About Patriot Businessmen and Chewing Gum
Tough times call for tough decisions. So, anyway, it seemed until now. But maybe we needn't complicate things? An alternative approach was demonstrated by the Association of Entrepreneurs for the Development of Business Patriotism «Avanti»: business patriots without further ado turned to the head of the Ministry of Labor with a proposal to introduce a six-day work week in Russia.
From the letter, which is abundantly quoted by the press and news agencies, it is clear that the economic situation in the country, the business association in generally satisfied: “Thanks to the clear actions of the government and the Central Bank, the economy and the national currency of Russia not only withstood the blow, but also demonstrated resistance to stress. Nevertheless, at present, the need of our financial and economic system for additional investments remains.
True, for some reason it is proposed not to increase investments, but the duration of the working week. According to the authors of the idea, this will increase the strength and efficiency of the Russian economy in the face of sanctions and will help to achieve the goals set by the head of state. However, additional working time will require additional expenses, and, as patriotic businessmen themselves admit, there is no extra money in the country: investments are now tight. How, from what sources will the new «black days» of the calendar be paid for?
This question is not answered in the message. But there is a reference to the Soviet experience of the Great Patriotic War, which, perhaps, is the key to the puzzle. They say that in those terrible years, the working people worked not only six, but often seven days a week. Moreover, the length of the working day was not like the current one. And nothing — we survived, we survived …
It's hard to argue with that. As with the fact that, as a result of these overtime, the home front workers, to put it mildly, did not get rich. They worked virtually free of charge — in most cases, the salary did not even cover the cost of food. Someone was saved by cards and rations, someone — a garden. And nothing saved someone: in the martyrology of that war, the victims of hunger occupy a considerable place.
No, patriotic businessmen, of course, are not so hard-hearted as to recommend to the state the same extremely effective scheme from the point of view of the military economy, but completely unmerciful towards their people. But there is a suspicion that their project does not provide for additional expenses for the business and the budget: it looks like you will have to work harder for the same money.
Well, some kind of homespun truth in this business plan, perhaps There is. When “everything is for the front, everything is for victory,” personal well-being inevitably has to be sacrificed. But if patriotic businessmen have decided to cite the experience of the Great Patriotic War as an example, then we must follow this model to the end — not only in terms of the labor force.
If patriotic businessmen have forgotten, then let us recall: during the years of the Great Patriotic War, there were no associations of entrepreneurs generating wise ideas. Moreover, there were no private entrepreneurs themselves. The gentlemen were then all in Paris, in the sense outside the «world's first state of workers and peasants.» And here are state-owned enterprises (many of which were nationalized after the revolution, private) and their directors.
It is unlikely that any of the captains of the modern Russian economy would want to be, so to speak, in their shoes, to move into their offices. The life of the top managers of the Stalin era was interesting, but rarely long. As an illustration, one can cite Stalin's telegram to the management of the defense plant, quoted not so long ago by the deputy chairman of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, at a meeting of the working group of the Military Industrial Commission:
“I ask you to honestly and on time fulfill orders for the supply of hulls for tanks at the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant … In a few days, if you turn out to be violators of your duty to the Motherland, I will begin to smash you as criminals who neglect the honor and interests of their homeland. We cannot tolerate our troops suffering at the front from a lack of tanks, while you chill and idle in the far rear.
Are these gentlemen and others who sympathize with them ready to accurately reproduce this model, including the «expropriation of the expropriators» — the dispossession of «private shops», villas-palaces and business jets — and the responsibility for fulfilling the tasks set by the authorities, not with money, not with wealth, but with life itself? If yes, then we will admire and — nothing can be done, we are all in the same boat, everyone needs to go to some kind of hardship — we will agree to a six-day period.
If not, then we will advise enterprising gentlemen … Well, no , the recommendation to shut up in a rag will, perhaps, be too rude, categorically not in line with the norms of business etiquette. There is a better, more civilized way — chewing gum. Sometimes chewing is better than talking. Chew, gentlemen.