> The American auto industry is cutting each others' throats. Its a G*d
> D****d war out there, if you know what I mean. Just look at Chrysler. More
> than a billion dollars in the red this year. That's totally unnecessary
> because there's more than enough profit to be shared by the Big Three if
> they will just cozy up to one another like Beavis and Butthead.
>
> Ford is next to crap out. They just spent 6,000,000,0000.00 smackers to
> reinvent the Terraplane.
>
> GM has lost the market share that Olds once occupied. Pity Oldsmobile, gone > forever.
>
> The answer is utopian cooperation and working together in harmony like a
> happy, loving family. Let me tell you how it should be:
>
> GM is famous for Fisher Bodies. Let them make all the chassis' and car
> bodies for the whole country. Ford makes the best mechanicals, so let them
> do all the engines, trannys, and rear ends. Also Rochester can do all the
> EFIs, Delco all the batteries, GE all the alternators, Midas all the
> mufflers, Firecracker Tire and Rubber all the tires, and so forth and so on
> for all the auxilliaries. Chrysler will take all the honors and run the
> production lines for final assembly. Every car in America will plonk out
> Chrysler's back door!!
>
> None of this annual model changing anymore. No need to. We all know what
> the ideal car should look like. Each car has its best shape: sedans,
> station wagons, SUVs, trucks with the only differences might be in size
> like 4 passenger sedans, 6 passenger sedans, etc. The shapes are a given
> just like all jetliners look pretty much the same; you just can't start
> putting "body cladding" on a 757 to snazz it up for next year's promotion.
> So, for the same reason you can't do it with cars. You just screw them up > if you try.
>
> Each dealership will sell the same products for the same prices. A given
> model is good for at least 15 years. This will assure bug free cars, parts
> and service everywhere and for all time. How wonderful! This idea is
> genius if I may take full credit for it! Some of the money saved by the
> economics of cooperation and loving friendship can be used to install the
> redundant systems I have been suggesting and you have been rejecting
> because you don't care if your mother-in-law breaks down alone in the riot
> zone at 1:00AM.
You've pretty much outlined how the former Soviet Union would go about "designing" products. Only problem is, it doesn't work.
While the dog-eat-dog world of free-market competition has its downsides (some of which are admittedly loathesome), in balance, the negative traits of human nature that manifest themselves in the former Soviet Union's culture have proven to be far more damaging to the human conition than the negative traits of human nature that dominate in the free market. Competition and the resulting diversity in product offerings in existing products and technology absolutely die in the communist market, not to mention the unpredictable breakthroughs driven by competition and the profit motive that naturally occur in a free market.
Bill Putney (to reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with "x")