THE ONLY difference between the contractual employees and the owners of the big stores is that the latter has access to capital.
The only difference between the contractual employees and the placement agencies is that the latter has access to information.
The placement agencies are actually not creating any value added that should entitle them to their huge fees, because they are merely just brokering on the strength of the information that they have gained access to.
It is not in my place to run after the perpetuators of “contractualization”, because that is the job of the government. I figure that the time I would spend to run after them could better be spent in helping the workers so that they could gain access to both capital and information, two assets that are not too impossible for them to get hold of. Besides, this is a free country where free enterprise is supposed to flourish, so let us just leave the big stores to do their business, even if we have to compete with them if we have to.
Am I out of my mind when I say that we could compete with the big stores?
When I say “we”, I actually mean the workers who could possibly pool together their small capital in order to invest in big businesses. Maybe I am not really out of my mind, because this small capital actually exists among the workers, if they would only know how to put it aside for a good purpose.
I actually know that I am not out of my mind, because I also know that these workers and their family members are the same people who are now buying goods and services from these big stores.
Many years ago, one of the big stores offered a “credit line” to the consumer cooperatives, provided that they would back this up with a deposit that would correspond in value to their supposed “credit line”. We could presume for purposes of discussion that that department store was probably acting in good faith when it extended the offer, and that the cooperatives that took on the offer probably acted on good advice, at least at that time.
Going fast forward to the present times, many banks are now offering “credit cards” that are secured with an equivalent amount in deposits. We could just be talking about a play of words here, because what the banks are actually offering are “debit cards” and not “credit cards”.
Recently, a new twist has come to the play of words, because some of the banks are now issuing “cash cards” or “money cards” that are secured not by “deposits”, but by “loads” or “reloads” as the case may be.
Going back to the “credit line” that was offered by that department store to the cooperatives, it would appear that the former simply cooked the latter in their own lard, because the department store made it appear that they were lending money, but they were just actually lending back the money that was deposited to them by the cooperatives, who were then referred to as “borrowers” and “debtors”.
Looking back, this would give us the idea that if only these cooperatives could pool their money now as they did before, they could actually do what a department store could do.
I now remember the tale of the “Emperor’s new clothes”, wherein a child in his innocence was the one who “enlightened” everyone about the reality that the Emperor was actually naked. If we could only see now that the workers and their family members are actually the ones who are buying the goods and services from the big stores, we would realize that they are really “naked”, because we are the ones who are keeping them alive by giving them our capital.
I may not be an economist, but I understand well enough that big business in general and big stores in particular make money from the sales of goods and services that they are offering to the customers. Without the sales that are driven by the consumption of customers, these companies could not survive, therefore their corporate lives actually depend on the patronage of these customers.
Looking at it from the other side, it is also the patronage of members that keeps the consumer cooperatives alive. (To be continued/PN)
