Converting a small country into a big corporation

[Wael Attili]

I always have this crazy idea which is what if we run this country like a big corporation?

We take same principles, same structure and same values that runs big corporations in the world and convert it into some sort of ideology to adopt!!!

We will have board of directors, administration and citizens become employees..

Other countries can be investors.. and other people of the world are our clients..

Imagine that??

One big company :)

But what do you think our business model would be?

[Yusuf Mansur]

Dear Wael;

Democracies are never run like business corporations. The reason: in a democracy, rulers have to listen to all the voices which menas taht their decision criteria will not be objective but subjective. Any attempt to make the country seem like a corporation will denegrate democracy and the dictator/corporate director would come to believe that only she knows what is best for a country, which of course is not true.

What do you think?

[Mohammed]

Even in democratic countries, the ruler might decide to ignore what his people want. This was the case with Bush, Blair, Berlusconi , and José María Aznar during the gulf war.

[Wael Attili]

Just few questions I had in my mind

- Why do we need democracy if we can make everyone rich and happy?

- Is democracy the only way to express freedom?

- Does the concept of corporation means dictation? or is more like the best people with efforts and usefulness dominates ..

- Don't you think if we have a corporation process we will be much more pragmatics and objective in our discussions.

- Is it better to be ruled by experts or ruled by a group opinion which might be miss leading..

- If the dictator/corporate director failed and did not bring money and success to company, the board of directors will kike here out of the company and bring new management..


what do you think :)

[Yusuf Mansur]

The economic development literature supports two diverse views. Some economists argue, citing the examples of Singapore and China, that people can become wealthy without democracy. The Gulf States is another case in hand. I am an advocate of the other School that stresses the following: for development to occur there must be democracy; otherwise, how would we be able to share in the fruits and gains that arise from economic growth.

There is ample evidence that in non-democratic countries, growth leads to greater dispersion or a widening gap between rich and poor (rich getting richer and the poor poorer), and usually the growth becomes unsustainable, which defeats the very purpose for growth.

Furthermore, it is widely accepted that development means: sustainable growth; i.e., development occurs when growth occurs over an extended period of time, not simply spurts of growth.

What do you think?

[Nadine Toukan]

Yusuf, this "economic development literature" you refer to - someone wrote it at some point. I wonder if we are able to rewrite/customize our own. Something that works for us given the present we realize, the past we've learned from, and the future we desire.

I wonder if we have the capacity to do it, and if we've got the guts to try. Sometimes it just seems people give in to some rule book, remain miserable and resist stepping out to look around, then say 'well that doesn't work for us/me, let's explore what could'.

What do you think?

[Yusuf Mansur]

Actually we have and so did many other countries. In this issue there is no rule book and no agreement as I said before. One thing that learning from the experience of thers provides is not having to reinvent the wheel. I ahve also argued that tehre is alot of learning from inventing the wheel.

Any ideas?

So Wael, my apologies: I am not a sophisticated economist, and don't intend to sound like that.

[Wael Attili]

Well i believe you have a great knowledge and experience in economy that everyone should learn from.. and I am privileged to have such a discussion like this..

[Wael Attili]

By the way I believe that we should not re-inventing the wheel.. But I believe sometime we can redefine the wheel :)

[Nadine Toukan]

Yusuf, the wheel was invented when? And how long did it take us to put wheels on luggage?

I'm more interested in new uses for the wheel, than reinventing it.

I often get the sense that we in Jordan don't build on each other's knowledge/experience/results enough. There's this perpetual zeroing out and starting from scratch is so many situations. We don't do near enough with المعرفة والخبرة التراكمية

What comes to mind is the need for case studies - both public sector and private. Details of experiences. Evaluations and lessons learned. Made available, used in education and professional capacity building. There are so many case studies we have access to from others around the world, and so little of our own, although we have some incredible success stories, and of course some absolute disasters. This is a wealth of knowledge that must be out there in some form to enable us to build upon the good of the past, avoid making the same mistakes over and over, and empower those who choose to build onwards from where others left off.

At the end of the day, it's about documenting, sharing stories, being generous with information and knowledge. Once that happens, we can pretty much reinvent anything that may work for us.

[Wael Attili]

Well Nadine; I don't know why it came to my mind when I read your reply the Blue Ocean strategy..

When I address this idea of running a country like a company.. will I did not know that I was taking a blue ocean methodology and trying to apply it to the concept of ruling...

I remember an example of very successful gym business where they came up with a whole new model and experience by comparing between excising at home and excising normal gyms..

Therefore I believe we can come up with a whole new model if compare between Company management and country ruling..

Interesting, don't you think so?

[Mohanned]

Also, the goal of any corporation is profit. Even if what you mean is efficiency, there are some situations where efficiency is not the best solution when you take goals other than profit such as social stability and social welfare.

I also hear you saying that in this new "corporation" only the "useful" and the "best" dominate!!First, the word dominate is not the right choice of words. Second, you are on the path of pure class racism which puts you on a path similar to what hitler put germany on.Third, humans are not robots, even if they sometimes act like them.

"We will have board of directors, administration and citizens become employees.."
This simple statement brings together the worst of communism with the worst of capitalism!!

[Wael Attili]

I think that democracy can be implemented in many forms.. and I believe it must be adjusted and modified according the culture, believes and mentalities of each society and be imposed like the US or Europe version.. therefore I tend to agree with Nadine that we need to create something special and customized for us..

When I suggested the company idea I did not mean to ignore democracy, we can simply enhance the concept of the company and democracy to it :)

Mohanned; I am sure you understood my word in the negative form of it.. Well i might not be a sophisticated economist or political expert and indeed my vocabulary sometimes do not help me.. but I wanted to open my imagination for a new way and possibilities to run a country.. "also I am not saying that what we have is not good" I just want to come up with ideas for something never been done by any other country.. and as i said it at the beginning it might be a crazy idea.. Just for the fun of it.

It just hurts me to see how much successful stories we have in business, but on a country level we still have miles ad miles and its all jammed because of bureaucracy and other stuff..etc.

but anyway I might be wrong, I know that the issue is much more complicated than it looks

Come on guy's open a little door for crazy people like me to say crazy stuff :)