MBA Follies Revisited: The Public Still Can't Be Treated as a Labor Pool

This blurb continues from an earlier commentary (MBA Follies #1, Feb 6, 2009) on the folly of business modeling in ignoring the importance of the citizen and the power of the vote, aka the public-as-labor fallacy.

Recently, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich convincingly observethat corporate America appears rosier and seem to be coming out of the Recession, i.e., "business" trends are positive. But they also admit that the big picture, which inludes the good of the public, is not so rosy. Like other economists, they lament that classical Economics' modeling doesn't provide the language to deal with how the public is getting along nor the power behind this lag. This is a truly great weakness in these times because a democratic nation is not just a business. The public can't fired or let drift like a labor pool without putting both business and governments in peril.

Why? Because the public (unlike labor), doesn't just go away to another country or a vague "elsewhere". This is the weakness of classical economics - it ignores the public weal and most importantly, the public vote which is the game changer from management vs. labor to the nation's reason for existence, to further the interests of the citizen..their quality of life, happiness etc. At the end of the day, the vote determines whether the nation's insitutions, government and business, have earned their right to continue, i.e., have they adequately contributed to the national good, the "common weal".

The vote is not just countervailing power that brings public labor into par with business, The vote is the can't-be-ignored economic factor even though it can't be modeled. The vote can dethrone businesses with regulations, and price-profit-salary caps. This is real Stopping Power. The vote is the true reality of American affairs.

It is difficult to model the interests of the citizen because the public weal is not completely measurable, i.e., it can't easily be be quantified. Reich and Krugman hint at this notion, but even tho they are empathetic they are still students of classical economic models. Galbraith, Samuelson?
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