The current gas crisis illustrates a significant problem within corporate America, the shareholder. Compelled by bean counter profits, isolated and removed, the shareholder sees neither consumer nor employee. Consumed by percentages, separated from reality, the corporation,
via the shareholder, devalues the individual. Such cases as the Corvair, the Pinto, and currently the SUV provide perfect examples of how the drive for profit made a percentage of
human casualties acceptable.
In much of corporate America, this outlook extends to the workforce as well. According to Business Week, “In the world’s richest country, the working poor’s chances for getting ahead are worse than ever. In today’s job market, the bottom rung is as high as a lot of workers will get-and it’s still below the poverty line. Benefits and adequate child care can be beyond reach. What’s needed is the political will to help, but it seems a long way off.”
Yet, there is hope. The hydrogen economy, for example, is a way the auto industry and corporate America can renew its moral obligation, if it ever had one. Sure, some conservationist’s scorn the idea as a delay tactic by the auto industry not to conserve, especially if one considers that analysts at J.D Power and Associates say hydrogen cars will never happen. Many believe it will, but claim it’s easily decades away. Fortunately, others take a more futuristic approach.
For Toyota the hydrogen economy is fact, and phase one is the hybrid. Because of the dual gas-electric hybrid powertrain, the gas half of the powertrain will be replaced by fuel cell technology, while the electric half will remain intact, a perfect transition. Therefore, Toyota’s Prius already provides:
• Immediate oil conservation / less foreign dependency
• Immediate pollution reduction
• Progress towards hydrogen
Exuberance
In his new book, Rational Exuberance, Michael Mandel of the Economist states “our economic future is inextricably linked to our ability to come up with more technological breakthroughs that equal the Internet in magnitude. Such large-scale innovations drive growth, create new jobs and industries, push up living standards for both rich and poor, and open up whole new vistas of possibilities. This is what I call exuberant growth.”
Historically, Mandel argues, that progress in a highly developed country such as the U.S. depends mainly on technological advances. He points out that, “It was a succession of innovations - including electricity, telephones, radio, automobiles, and antibiotics – that revolutionized life in the first half of the 20th century.” Later he concludes, “It is no coincidence that the rise of the Internet in the 1990s coincided with the biggest rise in household incomes, and the biggest drop in poverty, in 30 years.”
Yet, American auto-makers have not increased fuel-efficiency in the last 20 years, instead choosing to fund lobbyists against fuel efficiency standards – something that might interfere with exorbitant SUV profits.
While Toyota innovates and profits from each hybrid sale, American companies complain the profit margin isn’t
enough. Not enough profit to justify significant and immediate oil reduction and pollution – a legacy to the future, to the youth. Yet, the Big Three are barely beyond concept stage. No vision of the future, only exploitive capitalization of the present. Somehow 5 TV’s in a
gas-guzzling, over-glorified truck justifies going to Bahgdad.
U.S. automakers are not leading innovating with their technology. Choosing the status quo, rather than choosing to drive the future of the auto market,
seems significantly less profitable in the long run not only for corporations, but for employees and consumers as well.
Who Cares?
In the movie “the day after tomorrow”, a scenario of worldwide chaos created by rapid climactic change demonstrates how easily mother nature often wipes much of life from the planet. Regardless of the of the movie’s accuracy, glacial and interglacial periods – one creator of rapid climactic change – are a fact of science. According to science, the earth is due for drastic climactic change.
Over the last several thousand years, citizens and their civilizations have evolved. Man began to farm, to live in houses, to create communities, to become less dependant upon the whims of mother nature.
Today, modern technology has provided tools that help forecast what future climatic crises
might occur, and it’s obvious bigger whims still exist for society to yet conquer. Rationally, change must occur. Whether one takes a view of the world socially, or naturally, change must occur,
but only the people can make it happen.
Moreover, while we do face great climactic and social challenges, we also face equally great opportunities. Technology offers numerous ways to adapt, even counteract, these forces.
A revolution in man’s psyche towards technology is required to become fearless, creative, and humanely focused.
Already, numerous technological breakthroughs on the cusp of spawning this kind of innovative advance, including solar power, biotech, nanotechnology, and even space travel are in their early stages right now.
Will it happen?
It’s the people, stupid
The big question, really, is are the people ready? Is the system ready to embrace uncertain, revolutionary change? There are roadblocks to innovation everywhere. Most important, politicians have issues with technology and change. Mandel points out, “Liberals blame technology for creating inequality and unemployment. Deficit hawks fear that new medical technologies will mean bigger health-care bills. Environmentalists worry about the negative impact of genetically modified crops. Moralists fret that technology has opened the door to potentially immoral and corrupting activities such as human cloning and Internet pornography.” Furthermore, he states, “Republicans and Democrats wrangle endlessly about tax cuts and budget deficits, even though there is little solid evidence that either has much effect on long-term growth. By contrast, technology driven growth is the poor stepchild, receiving a microscopic amount of time, energy, and money from politicians.”
Instead, Mandel calls for the ‘Silicon Valley mentality’, or a view of the world, “favoring experimentation, innovation, and change.” Unfortunately, he later concedes, “Exuberant, technology-driven growth is upsetting to the status quo-and to big companies and political donors that benefit from keeping thins as they are. Technology represents a force of change that is profoundly threatening. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that innovation is absolutely indispensable for productivity, wages, jobs, and international competitiveness.”
The American auto industry, currently a foe of innovation, must drive exuberance. If; however, the industry chooses not to embrace rational exuberance, then consumers must consider this profiteering as a part of the product. Consumers are buying pollution, high oil prices, war,
terrorism and more of the status quo.
The only way that Americans will have a chance at the American dream will be by driving innovation as a way of life. Companies must be judged not by shareholder value, but by consumer value and consumers must voice their support, or lack of support with their purchase. “Embrace change or you will fail”.
"To increase the odds in favor of exuberant growth, we need new goals for running economic policy-and politicians brave enough to support them. First, we must encourage technological change by paying far more attention to encouraging basic an applied research, the formation of innovative new startups, and the development of a skilled workforce. Conversely, we need less debate about budget and trade deficits, and more of an understanding of America’s greatness has always rested on its ability to embrace technology and change,” Mandel claims.
Further, he states, “Rapid technological change is inherently scary to people, because it has the potential to destroy their jobs and overturn their way of life. Therefore, exuberant growth must go hand in hand with economic security. Fairness and transparency are crucial. If we want people to support technological change – as investors, as workers, as consumers, as voters – they must feel there is a level playing field and that not critical information is hidden from them.”
Citizen Activists
We the people, the consumers, must realize that we cannot currently rely on our politicians or our corporations to make the world a better place for the average citizen, only the people can. Its not just wealth or social equality at stake, it’s the welfare of the Nation, of the world.
Right now products, like the hybrid provide an opportunity for consumers to have an impact with a relatively basic, although major purchase. As Mendel concludes, “We do not know what lies beyond the next hill. It cannot be proven that there are new opportunities beyond the horizon. But embracing exuberant growth helps ensure that our children live not in the Age of Uncertainty but in the Age of Possibility.”
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