cc: Customer Capitalism!

With so much talk going on about how to save capitalism from the global economic crisis, I like to use radical thinking and toy with totally unheard-of thoughts in my mind.

Here's a recent one that's been toying my head.

We know of shareholder capitalism. Shareholders buy stocks and own a company. Shareholders make a profit (or loss) when they sell the stock or when the company pays dividends out of profits.

Now how about this. Imagine for a moment there are no shareholders and no stocks to buy in a publicly listed, publicly owned company. The company is owned by the founders but the rules are that dividends are not exclusively paid to the owners. After the company's profit is taxed and some money is invested in the business and a portion of it retained by the owners, dividends are paid back to the customers that bought the services and/or products of the company.

In other words, only customers who bought the products/services of the company and are the source of the company's profit get to receive the dividends. Every receipt for purchase of goods and services essentially functions as 'stock'. It entitles the customer that holds it to a portion of the dividends the company normally pays out. The individual portion each customer gets is equal to the percentage of his purchase amount over total sales.

A customer who buys a product and is entitled to a portion of the company's profit will tend to be a loyal customer. He gets a stake in the company and its products because he can make money from it. This incentive will keep him busy consuming because he will get some money back from doing so.

At a time where the global economy and certainly the US economy could be plunging into a deflationary spiral where prices go down with no bottom in sight we need people to consume and buy to help us get out of it.

Customer capitalism in the sense I described it above could be a smart trick to use to get everyone buying again.

Of course the system I just described is a thought exercise, a brain game if you like. I find it very exciting and stimulating to imagine how the economy would function if certain rules are changed.

If you also share a similar passion, I look forward to reading your comments thoughts and reaction on this. Thanks!

http://www.thinkaloo.com

The defeat (?) of American-style capitalism

Nobel prize economists are saying that this economic crisis will eventually pass but a big loser will be support for American-style capitalism. Does this mean that if the crisis happened during the Cold War the Soviet Union would have been the winner now? That's scary, isn't it? I'm curious to see what most people believe could have happened. If this crisis took place during the Cold War, do you believe that...

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The equal distribution of happiness

I empathize with the sense of fairness that propels people to desire a more equal distribution of wealth and resources. Should we all get the same pay and privileges? Sure.

But then, why shouldn't we all get the same love and respect, the same health and happiness, the same cute little butt and big boobs? Why don't we desire more of that as well? To be equally loved and appreciated. Why does life have to be such a capitalist bitch if its goal is to teach us 'communistically' that finding meaning in life is common to all, yet it should be defined individually?

http://www.thinkaloo.com

Blame US Communism!

Everyone wants to convince us that capitalism failed but I beg to differ. It was Communism that failed and true Capitalism that will be restored after the crisis is over.

Not many people realize that unregulated markets where everyone can buy the equivalent to their income of a $700,000 house they can't afford is a communist thing. Soviet Union communism wanted to make everyone equally poor. The recent version of communism we experienced in the US and elsewhere wanted to make everyone equally rich. The Soviet Union collapse exposed the fallacy of the former and the current economic crisis the fallacy of the latter.

Not everyone is equal and not everyone can live equally the same, whether it's rich or poor. Unregulated markets were, therefore, a neo-liberal marxist tool to introduce unsustainable communism in an otherwise perfectly functioning capitalist system.

Communist subversives are now discredited and time has come to go back to true capitalism where everyone can live according to their means and true worth. I wonder why people can't see it was the greed of communism that failed and not the greed of capitalism. Capitalism would never aspire to make everyone equally rich or poor! Why don't people see that? :)

http://www.thinkaloo.com