Opinion – Inside track
Is big so bad in business?
BY NICK JOY W
ith the advent of land reform, many thoughts occur, but one of the most frequent is why we think of some groups of people as bad and others as good. Of course, as a salmon farmer this issue is constantly brought into sharp
focus by those who dislike our existence, but it is not them I am talking about. There will always be those who hate something, especially when it is new. I have a confession: I am a landowner. I own a farm in Orkney and I
have 11 acres of land with my house. I sit on both sides of the approval fence. As I understand it, to be a small landowner is okay but to be a big one is not. Why? It is rather like why one always assumes that big corporations are bad and small ones good. There appears to be an automatic assumption that with size comes malign force. Maybe it is true but if it is, then we are all in serious trouble. After all,
there are 1,922 companies worldwide with a turnover of more than $1 billion. If they are malign then we are all doomed. It seems to me that we like groupings of bad people and that we want to see ourselves as in the good group. I suppose all can see the flaw in this. The only people who will join the ‘bad’ group are people who don’t care. If only people who don’t care join the ‘bad’ group then maybe
the
group really is bad. How do we define when something becomes too large and
starts to decline in behaviour? Is it inevitable? These ques- tions have bedevilled capitalism for a long time. Some suggest that when an organisation goes beyond 150 employees then it starts to decline but it can’t be this simple and surely isn’t. It is true that a lot of organisations have ethical standards, but when you read some of the corporate sustainability reports, it be- comes clear that they are often produced to justify what has been done rather than to constrain destructive behaviour. If you look at people’s attitudes then the following is true: artisan small companies, crofters and small landowners are ‘good’, especially if community owned. Large corporations, estate owners and certain businesses are ‘bad’.
How do you know when you are stepping over the line? (Yes, I know, become a salmon farmer.) Is it noticeable to the management? It is easy to say it is when profit overtakes ethics but very hard to see it happen and stop it.
In Sutherland there is a ‘crofter’ I know who has subsumed under him a considerable number of crofts. Because of this he also has almost total exclusivity using common grazings in the area. Yet he is not regarded as a landowner but as an enterprising crofter. How does he know when he steps over the line? He is a good guy but he might not be. My concern to some extent is my own bigotry. I don’t like big business and the way it tries to justify its own actions, often aggressively. But here’s the rub for me. I wish the world was full of small companies all trying to produce the best for every consumer but it can’t be. Small com- panies can be badly run and can act uncaringly. The generalisation about big business being bad tends
66
www.fishfarmer-magazine.com ap“There pears to be
an automatic assumption
that with size comes malign force
”
to protect small business. The biggest challenge my bigotry faces is that we need big business to produce low cost, low price products. Somehow we need to ensure good ethics in big business but also to highlight those businesses which already have good ethics. Finally, let me make a rather obvious point. It is okay for the politicians to decide that a group of people are bad because they own stuff but let’s actually think about change before we do it.
Zimbabwe’s worst nightmare happened when they changed land ownership and people starved. That will not happen here but then we need our economy to be strong too. We need people who can run big business, be it land or company, and we need good healthy efficient production as well as the good, small, cud- dly businesses that I love. FF
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68