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- Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 05:31:21 -0400
- Sender: "STATISTICAL CONSULTING" <STAT-L@MCGILL1.BITNET>
- From: Allan Reese <R.A.Reese@SEQ.HULL.AC.UK>
- Subject: Re: Commerce and accounting (Sermon continued)
- Lines: 57
-
- I have been sent details of 1 private and 1 corporate large-scale
- unqualified donors in recent times. Both are in the States where
- public donation has remained much more normal than in the UK
- (aka the Nanny State). I understand that such donations in the
- US are also tax-advantageous; calls to introduce similar incentives
- in this country have (as far as I know) been ignored by all governments.
- However, I'm not a tax expert. I just pay tax (too much).
-
- Linda Gorman pulls me up with the valid point that I seem to be
- anti-commerce.
-
- > There is also
- > a body of evidence which suggests that non-profit organizations use
- > more resources to accomplish the same tasks as for-profit organizations.
- > The principal reason for this is that no one has an incentive to
- > monitor costs in the non-profits. The notion that profits (money-grubbing)
- > are bad is naive, dangerous, and all too common among academics. After
- > all, we owe our comfortable academic lives to the unceasing efforts of the
- > money-grubbers.
-
- I agree, and had expressed myself badly. I wasn't railing against industry
- and commerce, but at a purely accountancy-based view of ALL activity, even
- those that can have no direct financial measure. The question of
- non-profit vs for-profit is of particular interest in this country, since
- we have a history of "nationalization" of moribund and decrepit general
- utility companies after WWII, then growing disillusion with "faceless
- bureaucrats" and inefficient management, and in the past decade a
- quasi-religious fervour to "privatize" all the same activities.
-
- (Personal views follow - not to be taken as definitive or slanderous!) The
- UK telephone system has changed dramatically since privatization and looks
- very commercial (i.e., they're reducing staff all the time). The water
- companies look a far more dubious case; what the public has seen is a
- scandal of increasing prices and rocketing executive salaries with little
- evidence of improvements in the basic business (water and sewage). The
- attitude of the companies is selfishly commercial and not to my mind
- conducive to running an essential and continuing public service.
-
- When it comes to education, I'm in two minds. I agree with Linda that
- there is insufficient accountability about how we have used resources.
- That stems from the attitude that it is "macho" to make management
- decisions to spend large sums of money or "initiate projects", less macho
- to rake back over the ashes - and often embarrassing. This hits at all
- levels. In my own area I know that a lot of talk goes on before
- hardware/software is bought but no one wants to ask twelve months later
- how well it has been used. On the other hand, I'm deeply distrustful of
- the suggestion that we must teach the students "what they want". If we
- believe in education and truth (sounds pretentious but I sometimes do), we
- often have to push students to do things they don't want/don't
- understand/don't have confidence in themselves to do.
-
- --
- (R.) Allan Reese Janet: r.a.reese@uk.ac.hull
- Head of Applications Direct voice: +44 482 465296
- Computer Centre Voice messages: +44 482 465685
- Hull University Fax: +44 482 466441
- Hull HU6 7RX, U.K.
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