Mary Malmros typed
(Oci-One Kanubi) writes:
What else has changed? I used to think of the Nantahala Outdoor
Center as the paddlers' Mecca. Now I think of it as Walmart On the
River, though many of the employess still are kind and generous
boaters who are helpful to any boater of any skill level. But how
'bout the acquisition of Dagger and Perception by Watermark? Dagger
and NOC were founded as labors of love by boaters. Now NOC seems to
me to be an unfeeling profit-driven enterprise, and Dagger, founded as
a canoe maker, has stopped making open canoes. I don't think they
LOST money on open-boat manufacture; the profit margin was just not
enough for them. Meanwhile, over at Perception, the real boaters have
bailed out and started Liquid Logic.
Let's be honest, Richard. ANY business is a profit-driven
enterprise. It has to make some profit in order to survive. If
pursuit of profit per se makes a company soulless, then a lot of us
are going to hell.
Let's be more honest, Mary. Small cottage industries that are founded
for love of the product can persist indefinitely providing their
founders with a marginal profit. Large businesses that care nothing
for the product and the customers can persist only so long as they
show their stockholders a competitive return on investment.
The founders of Dagger, and many of the employees, were probably
pretty well content to make a middle-class living, and were willing to
make canoes which brought them a 4%[1] return as well as kayaks that
brought a 11.5%[1] return, because they loved making canoes and loved
having some of the best canoes on the market. Then Watermark offered
big bucks to buy them out. I don't blame the owners for selling, but
I am sorry they did. Now that Watermark has to answer to offshore
investors, they had to cut the 4%[1] products from their inventory,
because those investors just don't care; they have no personal pride
invested in the production of a good whitewater canoe.
Yes, pursuit of profit for pure profit's sake DOES make a company
soulless, and a lot of us ARE going to hell. It is the need to show
shareholders a short-term profit that has so many American companies
turning out shoddy products and making bad business decisions, cooking
the books, shutting down less-profitable but still-viable divisions,
buying a President to avoid environmental regulation and taxes, and
all the corporate malfeasance that yer reading about in yer morning
paper. Profit is necessary in a capitalist system[2], and capitalism
is important -- possibly necessary -- as a strategy for getting the
most creativity and effort from people. But profit tied to
pride-in-workmanship or pride-in-product has far more social value
than pure profit for its own sake.
[1] I'm just making these numbers up; the only thing I know for sure
is that the margin on kayaks is greater than the margin on canoes.
[2] It is arguable whether we are the wealthiest nation in the world
as a result of barely-fettered capitalism, or as a result of the
coincidental juxtaposition, several hundred years ago, of a literate
near-industrial population with a vast array of thitherto unexploited
resources.
-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
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Richard Hopley, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net 1-301-775-0471
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu 1-336-713-5077
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters.
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