The tipping-point in a free-enterprise system turning gold into lead

There is a tipping point in a “free enterprise” system, that is a bit like alchemy’s turning lead into gold, except in this case it is like turning gold into lead.

It is the point where a business makes a subtle change in its guiding principle. It is when the dominant business motive changes from making a fine product or service and expect to receive appropriate reward for the value added by the business, into the primary goal being to make the most profit, and the provided goods or services is mere leverage to get that money.

It is when the R&D department comes up with a variety of potential new products, and management decides which to pursue. There is a choice between a product that is better for the customer and a better value for the money, VS a product that will maximize the company’s profit but provides the customer with a lesser value product. When management has to choose the inferior product that makes the company more profit, that was the tipping point.

More broadly, when you have a nation peppered with such businesses, all choosing the inferior product so as to make more money, and they have business territory control so competition cannot do anything, then you have a nation of customers stuck with the inferior products and services, and less money in the bank. That means the people of that nation have to cope and accomplish life stuck with the poorer resources of what the nation built and services provided. It is a weaker nation, due to lesser capability of resources provided by their goods and services.

It is possible that sometimes this tipping point happens when the company’s investors make demands for more dividends, applying pressure on the management. Or it might happen when a company is making good money and products and is bought at a price that cannot be refused; then new management comes in, trained only to maximize profit and invest in business territory control rather than base sales on better products for the customer.

When the larger business system collaborates to prevent customers any options other than what provides the aggregate business system with the highest profits, the tipping point has locked itself into place.

Will the profit dollar continue to be more important than the customer

When a switch happens where business development guidance changes from that of providing products and services of benefit to people, to that of making decisions for future approaches to be controlled by the making of the most profit, could be the Achilles Heel of the Free Enterprise System. At that point, the American customer base changes from being a people benefiting by business products and services, to being a monetary resource base to be exploited by business similar to mining the earth for minerals. The nature of the products and services available to the American customer then also changes to that which extracts the most money from them, instead of that which provides them with the best value for the money. Virtual franchise of technology and business territory cinches down the enforceability of this unfortunate turn of events; sometimes even worsened by government agency support for its perpetuation, which sometimes can be reversed by public outrage via widespread petitions against such rulings. Why is it that "it is so difficult to see the forest, because the trees are in the way?" Possibly the grooves of mental processing have been worn deeper on the analytic side via conventional formal educational techniques, so that once we have gone from the overall full picture, to the detailed focus on some particular aspect, we get stuck there in the area of the limited aspect, the grooves are too deep to be easily climbed out of to again attain the full picture of life's needs and opportunities. Will the profit dollar continue to be more important than the people ... and as the people fade in life, so also fades the dollar, as is happening nowadays. (There was an old saying about throwing the baby out with the bathwater; apparently mostly forgotten nowadays.) Is it still possible to switch back to business development guidance being that of providing products and services of most benefit to people, even if not the most profitable? Are there any CEOs that can keep their jobs while doing that; are the investors aware of what they have invested in for their future?