Big isn't Beautiful

When I started choosing the Big 8 a friend asked me “Why are you picking on large corporations?”. The question amused me (David accused of “picking on” Goliath), but it does raise an important point.

What’s wrong with being big? Size shouldn’t matter. We all know it’s what you do that counts, right? But there are practical reasons why bigger isn’t better.

Get too big and it’s hard to see who you’re stepping on. The distances between decision makers and the people who their decisions effect has never been greater. I sympathise with any corporate employee who’s job it is to ensure ethical and environmental standards down the supply chain. As hard as they try, the pressure from the top to keep costs down is overwhelming. That pressure means real improvement is impossible and ensures that exploitation continues. Suppliers will just go to greater lengths to hide it.

So why do corporations get so big? It seems that most business people, economists and politicians believe that “growth is good”. Yet economic growth has done little for human happiness. It might be more accurate to say “growth is greed”. Growing means claiming a larger share of the world’s money and resources. Thus it is impossible for everyone to achieve continuous grow on a finite planet. There are winners and losers. Many of the big winners got there by being ruthless. The biggest losers are future generations that simply won’t have the resources that we currently enjoy.

An Animation

Here's a little something I knocked up to promote the website. Enjoy!