September 2007 Edition

EDITOR'S CORNER

I'm Guilty as Charged

Sometimes a belief, even erroneous, can be pounded into our brains so that we take it for granted. Here's my mea culpa for letting the media sway my attitudes toward corporations.

I love reader involvement. Each e-mail and letter I receive gives me a small peek into what readers are thinking. There are 75,000 of you subscribers, yet I only hear from a tiny percentage. I can trigger responses with my editorial comments. Hit the big issues and get a big response. Hit the small issues, and not much comes in.

As I was finalizing the August issue, I got a call from a machine salesman in Minneapolis. That's pretty unusual. Most interactions with MAN readers are by e-mail.

He'd read my July editorial [July 2007, Vol. 41, No. 7, "Root Cause Analysis," p. 6] and it struck such a chord within him, that he had to call. He both agreed and disagreed with the opinion I'd expressed. We spoke about 10 minutes, and I was delighted to be taken to task on a point I'd inadvertently made. He said I, like a lot of my journalistic brethren, had painted corporations as evil.

Had I been so indoctrinated by the constant media criticism of business that I believed it without thinking?

Yes, from this reader's point of view I had. In the editorial, I'd written that corporate bean counters were sending U.S. work overseas to benefit from low wages. The reader said I was demonizing U.S. corporations. In fact, from different points of view, we were both right.

Moral Guidance from Stan Lee

As the adage goes: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Large U.S. corporations command great power, and the temptation to abuse that power is . . . well. . . powerful. Most also abide by the newer adage: With great power, comes great responsibility — from Spider-Man comics, of all places — but a few bad apples have spoiled public opinion about U.S. corporations.

Instead of viewing corporations as a backbone of U.S. industry, much of the media — outside of MAN — has made corporations the scapegoats for many of our economic ills.

Yes, it's hard not to give corporations the stink-eye when we hear of the wretched excesses of corporate brigands at companies like Enron and WorldCom who used company money to buy $6,000 shower curtains, or looted the treasury for their hedonistic pleasure.

But, the other side of the coin — and a side of much larger size, to push a metaphor to a ludicrous conclusion — is that the corporations across the spectrum, from one-man operations to the small, medium, and large companies that make up MAN's circulation, are honest and true, striving to make a decent living for themselves and their shareholders. They, indeed, are the driving force behind a U.S. economy hell-bent on abandoning manufacturing to go to a service economy.

The list isn't meant to be all-inclusive of every category facing the shop, but it covers a lot of ground. It also provides you with a place from which you can offer your suggestions about other areas you might like to see in the next awards.

Exempting Lawyers, of Course

"Service economy" has come to mean lower-paying, unskilled jobs that are migrating to the developing world faster than manufacturing left our shores. Working in the service economy means staffing a big box store and showing shoppers which foreign-made goods to buy.

We're sacrificing our future for cheap junk.

It's you, the readers of MAN, in your effort to provide value to your customers that are the hidden supporters of the economy. In a recent release from the National Association of Manufacturers, each state was ranked by the contribution manufacturing made to each state's economy [see the related news story]. Not surprisingly, the heart of the U.S., the Great Lakes states, are some of the leaders in the percentage of manufacturing dollars contributed to their respective economies. Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana all depend on manufacturing for almost 20 percent of their financial muscle.

As the reader who took me to task for pig-piling on corporations reminded me, it's time we all took pride in business and manufacturing.

Start Spreading the Word

But, pride isn't enough. We also have to change U.S. attitudes. We have to change the idea that buying foreign products is "sticking it to the Man." Part of that change must come from you, MAN's readership. Don't just talk to each other at business association meetings; contact the media with success and feel-good stories.

Print and broadcast media have an endless maw that needs filled. They only print the "bad" news, because that is what is brought to their attention. Getting the media — besides MAN, of course — to listen to the stories about good corporations can help change people's revulsion of The Corporation.

Get to work. I expect a report by tomorrow.