In July before the visa committee Daniel Obatek testified. The Commission dealt with the issue of illegal immigrants, but the erstwhile president of Orlen said any interesting things that shed light on how he imagines “doing business”.
The easiest way to treat Obiek is as an example of a conceited dignitary nominated from a organization key. More broadly, as an example of what happens erstwhile parties treat state enterprises as political prey.
It's all true, but a reading like that doesn't contact the point. Both are not only a symbol of partyry, but besides a fewer tendencies characteristic of modern capitalism.
Who collects fruit?
Both adopted a simple line of defence: Orlen commissioned Olefin III's investment to a Korean-Spanish consortium. The consortium is liable for all possible irregularities.
When asked if he knew the conditions of employment of immigrants working on the investment, Obietek replied: “Stop compromising yourself! How do you go to the marketplace and buy fruit, you ask who collected it?”
At another point in the hearing, he added that although he had heard about the problems of the consortium with hiring employees, he did not interfere due to the fact that it would be against “business thoughts”.
Nor did he seem peculiarly afraid about the fact that the investment might be delayed or failed: “I would barely bend over the way Hyundai is going to supply me with a built installation. This is my basis: if it is not built, it is punishment.”
Screwing workers' rights by giving control of their employment to intermediaries? There it is.
Believing that the worst thing you can do in business is bet on partnership? There it is.
Convincing that yet it's not important, or, how and erstwhile are we going to build something, it's crucial that we win the contract battle? There it is.
I know that any people are going to shout, "Oh, that's what happens erstwhile you take business!" But the fact is that these are common pathologies – whether we are talking about private companies or state companies.
Although the division between the state and the market, public and private, is simply a useful and crucial tool of analysis, it sometimes covers another divisions.
For example, there is an economical activity – state or private – which is geared towards producing fresh things and services for society. Apartments, medicines, household appliances, smaller or larger amenities, including even any applications. But we besides have economical activity – state or private – which is geared towards multiplying wealth, power or ego units by combination, clever negotiating tactics, or utilizing legal loopholes. The second can be called “the capitalism of the wisers”.
Master of Swindling
Modern capitalism has quite a few problems, 1 of the biggest ones is that frequently people who are the epitome of the “capitalism of the wisemen” grow to the rank of entrepreneurship heroes. It's hard to make a better example than Donald Trump.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump was constantly returning to a simple promise: I was very successful in business, which is why I am as capable of moving the United States. ‘I will reconstruct the size of the US brand’ – He said.
However, erstwhile you look closely at his career, you may have reasonable doubts as to whether Trump has any major achievements in the field of innovation, occupation creation, infrastructure construction, distribution of goods or anything of social value.
For a serious self-made man, Trump began his business career by borrowing money from a wealthy father. He himself claims that it was “just” a million dollars, but New York Times writer inquiry points out that the amount amounted to over 60 million – in terms of today's value it would be about $140 million.
His “self-contained” real property magnate career began in 1976 when, in collaboration with Hyatt Organization, he acquired the Commodore hotel, located in a close bankruptcy state. Significantly, Trump's investment success was mostly based on the fact that he negotiated a 40-year taxation exemption from the city of fresh York that brought him savings of $160 million.
In the 1980s, Trump Organization began licensing Trump's name to another companies, which importantly contributed to the global increase in brand recognition. As a result, many brands, specified as Trump Ocean Club or Trumps Fine Foods, are named Trump, even though they are not the direct property of Trump Organization.
Published in 1987 The Art of the Deal She made Trump a celebrity, and his position as a hard negotiator further strengthened thanks to the program The Apprentice. In this program, he gained fame as an ruthless boss who, in front of millions of viewers, unceremoniously fired participants.
Money from my father, taxation avoidance, celebrity career, making the name an intractive brand – these are the main components of Trump's business success.
Ask yourself a simple question: if Trump in his youth found that he was not curious in business and devoted himself, say, to his career as a car mechanic, would our society lose something? I dare say that without Trump's brand, without his hotels and casinos, without his performance on the reality show, it would have been just as (not) good.
And erstwhile writing about Trump's business, you'd gotta consider how many times his leg has slipped. His casinos in Atlantic City declared bankruptcy 4 times, the last time in 2014. Trump besides tried to make games, releasing a board game in 1989 Trump: The Gamewhich was rapidly withdrawn from the sale. In 2007, he launched a magazine signed with his name, which ceased to appear after a year and a half.
A akin failure resulted in the Trump Steaks steak line, which rapidly disappeared from the marketplace after many sanitary violations in his restaurant. In 2006, Trump launched a luxury travel search engine GoTrump.com, but ended operations after a year.
Entrepreneurship spirit
Unfortunately, Poland did not avoid being bitten by the “capitalism of the wisemen”.
Which organization most loudly shouts that it embodies the virtues of capitalism? Of course, the Confederate builds the full image on this, especially Sławomir Mentzen. Guess who Mentzen is enjoying?
A fewer years ago, the press was writing about Trump burying his wife in a golf course in Bedminster, fresh Jersey. Why? due to the fact that fresh Jersey grants taxation relief for places that service as cemeteries.
Mentzen wrote: "Trump has no uncertainty the soul of an entrepreneur. A actual capitalist can make a profit even thanks to his ex-wife, who is dead.”
These delights are not surprising, Mentzen himself specializes in taxation consulting. To outsmart the strategy is simply a reason for his top glory.
Just one more time – what does capitalism gotta offer society? How is it mostly beneficial for wealthy people to usage another wealthy people to usage legal gaps to increase their wealth?
These are the people whom Dutch historian Rutger Bregman calls "rich movers" – due to the fact that they only decision wealth from 1 place to another, but they do not produce it. Therefore, most people, in peculiar workers, have small usage for them.
Such capitalists are far from the book's personalization of free marketplace advantages – to a baker whose selfish desire to gain contributes to expanding general prosperity. Ba, it's not even capitalism a la Daniel Plainview – the character Daniel Day-Lewis plays in Until blood is shed. Plainview is the caricature of an absolute oil magnate, but it can be argued that specified people have at least added their bricks to the improvement of our material prosperity. The capitalists closest to Jordan Belfort, the real character Leonardo DiCaprio played in Wall Street Wolf. A stock broker who gets rich due to the fact that he can beat people and the system.
Part of the puzzle
Both, Trump or Mentzen are utmost examples – yes. But the “capitalism of the wisers”, more or little directly, permeates the various spheres of our economies. Both those associated with the state and those associated with the private sphere.
Capitalism itself from the very beginnings, in any edition, was inextricably connected with both spheres – its clever leg is no exception. evasiveness of work for compliance with labour rights by creating a chain of intermediaries is simply a substance known both to companies like Adidas and to companies like Orlen.
Even those companies and those billionaires who claim to be the quintessence of innovation, so seemingly they are the other of Trump, are not devoid of the admixture of the capitalism of the wisemen. 1 of Uber's main "innovations" was pretending to be not a transport company, so it is not regulated by the industry. Amazon, despite its "modern company", has problems to guarantee decent working conditions for workers: as if its business model was based on innovation alternatively than on the usage of its negotiating edge over employees.
Therefore, although I realize people who, looking at Obietka's testimony, see in them the image of the Law and organization or the parody of the "entrepreneur state", I see in them simply the sad fact about the state of modern capitalism.
