Thing t8 T9I
-such as the provision of worker training. In the end, what
Thing 18
'what
is good for General Motors is nor
necessarily good for the United States
What they tell you
At the heart of the capitalist system is the corporare secor. This
is where things are produced, jobs created and new technologies
invented. Without a vibrant corporate sector, there is no economic
dynamism. 'What is good for business, therefore, is good for the
national economy. Especially given the increasing international
competition in a globalizingworld, countries that make opening
and running businesses difiicult or make firms do unwanted things
will lose investrnent andjobs, eventually falling behind. Govern-
ment needs to give the maximum degree of freedom to business.
What they don't tell you
Despite the importance of the corporate sector, allowing firrns
the maximum degree of freedom may not even be good for the
firms themselves, let alone the national economy. In fact, not all
regulations are bad for business. Sometimes, it is in the long-run
interest of the business sector to restrict the freedom of indi-
vidual firms so that they do not destroy the common pool of
resources that all of them need, such as natural resources or the
labour force. Regulations can also help businesses by making
them do things that rnay be costly to them individually in the
short run but raise their collective productivity in the long run
marters is nor the quantity but the quality of business regulation.
How Detroit won the war
They say rhat Detroit won the Second'World'War. Yes, the Soviet
I-Jnion sacrificed the most people - the estimated death toll in the
'War
Great Patriotic (as it is known in Russia) was uPward of z5
million , half of all deaths worldwide. But it - and, of course,
nearby
the UK - would not have survived the Nazi offensive without the
arms senr over from what Franklin Roosevelt called 'the arsenal of
democ racy' ,that is, the United States. And most of those arms were
made in the converted factories of the Detroit capmakers - General
Motors (GM), Ford and Chrysler. So, without the industrial might
of the LIS, represented by Detroit, the Nazis would have taken over
Europe and at least the western part of the Soviet union.
'What
Of course, history is never straightforward. made the
early success of Nazi Germany in the war possible was the ability
of its arrr:ry ro move quickly - its famous Blitzkrieg, or Lightnitg
Wbr. And what made that high mobility of the German arrrry
possible was its high degree of motortzatron, many technologies
for which were supplied by none other than GM (through its
Opel subsidrary,acquired in rg2g). Moreover, evidence is emerg-
irg that,in defiance of the law, throughout the war GM secretly
mainrained its link with Opel, which built not only military cars
but arrcraft, landmines and torpedoes. So it seems that GM was
arming both sides and profiting from it.
Even among the Detro it carmakers - collectively known as
the Big Three - GM by then stood pre-eminent. Under the leader-
ship of Alfred Slo anJr,who ranit for thirty-five years (rg"l-58),
GM had overtaken Ford as the largest US car-maker by the late
r92os and gone on to become the all-American automobile
rg2 zj Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism
company, producing, in Sloan's words ,'a car for every purse and
purpose', arranged along a 'ladder of success', starting with Chev-
rolet, moving up through Pontuac, Oldsmobile, Buick and finally
culminating in Cadillac.
.War,
By the end of the Second World GM was not just the
biggest car-maker in the US, it had become the biggest comp any
in the country (in terms of revenue). It was important that,
so
when asked in the Congressional hearirg for his appointment as
US Defense Secretary in rgfi whether he saw any potential
confict between his corporate background and his public duties,
Mr Charlie'Wilsoo, who used to be the CEO of General Motors,
famously replied that what is good for the United States is good
for General Motors and vice versa.
The logic behind this argument seems difiicult to dispute. In
a caprtalist econoffiy, private sector companies pl^y the central
role in creating wealth, jobs and tax revenue. If they do well, the
whole economy does well by extension. Especially when
the enterprise in question is one of the largest and technologically
most dynamic enterprises, like GM in the rgjos, its success or
otherwise has signifi cant effects on the rest of the economy - the
supplier firms, the employees of those firms, the producers of
goods that the giant firm's employees, who can number in the
hundreds of thousands , ffiiy bry, and so on. Therefore, how
these giant firms do is particularly important for the prosperrty
of the national economy.
Unfortunately, proponents of this logic sx1', this obvious argu-
ment was not widely accepted durirg much of the twentieth
century. One can understand *hy communist regimes were
against the private sector - after all, they believed that private
property was the source of all the evils of capitalism. However,
between the Great Depression and the r97os, private business was
viewed with suspicion even in most capitalist economies.
Businesses were, so the story goes, seen as anti-social agents
Thing t8 r93
whose profit-seeking needed to be restrained for other, suPpos-
edly lofti.r, goals, such as justice, social harmony, protection of
the weak and even national glory. As a result, complicated and
cumbersome sysrems of licensing were introduced in the belief
that governments need ro regulate which firms do what in the
interest of wider society. In some countries, governments even
pushed firms into unwanted businesses in the name of national
J..r.lopmenr (tt, Things 7 and n).Largefirms were banned from
enrering those segments of the market populated by small farms,
factortes and retail shops, in order to preserve the traditional way
of life and protect 'small men' against big business. Onerous
labour regulations were introduced in the name of protecting
worker rights. In many countries, consumer rights were extended
to such a degree that it hurt business.
These regulations, pro-business conrmentators argue, not only
harmed the large firms but made everyone else worse off by reduc-
irg the overall size of the pie to be shared out. By limiting the
ability of firms ro experiment with new ways of doing business and
enter new areas, these regulations slowed down the growth of over-
all productivity. In the end, however, the f"lly of this anti-business
1og1. became too obvious, the argument goes. As a result, since the
r97os, countries from all around the world have come to accept that
what is good for business is good for the national economy and have
adopted a pro-business policy stance. Even comrnunist countries
have given up their attempts to stifle the private sector since the
r99os. Need we ponder upon this issue more?
^ny
How the mighty hasfallen
-W'ilson's
Five decades after Mr remark, in the summer of 2oog,
GM wenr bankrupr. Notwithstanding its well-known aversion to
state ownership, the US government took over the comPany and,
 rg4 4 Things They Don't nu you about capitarism
Thing 6 r9J
aftet an extensive restructuring,
launched it as a new entity. In
process, ir spenr a staggering
the smaller foreign comPetitors (such as Saab of
$s2.6 biilion of taxpayers, money. Sweden and Daewoo
It may be argued thatthe rescue was of Korea), but these were nowhere near enough to revive
in the American national the
interest' Letting a cornpany of comPany's former technological superiority.
GM's size and inter-linkages In other words, in
collapse suddenly would have the last four decades, GM has tried .rr.ryrhing
had huge negative ripple effecrs to halt its decline
jobs and demand (..g. fallin on except making better cars because trying to make
, consumer demand fror' unernployed better cars itself
GM workers' evaporation of GM's was, well, too much trouble.
dernand for products from its
supplier firrns), aggravating the obviously, all these decisions may have been best from
financial crisis that was unfoldirg GM,s
in the country x the time. The point of view at the time when they were made afterall,
us government chose the lesser
allowed the company to survive for afew more
- they
of the two evils, on beh alf of the
,^ip^yns. 'whar was good for decades with the
GM was still good for the United least efllort - but they have notbeen good for
st"t.r, it maybe argued, even the resr of the united
though it was nor a very good States' The huge bill that American taxpayers
thing in absolute terrns. have been landed
Frowever' that does not rnean with through the rescue package is the ,rlii-"te proof
thri we should not question how of that,but
GM got into thatsituation in the along the waf ,the rest of the US could have done
first place. 'when facedwith stiff befter, had GM
comPetition frorn irnports from been forced to invest in the technologies and
G.rma ny, Japan and then Korea machines needed to
from the r96os, GM did not respond build berter cars, instead of lobbying for prorecion,
in the rnosr naru ral, if,Cifficult, buying up
way it should have smaller competitors and turning itself into a ftnancial
-produ.ing befter cars than those of its company.
cornper- More importantly,all those actions that have enabled
itors. Instead, it tried to take the GM ro ger
easy way out.
First' it blamed 'dumping' andoih., out of difficulties with the least effort have ultimately
unfair trad,e practices by nor been
its competitors and got the us good even for GM itself- unless you equare GM
with irs managers
governmenr to impose import
quotas on foreign, esp_eci aily and a constantly changing group of sh"reholders.
These managers
Japanese, cars and force open
cornpetitors' horne rnarkets. In drew absurdly high salarier by deliverirg higher
th. r99os, when these measures profits by not
proved insufficient to halt its decline, investing for productivity growth while sque r"rngother
it had tried to make up for weaker
'stakeholders'- their workers, supplier
its failings in car-rnaking by
developing its financial arm,GMAc fir-, and th. employees of
(General Motors Acceptance those firms- They bought the r.qui.scence
corporation). GMA. rnoved of shareholde* U, offer-
beyond its traditional fun.rion itg them dividends and share buybacks to such an exrenr
of fir"r.irg carpurchases and that the
started conducting financial transactions company's future wasjeo pardized" The shareholders
for their own sake. did nor mind,
GMAC itself proved quite successful - in 2oo4,for exarnple,
and indeed many of them encouraged such
practices, because most
8o per cenr of GM's profit carne frorn of them were floating shareholders who *.r. not really
GMA c (see Thing 22).1 But concerned
that could not really hide the with the long-term future of the company because th.y
fundarnental problern that could leave
cornpany could not rnake good - the at amoment's notice (see Thing z).
cars at competitive prices.
the sarne tirne, the cornpany
Around The story of GM teaches us some salutary lessons
tried to ,horr.ur the about the
irg in the developrnent of better technorogies need for invest- potential conficts between corporate and national
interests -
by buying up what is g..rl ftrr a com pany, ho-.rrer irnportant
it rnay be, may

I

rg6 4 Things They Don't TeIl You about Capitalism
not be good for the country. Moreover, it highlights the conficts
between different stakeholders that make up the firm - what is
good for some stakeholders of acompany, such as managers and
short-term shareholders , r'rray not be good for others, such as
workers and suppliers. Ultimately, it also tells us rhat what is
good for a comp any in the short run may not even be good for
it in the long run - what is good for GM today nray nor be good
for GM tomorrow.
Now, some rcaders, even ones who were akeady persuaded
by this argument, rnay sdll wonder whether the US is just an
exception that proves the rule. Under-regulation nray be a prob-
lem for the US, but in most other countries, isn't the problem
over-regulation?
2gg permits
In the early r99os, the Hong Kong-based English-language busi-
ness rnagazine, Far Eastern Economic Reuiew, tan a special issue on
South Korea. In one article the rnagazine expressed puzzlement
at the fact thaq even though it needed up to zggpermits from up
to ryg agencies to open a factory in the countr/, South Korea
had grown at over 6 per cent in per capttaterms for the previous
three decades. Ffow was this possible? How can a coun try with
such an oppressive regulatory regime grow so fast?
Before trying to make sense of this puzzle, f must point out
that it was not just Korea before the r99os in which seemingly
onerous reguladons coexisted with a vibrant economy. The situ-
ation was similar inJapan and Taiwan throughout their 'miracle'
years between the rgios and the r98os. The Chinese economy has
been heavily regulated in a similar manner during the last three
decades of rapid growth. In contrast, over the last three decades,
many developing countries in Latin Ameri ca and Sub-S aharan
Thing t8 197
Africa have de-regulated their economies in the hope that it would
stimulate business activities and accelerate their growth. However,
puzzlingly, since the r98os, they have grown far more slowly than
i1 th. r96os and 7os, when they were supposedly held back by
excessive regulations (see Things 7 and 11).
The first explanarion for the puzzle is that, strange as it may
seem to most people without business experience, businesspeople
will get zggpermits (with some circumvented along the way with
bribes, if the y canger away with it), if there is enough money to
be made at the end of the process. So, in a country that is grow-
irg fast and where good business opportunities are cropping up
all the rime, even the hassle of acquiring 2gg permits would not
deter business peopl. from opening a new line of business. In
conrrast, if there is little money to be made at the end of the
process, even twenty-nine permits may look too onerous.
More importantly, the reason *hy some countries that have
heavily regulated business have done economically well is that
many regulations are actually good for business.
Sometimes regulations help business by limiting the abfity of
firms ro eng agein activities that bring them greater profits in the
short run but ultimat.ly destroy the comrnon resource that all
business firms need. For example, regulating the intensity of {ish
farmtng may reduce the profits of individual fish farms but help
the fish-farming industry as a whole by preserving the quality of
water that all the fish farms have to use. For another example, it
1y1ay be in the inrerest of individual firms to employ children
and
lower their wage bills. F{owever, a widespread use of child labour
will lower the quality of the labour force in the longer run by
srunring rhe physical and mental development of children. In such
a case,child labour regulation c nacrually bene{it the entire busi-
ness sector in the long run. For yet another examPl., individual
banks rrrary benefit from lending mor e aggressively. But when all
of them do the same, they may all suffer in the end, as such lending
rg8 4 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism
behaviours may increase the chance of systemic collapse, as we have
seen in the zoo8 global financial crisis. Restricting what banks can
do, then, rrray acffally help them in the long run, even if it does
not immediately benefit them brc Thing 22).
It is notjust thar- regulation canhelp firms by preventing them
from undermining the basis of their long-term sustainability.
Sometimes, reguladons can help businesses by forcing firms to do
things that rrray not be in their individual interests but raise their
collective productivity in the long run. For example, firms often
do not invest enough in training their workers. This is because
they are worried about their workers being poached by other firms
'free-riding' on their training efforts. In such a situation, the
government impositg a requirement for worker trainirg on all
firms could actually raise the quality of the labour force, thereby
ultimately benefiting all firms. For another example, in a develop-
itg country that, needs to import technologies from abroad, the
government can help business achieve higher productivity in
the long run by banning the importation of overly obsolete foreign
technologies that may enable their importers to undermine compet-
itors in the short run but will lock them into dead-end technologies.
Karl Marx described the government restriction of business
freedom for the sake of the collective interest of the capLtalist
class as it acttngas 'the executive committee of the bourgeoisie'.
But you don't need to be a Marxist to see that regulations restrict-
itg freedom for individual firms trLay promote the collective
interest of the entire business sector, not to speak of the nation
as a whole. In other words, there are many regulations that are
pro- rather than anti-business. Many regulations help preserve
the common-pool resources that all firms share, while others help
business by making firms do things that raise their collective
productivity in the long run. Only when we rec ognrze this will
we be able to see that what matters is not the absolute amount
of regulation, but the aims and contents of those reguladons.
Thing rg
Despite the faII of communism,
we are still triving in planned economies
What they tell you
The limits of economic planning have been resoundingly demon-
strated by the fall of communism. In complex modern economies,
planning is neither possible nor desirable. Only decentruhzed
decisions through the market mechanism, based on individuals
and {irms being always on the lookout for a profitable opPortu-
-We
nity, arc capable of sustaining a complex modern economy.
should do away with the delusion that we can plan anything in
this complex and ever-changing world. The less planning there
is, the better.
What they don't tell you
Capitalist economies are in larg e part planned. Governments in
capitalist economies practise planning too, albeit on a more
limited basis than under communist central plannitg. A11 of them
finance a significant share of investment in R&D and infrastruc-
rure. Most of them plart a signi{icarrt chunk of the economy
through the planning of the activities of state-owned enterprises.
Many capltalist governments plan the future shape of mdividual
industrial sectors through sectoral industrial policy or even that
of the national economy through indicative planning. More
importantly, modern capitalist economies are llrrade up of large,
f'ffir'!trrsnffir.