Downsizing And Cancer

Have you ever considered that American companies that leave this country and go set up shop elsewhere such as Mexico or Singapore, in order to obtain cheaper labor are a lot like cancer?
There really are several parallels between the two.
The most obvious is the dread and fear we have of both. Just like when cancer strikes, when a person is faced with losing their job due to downsizing and or because their company decides to stop producing products here in favor of production over seas, the employee is faced with the uncertainty of how they will survive. How will they pay their bills and keep their family fed? They wonder what their chances are, especially if they are older, of finding employment with the same level of pay they have been used to. Many facing unemployment in this manner have even required counseling and medications due to the anxiety it causes.
Another similarity between a diagnosis of cancer and this type of job loss is the anger. After fear and disbelief have run their course, anger begins to take their place. The cancer victim wonders why he or she has been dealt this blow? Perhaps they have never smoked a day in their life. They don’t drink excessive alcohol and try to watch their diet and exercise. But, despite all their efforts, their body has decided to turn against itself and produce and reproduce rouge cells to overtake the good cells.
Not much differently, the person faced with losing their job asks the same question. Maybe they have been a loyal employee of that company for decades. Maybe they are just a few years away from retirement. Maybe their work and attendance record is superb. Perhaps in the past the company even demanded mandatory overtime from them. Now the company determines they can save money by making their product in Mexico and this employee, this human being who gave their life to the company is now seen as nothing but a liability to be gotten rid of.
Still another similarity between cancer and job layoffs is apparent arbitrariness of it. Just like cancer doesn’t discriminate when it strikes, so companies do not discriminate or care who is left behind when they close shop in the United States. Both the hard working, loyal employee and the goof off are left to stand in the unemployment line. Layoffs, like death, has become the great equalizer. Funny how we were all taught as children that if we play by the rules and behave we will have success. I now believe that is just a way to instill fear in people from the very beginning while they are still impressionable in order keep them under control as they age. I say that because playing by the rules does not guarantee you success. Cancer strikes people who take care of their bodies just as often as it attacks those who don’t. And job layoffs due to downsizing strike the loyal and the loafer as well. Why? Because the employee and his or her loyalty and hard work or the lack thereof are not even on the table when a company executives decide to downsize. The only thing on the table is how much money can be saved and how much profit can be gained and the employee be damned. So, next time you tell a small child that if they are good and follow the rules they will have success, make sure they know that only applies to successfully crossing the street in one piece by following the rule of looking both ways first, not for keeping a job when they grow up.
Perhaps the most illusive parallel between cancer and job downsizing is that in addition to the harm they inflict on their victims, they are chaotic and ultimately self defeating in nature which makes them irrational. Cancer is parasitic and is only able to grow and spread by feeding off the victim. But once the person dies, the cancer dies. That is the only thin comfort that one who has seen cancer ravage a loved one can cling to. The killer has died with its victim.
In a less obvious and indeed longer term way, job downsizing will ultimately "kill" the very company that chose to take the shameful path of abandoning their employees. Consider the whole economy as a body and employees as healthy cells. The treasonous companies that betray their employees and leave the country that sustains them are the cancer cells. Just as more and more cancer cells destroy the healthy cells, more and more layoffs leave less employed and more unemployed or under employed it their wake. Just as the body becomes weaker as more good tissue is overtaken by cancerous tissue, so our economy becomes weaker as more people become unemployed and unable to purchase goods, etc. Finally, like the cancer victim, our economy succumbs and so do the treasonous companies who left the country to save a few bucks because nobody will be able to afford their products. And while we mourn our lost livelihoods, we celebrate the demise of the greedy companies that took the easy road to short term profit and long term death.
Interestingly, there is also a parallel between chemotherapy, the most common treatment for cancer and our government. I am not, nor to pretend to be a doctor, but I’ve known enough people stricken by cancer to have learned that chemotherapy destroys good cells in the process of trying to destroy cancer cells. Parenthetically, I have never understood why, at a time when the body is being ravaged by the horrible disease of cancer, the treatment prescribed should be so destructive to the body and its immune system. It seems very counterproductive to me and may be why chemo has such a bad track record at ultimately healing cancer victims. Or maybe I just don’t understand the process correctly. But, alas, back to my illustration. Government intervention into the whole corporate downsizing phenomenon is about as effective as chemo is in ultimately curing cancer. Why is it? My guess is that the government receives major contributions from these companies. Think about it, it isn’t your small mom and pop companies that downsize. It’s the big corporations, many of which are big contributors to the political machine.
Anyone who is familiar with my writings knows that I am a big proponent of individual rights and against government intrusion into our lives. But corporations are not individuals. It’s interesting, for a government like ours presently, that just loves to regulate and pass laws, why haven’t they outlawed American companies moving out of this country?