A New Business Model

by Bob Smith

Capitalism or Communism, both is schemes that depend on a pyramid. Both are unworkable in the real world and both should be scrapped as soon as possible. I mean in the real world how many piles of lead can you mine from one location? How much oil can you extract from one field before the oil runs out? I know for sure that in Aug. of 1859 Edwin L. Drake drilled the first commercial oil well, which started the oil industry. Within a few years that first oil strike had pumped out. It was no longer commercially worth drilling for more or even in many cases pumping for more. So the young oil industry went searching for more, and this search was led by a man who was tarred and feathered and rode out of town on a rail for using goons to force people to sell their lease rights. That man was John D. Rockefeller, the picture of the robber baron. So he took his goons and his business to Texas and found more suckers to force into his Standard Oil.

What does that have to do with Capitol you ask? That was part of the problem, a big part of it. He started the trend away from capitol as a function of production of goods, and thought of merely as a function of growth. He was proud of his accomplishments even when they were pointed out to him. In one interview he was described as the richest man in the world and asked how much money would be enough. His answer should have scared everyone alive at the time. “Just a little more” was what he said. His methods and his thoughts became the model for business in the United States. The hiring of goon squads to take care of anyone who stood in the way of capitol became commonplace. This led to the beating and killing of union people by Henry Ford, as well as by mining companies. It led to buying of politicians to legalize this behavior. It led to whatever is good for General Motors is good for the United States. It led most of all to whatever business decides is good is the law and the hell with moral codes. It also led to the mistaken belief that growth itself was the be all and end all of everything. This attitude is still seen from the small rural towns to the United States itself. All planning and all political activity is driven by growth. Doesn’t matter who gets hurt or who profits from the growth, just the be all and end all is unlimited growth. However it doesn’t address the failures of various business models that could not or would not recognize the limits of the real world. How many company towns in Appalachia are either small or forgotten or no longer exist? How many thriving small business operations across the land have been forced out, bought out or bankrupted by those with more money? How many small stores in small towns that paid a living wage to their owners and workers have been forced out by Wal-Mart? How did Wal-Mart do it, by playing politics? Demanding and getting tax breaks that the local government was not willing to give to existing business.