits of proprietary architectures and personal power plays.

Here are the kinds of things I would like to see in a progressive new company. All employees have good salaries for their line of work, participate in company profit sharing, have company paid health insurance, and one month of paid vacation per year, no matter what their seniority. Every employee will receive training or be sent to a conference on a regular basis. An atmosphere exists where every employee is not only free to speak their mind but encouraged to do so. The salary of every employee will be public knowledge and every employee will have a vote in determining the salary raises of every other employee with whom they work. This is the only concrete way to make sure that all people at all levels of the hierarchy are acting competently. Ultimately, I think the best social policy about salaries is one based on the age of the employee. Older people get paid more. That policy could be implemented in an isolated case within the existing capitalist system, as it would be meld well with what now occurs whereby people receive raises as they progress within a company. We do not claim that we would be able or ready to suggest such a compensation policy in the absolute as we would not be able to attract the skills we need from the open market. But short of that we will do what we can to assure equal treatment of everyone.

It is rather obvious that my politics are to the left. In fact, I am a socialist. Let me explain a couple of things which that does not mean. It does not mean that I believe in bureaucracy. If someone cannot do their job, whether it be in the private sector or in government, then they should not have that job. The society should have good government and company sponsored counseling and training for those without work and a guaranteed wage rate. But when someone has a job, there should be reasonable demands that they do it right. Being a socialist also doesn't mean that I don't believe in making profits. In a capitalist society, the only way you can stay in business is to make profits. When a socialist starts a company in a capitalist society, he or she starts that company with the view of making profits. There is no contradiction there.