Um exemplo para o futuro?

Um exemplo para o futuro? "Olha o peixe fresquinho! DPD entra nas entregas dos frescos em Portugal"

Recordar:

• Pedofilia empresarial (continuação) (Julho de 2011)
• Alargar os horizontes (parte IV) (Julho de 2011)

Parece que o futuro já anda por cá, mal distribuído...

"MIT and Google could jointly craft two-year degrees in STEM. The myth/magic of campuses and geography is no longer a constraining factor—most programs will be hybrid soon, dramatically increasing enrollments among the best brands. MIT/Google could enroll a hundred thousand students at $25,000 per year in tuition (a bargain), yielding $5 billion for a two-year program that would have margins rivaling . . . MIT and Google. Bocconi/Apple, Carnegie Mellon/Amazon, UCLA/Netflix, University of Washington/Microsoft . . . you get the idea."

Em "Post Corona" Scott Galloway escreve sobre a revolução que ele vê no futuro das universidades. Entretanto, ontem ao ler o FT do passado Sábado encontro:

"Jack Ma’s elite business academy has been forced to suspend classes following pressure from Beijing as authorities tighten their chokehold on the Chinese tech billionaire’s empire.

Hupan University, an executive training programme reputedly as hard to get into as Harvard, halted classes for new students set to begin at the end of March, according to people close to the institution. It was unclear when they would resume.

...

Ma led a group of industrial and tech figures to set up Hupan in his home town of Hangzhou in 2015 with the aim of teaching entrepreneurship, business management and corporate culture to a select group of high achievers."

Parece que o futuro já anda por cá, mal distribuído... 

Cronyism

"Failure, and its consequences, is a necessary part of the system. Economic dislocation and crises have real costs, but they are also opportunities for renewal. Old relationships are severed, assets are freed up, and innovation demanded. A forest fire brings life as it destroys—so too, economic upheavals create light and air for innovation to flourish.

...

Once the government gets into the business of propping up the losers, you can predict who will be first in line for the handouts: the people with the most political power—corporations and rich people. It’s not just a matter of their lobbyists and their lawyers and their press flacks, though that’s a big leg up. There’s also something more insidious: cronyism.

...

Why “cronyism”? I write about tech executives, but I mostly refuse to meet with them. In part because I’m an introvert and don’t enjoy meeting new people. But also because intimacy is a function of contact. Often when I meet someone, I like them as a person, feel empathy for them, and find it harder to be objective about their actions. Most senior people at successful companies are very smart, involved in interesting work, privy to inside baseball, and got where they are in part because they are good with people. I’m sure if I met more of them, I’d like them. That’s why I don’t meet with them. As Malcom Gladwell points out, the people who did not meet Hitler got him right. Easy to be charmed, even by someone so macabre, when meeting in person."

Isto fez-me lembrar as portas giratórias entre a polítuca e as celuloses "Francisco Gomes da Silva é o novo diretor geral da CELPA"

Scott Galloway evita almoços e jantares com CEO’s para não se sentir influenciado nas suas decisões de investimento. Por cá, os CEO’s convidam os políticos seus funcionários.

Trechos retirados de "Post Corona" de Scott Galloway.

"a rare “outlier” phenomenon"

"At its core, the strategic management field asks two intertwined “big picture” questions about business: Why (or perhaps how) do some companies persistently earn substantial profit, while others do not? And what, if anything, can managers actually do about it? Basic economics teaches that, under price competition, profit is expected to trend toward zero, so in a competitive capitalist economy, any large sustained profit should be rare. In the big picture, this is certainly true: In the United States, over half of all new businesses fail within their first four years, [Moi ici: Recordar os números aqui] and even among businesses that do not fail outright, most operate at only a basic subsistence level—barely eking out enough profit to survive. Indeed, out of the 23 million U.S. businesses in 2002, only about 25% had achieved enough success to expand beyond the proprietors themselves and hire one or more employees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). And among the many millions of U.S. businesses that have existed over the past century, only a tiny fraction of a percent—just a few thousand—have ever succeeded enough to become publicly traded companies. Out of those, far fewer sustain large profits over an extended period of time. So, when we ask the question of why or how profit persists in a competitive capitalist economy, we are focused on a rare “outlier” phenomenon—a small number of companies that beat some rather long odds."

Imaginem o pensamento de um extorsor fiscal perante estas odds. 

Trecho retirado de "Invited Editorial: The Four Theories of Profit and Their Joint Effects"

O que hoje é verdade amanhã é mentira! E vice versa.

 Um eterno retorno. 

O que hoje é verdade amanhã é mentira! E vice versa. E os economistas que têm inveja da física... come on. Imagine the possibilities!!!

"If you want something done right, do it yourself. Johnson & Johnson put that adage into practice over the weekend, as it took over: supplier's factory that makes a key ingredient for its coronavirus vaccine. 

The American drugmaker said it was "assuming full responsibility" for the Baltimore plant and would be adding specialists in 'manufacturing, quality and technical operations". J&J had good reason to elbow aside Emergent BioSolutions. Workers had spoiled 15m doses of J&J's vaccine by accidentally mixing its ingredients with those for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.

The action comes at a time when other companies are also moving towards "vertical integration" to give them control over everything from raw materials to interaction with retail customers. Once dismissed as outdated, the strategy is getting a fresh look amid shortages of key parts and materials, and pressure on companies to act as good corporate citizens.

...

But doing everything in-house is capital intensive and requires wide-ranging expertise. More recently, global companies have sought cheaper raw materials and labour abroad, and relied on local partners. Cost-conscious executives saw advantages to outsourcing parts of the production process. Specialist suppliers developed efficiencies, orders could increase or shrunk on demand and, unlike employees, suppliers did not have to be paid immediately, effectively providing a form of short-term financing.

...

Pioneering companies often opt for vertical integration to give them a sustainable edge.

...

Now a squeeze on computer microchips, which has hobbled the car industry, and shortages of medical equipment and vaccine ingredients, have led other groups to rethink. Many are reconsidering supply chains that relied heavily on one country or region to reduce their vulnerability to shipping bottlenecks, geopolitics and disease.

Further pressure comes from activists and a new law in Germany that seeks to hold companies responsible for human rights and sustainability in their supply chains. Nike and H&M, among others, have been caught between western demands that they criticise forced labour in Xinjiang and Chinese boycotts over those statements.

Meanwhile, many companies are insisting on virtual integration, often relying on technology to share information about suppliers' work processes and inventories. This has led some companies to cut ties with suppliers who fail to provide the necessary transparency.

...

To make vertical integration work, companies should focus on areas with significant intellectual property where suppliers are hard to find. "The places where you have the most risk are capacity constrained for the whole market and not substitutable.

...

The advantages of tighter integration need to be weighed against the capital cost, the challenge of operating a different kind of company and the potential for legal trouble. This is particularly true when the supplier involved has other customers - and most do."

Trechos retirados de "J&J turns to DIY to solve vaccine woes" publicado no FT de quinta-feira passada.

Promotor da concorrência imperfeita, dos monopólios informais e das rendas pornográficas - sempre

Há anos que escrevo aqui sobre o truque alemão e a doença anglo-saxónica. Interessante apanhar isto em "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War". 

"The point of divergence between neoclassical economics and evolutionary economics can be traced back to pre- 19th Century philosophy. The Plato- Cusanus- Bruno- Leibniz- Wolff tradition has a dynamic world view emphasizing new knowledge and production— cast in the mode of ‘werden’, or becoming. The modern Anglo- American tradition is cast around the concept of ‘sein’— being. It emphasises a mechanical division of labour, and at its core we find the process of barter and exchange rather than production.[Moi ici: Interessante esta hipótese para a génese da diferença]

…

In the Plato- to- Wolff tradition, Man is different from animals because of his ability to think rationally according to principles, e.g. abstraction. Economics in this tradition becomes an optimistic science, because of Man’s seemingly unlimited capacity to invent. Economics in the English barter- centered tradition becomes a dismal science because, following up in Adam Smith’s metaphor, it is not clear why and how more dog bones, not to speak of canned dog food, would suddenly appear among a society of bartering dogs. The failure of neo-classical economics to incorporate technical change is deeply rooted in this tradition of seeing Man essentially as a bartering animal, and not as a creative and inventing one. Smith’s crucial insight on the ‘division of labour’, which in the end could not be attributable to barter alone, has not been incorporated into present mainstream economics. Mainstream economics focuses on ‘Man the Consumer’, whereas in the Wolff tradition focus is on ‘Man the Producer’.[Moi ici: Percebo agora o ponto de vista de Vera Gouveia Barros]

.

Another sign of Smith’s failure to see the importance of new ideas is his view that the rate of profit will have to fall. It is not well known that this idea, which was later to gain much prominence with Marx, actually originates with Adam Smith. In the absence of new ideas and inventions, the rate of profit will fall for three reasons, and it is not clear which of the three, or all, Smith refers to52. First, the rate of profit will fall because of a tendency towards a more perfect competition. Secondly, the rate of return on capital will fall because there will be more capital around, and more capital chasing the same number of investment opportunities will lead to a falling rate of profit. Thirdly, continuing progress would depend on a further division of labour. This Smith saw as tied to geographically expanding markets, which eventually will be saturated. Both Smith and Ricardo fail to understand that all these tendencies will be counteracted by a flow of new ideas and inventions which will both a) Increase the demand for capital in a growing economy, and b) Add new products which initially will be traded under conditions of temporary monopolies. This mechanism, whereby capitalists continuously have to seek new ideas and innovations in order to keep up the profit rate, is at the core of the Schumpeterian system. In this system, the fall of nations is accompanied by capital flight which starts when the national system fails to produce innovations.

…

In the English- based mainstream economics, under the assumption of perfect information, new learning is absent— or must be seen as ‘manna from heaven’. It is not clear that human will— in the form of inventions, business strategies, or economic policies— in any way can affect the size of the flow of manna. The connection between learning and welfare is here, at best, indirect through mechanical forces which are not consciously created. In neoclassical economics, all economic activities, for all practical purposes, tend to become ‘alike’. The world is populated by cloned ‘representative firms’, and government policy is supposed not to differentiate between firms or industries. In the Leibniz- Wolff cameralist tradition, as well as today’s evolutionary economics, the variety and uniqueness of human economic activities are central to the system. Canadian economist John Rae (1834) was the first to point out the connection between a society’s propensity to save and its propensity to invent: Savings were to Rae basically not a result of thrift, but of retained earnings from imperfect competition created by inventions and technical change."

 

Para reflexão

"We are likely entering into the mother of overdue global slowdowns. Every executive team needs to explore the limits of their comfort zone and imagine a business with 20% less revenue, that commands twice the value. There is only one path to a dramatic increase in stakeholder value in the face of flat/declining revenues: The rundle—my term for “a recurring revenue bundle.”

This was a strategic move before the pandemic—now it’s gangster. That revenue is substantially immune to short-term pandemic disruptions and can cover for softness in the core hardware businesses."

Trecho retirado de "Post Corona" de Scott Galloway.

Mais pureza estratégica, mais rentabilidade (parte II)

Parte I.

"Can You Be Both Cost Leader & Differentiator?

Not if you Want to be Great over Time

...

The Playing to Win strategy question that I probably get most often is: why can’t we be both a cost leader and a differentiator? 

...

I think I get the question as often as I do for two reasons. First is that in advising on strategy, I emphasize the need to choose and in general people don’t like to choose. People like more to keep options open rather than cut them off, which is one reason why most strategy isn’t strategy, it is planning. So, when I say one of the important strategy choices is to be either a cost leader or a differentiator, people tend react by challenging why they must choose.

...

 To be a cost leader, you have to configure yourself uniquely in order to achieve a cost position that is meaningfully lower than for any competitor. That is what leading means. You can’t be a ‘leader’ if you are in the middle of the pack. ... The value of a cost advantage is that you can use it to gain share. The cost advantage enables you to lower price below the level competitors can in order to gain share from them, which illustrates the problem with being stuck in the middle. You can’t protect yourself from the cost leader (or differentiator for that matter).

...

In the face of competition, it is unrealistic to be both because cost leadership and differentiation take very different disciplines. A cost leader will choose standardization and will sacrifice non-conforming customers in order to maintain its meaningfully lower costs. 

...

Differentiators will pursue deep, holistic understanding of customers so that they can build the next increment of value into their product or service. They are always innovating and building the unique value and strength of their brand. 

...

Don’t waste your time thinking about being both a cost leader and a differentiator. Think instead about to which of these different paths you will commit and how to achieve cost leadership or differentiation in the space you have chosen to compete."

"an accelerant of trends already well underway"

Dedicado ao meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras... já há muito que não temos nenhuma... 

""In crisis, there is opportunity." Galloway argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has not been a change agent so much as an accelerant of trends already well underway.[Moi ici: Recordar isto]

...

One of the industries that will struggle in the new normal will be higher education, an industry that may not be able to maintain a value proposition that makes sense in a decentralized and digital economy, where scale, speed, and personalization are the new relevant currencies. 

...

 "E-commerce began taking root in 2000. Since then, e-commerce's share of retail has grown approximately 1% every year. At the beginning of 2020, approximately 18% of retail was transacted via digital channels. Eight weeks after the pandemic reached the US (March to mid-April), that number leaped to 28%. We saw a decade of e-commerce growth in eight weeks,"

...

He also referenced home delivery of groceries accelerating by six years. Working from home accelerated by 10 years in 2020. He shared some negative trends due to the pandemic, including one out of two young adults between the ages of 18 to 30 now living with their parents. Another negative trend in the pandemic is that one in five households with children in the US is now food insecure. 

...

In Post Corona, Galloway writes that few industries sit closer to the ground zero of COVID-19 acceleration than higher education. Even before the pandemic, the $700 billion business was ripe for disruption. 

...

"The pandemic's most enduring feature will be as an accelerant of existing trends. The trend that encapsulates the greatest reshuffling of stakeholder value in recent history is … the Great Dispersion. Similar to prior macro trends like globalization and digitization, it offers enormous opportunity, but also real threats. Amazon dispersed retail to desktop, to mobile, to voice. Netflix dispersed DVDs to our mailbox, then to every screen. The pandemic is causing dispersion in even larger industries — the greatest opportunity for wealth creation in decades. Work from home, telemedicine, and remote learning represent an impending disruption of over 25% of the U.S. economy. The largest sectors are about to leapfrog HQ, doctor's offices, hospitals, and campuses."

Trechos retirados de "Professor Scott Galloway: The great dispersion and future of higher education" 

Sair da cepa torta

Este texto publicado no Correio da Manhã de ontem, "Portugal tem das empresas mais frágeis da Europa", suscita dois apontamentos.

Primeiro, a taxa de encerramento das empresas em Portugal ao fim de 5 anos:

"Esta fragilidade do mercado português, constituído sobretudo por micro e pequenas empresas, poderá ser avaliada ainda por um outro indicador: a taxa de sobrevivência das companhias.

Em Portugal, apenas 34% das empresas criadas em 2013 tinham conseguido aguentar-se de portas abertas ao fim de cinco anos.

A média comunitária estava fixada nos 45%. Pior do que Portugal só memo a Lituânia"

Mercados diferentes devem ter desempenhos diferentes e isso é normal.

BTW, um número que publiquei aqui no blogue em Maio de 2008: 

Nos Estados Unidos, 80% das empresas que arrancam a funcionar num ano, ao fim de 5 anos estão falidas! Ao fim de 10 anos 96% estão fechadas. 

Julgo preferível um sistema com baixas barreiras à entrada. Talvez por isso:

"Em 2018, Portugal tinha a segunda maior taxa de criação de empresas entre os 27 Estados-membros, de 16%."

Depois, quem tiver unhas que toque guitarra.

O segundo apontamento é, para mim, muito preocupante:

"88,1% do investimento realizado em 2017 em investigação e desenvalvimento, na indústria e construção nacionais, foi protagonizado por empresas com capital nacional. O resultado coloca Portugal na primeira posição quanto à origem interna do investimento."

Isto para mim é medonho...

Nestas últimas semanas tenho escrito sobre o exemplo irlandês e a importância do investimento directo estrangeiro para ultrapassar a impossibilidade dos "macacos voarem":

• Again - It's not the euro, stupid!
• Subir na escala de valor e calçar os sapatos do outro (parte II)
• Tamanho, produtividade e a receita irlandesa
• Os macacos não voam, trepam às árvores, um exemplo

Assim, é difícil sair da cepa torta.

Produtividade à moda antiga

Volto ao postal "A ratoeira" por causa desta figura:

As melhorias de produtividade são canalizadas para a competição pelo preço.

Volto a um postal escrito em Outubro de 2006 e já com todos os elementos que interessam para o truque alemão ou a doença anglo-saxónica.

Ontem tive a oportunidade de ler "U.S.’s Long Drought in Worker Productivity Could Be Ending" e não pude deixar de o associar à doença anglo-saxónica... a produtividade sobe porque se produz mais do mesmo com menos recursos. Bem longe do Evangelho do Valor. Parece que não fazem ideia de que o truque é subir na escala de valor:

"After a decadelong drought, worker productivity might be about to accelerate thanks to pandemic-induced technological adoption, which could lift economic growth and wages in coming years while staving off inflation pressure.

...

This is enabling companies to raise productivity, which is defined as output per hour worked. Stronger productivity growth is key to the economy’s long-term success. Economic growth depends on the number of workers and how much they produce. Without productivity growth, economic growth must rely on more workers, which might be hard to achieve since the workforce is aging and the pandemic pushed millions of Americans out of the labor force.

...

Higher productivity growth should also put more money into people’s pockets because wages are tied to how much workers produce. [Moi ici: Mais dinheiro para quem fica, é preciso não esquecer os que vão para o desemprego. Ver parágrafo seguinte e recordar porque é que o salário médio cresceu em Portugal no ano passado] That would enable companies to raise wages without raising prices, damping inflation pressure.

...

Last year it accelerated to 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2020 from the same period a year earlier, although that was because the coronavirus triggered steep job losses in lower-wage sectors that tend to be less productive.

...

A shift toward e-commerce should push up productivity by eliminating workers needed in bricks-and-mortar stores,"

Jesus ressuscitou!

 

"making the diversification process path-dependent."

"Economic growth is associated with the diversification of economic activities, which can be observed via the evolution of product export baskets. Exporting a new product is dependent on having, and acquiring, a specific set of capabilities, making the diversification process path-dependent. 

...

There is strong evidence that as countries experience economic growth, they change what they do and undergo structural transformation via diversification of their economic activities by increasing the number of industries that they have comparative advantage in. Emergence of a particular industry in a country depends on the availability of different combinations of capabilities, including various factors like capital, labour, and productive knowledge. From this viewpoint, countries grow as they acquire productive knowledge and/or capabilities, and learn to combine these complementary capabilities in order to move into new economic activities. Hence, industrialisation is mostly a pathdependent process, whereby the appearance of new industries and economic activities is conditional on having or acquiring the relevant capabilities and know-how.[Moi ici: Por isso é que os macacos não voam]

Drawing up an exhaustive list of capabilities and/or the productive knowledge required for industry is challenging. For instance, for a country to develop the fresh-cut flower industry, it requires capabilities, such as cold storage facilities, airports, irrigation systems, suitable climate, efficient customs, a good business environment as well as knowledge embedded in its farmers, botanic experts, engineers, logistic specialists, marketing professionals, bureaucrats and business executives to name but a few.

...

The arrow of development. Countries diversify into new products that are similar (in terms of required capabilities) to what they currently produce. 

...

If capability accumulation underlies the development process, we expect countries to move from less complex products towards sophisticated products over time. Hence, we expect diversification from low complexity to high complexity products as countries upgrade their complexity level."

Trechos retirados de "Productive Ecosystems and the arrow of development" 

A ratoeira

Imaginem um país em que a política tem como prioridade a distribuição em vez da criação de riqueza e, ao mesmo tempo, preso nesta ratoeira.

Aquele segundo passo: "Perfect International Competition, Reversible Wages, Productivity Increases Taken Out As Lowered Prices" é letal. A paranóia da concorrência perfeita e o jogo do gato e do rato. E não é porque um governo decide aumentar o salário mínimo que o ciclo vicioso se quebra, apenas serve para mandar mais gente para o desemprego porque as empresas fecham. Só a aposta na concorrência imperfeita serve de activador de uma nova realidade.

Recordar o Evangelho do Valor, o gráfico de Marn e Rosiello. Estar atento ao texto de Ricardo Reis na Caderno de Economia do Expresso desta semana, "O sucesso das empresas"... parece que finalmente viu a luz... quem terá sido o seu Ananias?

Sim, há a via do valor, a via da concorrência imperfeita, o truque alemão.

Imagens retiradas de "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War". 

Mais pureza estratégica, mais rentabilidade

Algo que divulgamos aqui quase desde o primeiro dia deste blogue e sumarizado num texto de 2008 com esta figura:

Mais pureza estratégica, mais rentabilidade.

"Firms have effectively used low-cost or focus strategies to improve their performance. Our study demonstrates that although firms pursuing either strategy individually can benefit, pursuing these two generic strategies of low-cost and focus simultaneously actually hurts firms’ profitability. In essence, we show that when firms pursuing a low-cost strategy already possess a cost efficiency advantage over their rivals for the full customer base, firms have nothing to gain by simultaneously limiting rivalry—through focusing on a smaller customer segment—and thus giving away revenue to rivals. Our insights regarding the combination of different generic strategies caution managers to not be misled by the performance gains of either low-cost and focus strategies individually, but to realize that these two in tandem actually may harm profitability.

...

In his seminal work that examined the nuances of the understudied combination of these two generic strategies—low-cost and focus—Makadok (2010) showed analytically how these mechanisms work to reduce firm profit. Consistent with prior work, we find that having either a high cost efficiency advantage (i.e. an effective low-cost strategy) or reducing rivalry through a high level of horizontal differentiation (i.e., an effective focus strategy) is more likely to increase a firm’s profit. In addition, our empirical analysis shows that combining these two strategies has a negative relationship with firm profit, supporting Makadok’s (2010) analytic models.  These findings emphasize the importance of looking beyond the most often discussed combination of firms pursuing simultaneously a low-cost (Generic Strategy 1) and a differentiation strategy (Generic Strategy 2), and that it is also ill-advised to simultaneously pursue a low-cost (Generic Strategy 1) and a focus strategy (Generic Strategy 3).

...

In conclusion, our empirical study strengthens the Strategy outlook that firms do best when pursuing one generic strategy. Indeed, our study complements the existing insight regarding the negative outcomes of pursuing both a low-cost strategy (Generic Strategy 1) and a differentiation strategy (Generic Strategy 2) by explicating the logical arguments and providing empirical support for the negative outcome of pursuing both a low-cost strategy (Generic Strategy 1) and a focus strategy (Generic Strategy 3)."

Trechos retirados de "Competing Both Ways: How Combining Porter’s Low-Cost and Focus Strategies Hurts Firm Performance" 

"the search for new knowledge which creates imperfect competition"

 Outro trecho sobre a concorrência imperfeita:

"In both Adam Smith and in neo - classical theory there is in some fundamental way a contradiction between the notion of perfect markets and the way the economy adds knowledge. This problem spills over to how economic theory today explains profits. There is no incentive to produce new knowledge in perfect markets – the possibility of appropriating the fruits of new knowledge is absent. By letting new knowledge enter the system like ‘‘manna from heaven’’, the very engine of growth – the search for new knowledge which creates imperfect competition – is excluded from mainstream theory. For this reason, an understanding of how different degrees of imperfect competition is caused by conditions of production is at the very core of any understanding of economic growth. Economic theory, however, does not have a relevant theory of production, and of the role of human knowledge in this process."

Trecho retirado de "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War". 

Para reflexão

Recomendo este texto de Seth Godin "No fooling":

"The first of April was a day when we were supposed to be aware that not everything was as it seemed, that we should be on our guard. And now, exhausting as it is, every day is like that.

I’m hopeful that our culture is resilient enough to get back to the truth.

Show your work. Earn attention and build trust. Every day.

Too much spin simply makes us dizzy."

Curiosidade do dia

Aquela altura da vida em que sentimos que deixamos o caminho feito por nós até aqui e iniciamos um novo ramo, um novo caminho.

Agora é a arte!

A leitura de "The Visionary Realism of German Economics: From the Thirty Years' War to the Cold War" é uma sucessão de surpresas boas. Depois da concorrência imperfeita, agora é a arte e os Muggles.

"The theoretical conflict between the forefathers of today’s mainstream economics and the forefathers of the alternative canon has existed since the 1622– 23 debate between Gerard De Malynes (Malynes, 1622, 1623) and Edward Misselden (Misselden, 1622, 1623), where Malynes represented a static theory rooted in barter and Misselden represented a theory centred on learning and production. In the history of economic thought, their debate is interpreted as being about exchange controls and the balance of trade. However, by going back to the sources, one finds that the main line of attack by Misselden against Malynes is his ‘‘mechanical’’ view of man – Malynes has left out Man’s ‘‘art’’ and ‘‘soul’’. Misselden quotes at length a paragraph from Malynes, where Malynes reduces trade to three elements, ‘‘namely, Commodities, Money, and Exchange’’. Objecting to this definition, Misselden says: ‘‘It is against Art to dispute with a man that denyeth the Principles of Art’’. Misselden scorns Malynes for not seeing the difference between a heap of stones and logs and a house – because Man’s productive powers produce the house but his soul has been left out. A similar criticism can be made of neo-classical economics.

Misselden represents the acute Renaissance awareness of the enormous territory to be covered between Mankind’s present poverty and ignorance, and the enormous potentials."

A vida é assim!

Este texto de Roger Martin, "The Shift from Pre-Competitive to Competitive" faz-me recuar à primeira metade da primeira década do século XXI na economia portuguesa.

Fez-me recuar às empresas, e foram tantas, e escrevi sobre elas por aqui ao longo dos anos, que não tinham actividade comercial, que se limitavam a "rezar" para que o cliente batesse à porta.

O Estado Novo criou uma cultura de não concorrência, ao estilo das farmácias, criando barreiras à entrada que protegiam os incumbentes. Estes, em vez de se digladiarem, estavam no mercado sem grande concorrência entre si. Por outro lado, as barreiras alfandegárias com taxas altas, bem como uma capacidade produtiva inferior à procura, asseguravam um mundo com poucos riscos para as empresas.

Já escrevi escrevi no passado várias vezes. Se considerarmos as empresas nacionais à altura da adesão à CEE, podemos identificar 3 grupos:

A adesão à CEE decapitou o topo do mercado, as empresas portuguesas que trabalhavam para o topo do mercado em Portugal não tinham qualquer hipótese de competir com as congéneres europeias. Já as empresas que trabalhavam para o mercado do preço tiveram o início do seu tempo de glória. Como escrevi aqui várias vezes, o desemprego chegou aos 3,9% - eramos a china da Europa antes de haver China. O Cavaco de 1985, para mim, morreu em Setembro de 1992, nesta noite. Quando digo morreu, digo perdeu a chama interiormente, percebeu a sério o que tinha.

Com os anos 90 começa a verificar-se o fenómeno da polarização dos mercados, e começa o declínio das empresas do meio-termo.

Com o novo século a China entra em jogo e mata o jogo das empresas que competiam pelo preço puro e duro em sectores transaccionáveis.

Entretanto, quem vive no estado acredita sempre em amanhãs que cantam.

Os outros, sabem que isto é como a savana africana:

"Em África, todas as manhãs, uma gazela acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que o leão, ser mais veloz ou será morta. Todas as manhãs, um leão acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que a gazela mais lenta, ou morrerá de fome. Não interessa se és um leão ou uma gazela. Quando o sol se levantar será bom que corras."

A vida é uma peça de teatro: O Rei Lear