Hsinchu Discussion of Sustainable Economy

Participants: Wilson, Peter W., Kevin, Angela

Interesting to say they are related. The ecology is one problem, and unemployment is another. To say that they are related is really interesting. The article puts a strong relationship between these two issues.

The relate ecology to wealth, and then unemployment. At the face of it, it looks unconnected, but wealth connects it.

The writer is just broaden their observation. Gives some perspective under the social problems, so he broadens the scope.


On working 4 days week:
If I can work one day less in a week, and reduce my salary by 5 % I can agree. Because more and more temp workers, for example, in my company, the temp worker, the ration is over 40%. So I think it’s a trend. In year 2000, we see the many things is heading by an E. email, reform some title. Start with e. but now the trend change to emphasize on the mobile. Everything emphasize mobile, so like pc, now change to notebook. So the same trend may be now, even for the you know manpower, distribution or utilization. It emphasizes your mobility, to work all over the world. So I think the working days change, I don’t know maybe countries could consider the referendum to decide how may working day sin the week is most accepted by all people. But I don’t know how much the contribution will reduction the unemployment rate by reducing the working days.

But the difference is to count the working hour. Think about, then the company need more worker to do your job, it’s not a trend for you mention, the e-society or mobilized working style. You can work anywhere, any times, it reduces working hours at office, but your productivity is not reduced, so you don’t need another worker to do the job for you. It’s a kind of contradiction.

Why does our economy have to grow and grow. Why, if you made the same amount of money last year, you failed?

Labor job is different than knowledge, when you’re making things, the longer you work, the more you make, knowledge workers it’s not that direct a relationship.

Why don’t we count psychological growth? We only count money growth.

We were talking about productivity. We define it as output divided by input. In china and India, their input is very huge, but you cannot say their productivity is high. What I say, is we work more hours a week doesn’t mean our productivity is high. It depends on your measure indicator, like some knowledge worker. You can’t imagine what you achieved to day, it might take some time. You can’t say your productivity is lower.

It’s another question, about how to measure productivity

In our company, the indicator is very clear, we calculate by the total goods sold out value, divided by total labor. So we can evaluate by how much you contribute to company by person.

So its revenue divided by employee.

So if you can achieve a million us dollars per month. If you can achieve this production value with 100 people for example last year you inputted 100 operators, but this year you reduced labor input to 80 operators, but you can achieve the same production value, then you have achieved 20%.

According to my experience of stock investment, normally the finance analysis think the growth momentum is much more important that your growth in EPS earning per share, or some money you earn.

The rate of increase is more important than the money you earned.

It means that some two bit startup is more valuable than IBM? Because the startup has 20% increase and IBM has only 2%? Even if IBM’s capitalization is 200 times the startup?


Team b and E are similar

The difference is, b, you could have 1, 2 and 3 world, but e there’s only one world.

For question b, I need to know what is ‘good quality of life’ and is wealthy, just money, or clean air or what?

I would say, quality is the degree to which you feel satisfied. If you satisfied your lifestyle, you get good quality of life.

So you can choose from questions to ponder 13, so j…

It’s like a criteria.

So we have to decide what makes society wealthy.

I choose team e. because maybe because some disaster earthquake in china, so I think, in the process of our continuous pursuit of economic growth every year, so I think we did cause some damage unintentionally, I need to say. Nobody intended to create all this pollution.

But nobody intended not to, either!!

But I think, every company, if you want to sustain in the global market, you have to do some investment on your product design, or your building your manufacturing process, to reduce the impact to the global environment. It’s also inevitable application of any enterprise to, if they want to survive or pursue the sustainable growth in their business. So I think, if a country is a economic growth add the cost of environmental destruction, I think their society cannot be valued as wealthy. So I think everyone in the earth have to contribute your effort on the environment you live, you work, and also every countries you travel. So I choose team b as a definition of wealthy society.

Actually my choice is same as Wilson. I would choose team b or team e. b is more material life, and team e is more spiritual life. If you change economic system to ecological system, its really more real.

I choose team d, , society is composed of human beings. Everyone live in the society, the relationship is, maybe is appear in the economy, the economic system. The other point is the economic system as this article mentioned, we need a sustainability. The definition Angela gave us of sustainability is ‘keep on existence’. So the economic system needs to keep existing, so it has to be composed of all economic elements to be sustainable. So for economic life, you have to be satisfied. So if everyone feels comfort able to live in society, it means society is wealthy.

I also choose team b, I think, good quality of life is a dream everyone is looking for. But the definition of quality, is balance between you and environment, and between your financial status and you’re mental balance. And it depends on balance between what you do and the impact on nature and the environment. So having this balance is wealth.

May I raise a question, you mentioned a key point of balance. So you do you make sure to keep a balance in society. Some trade off. A lot of trade off mean you make up your decision. So you make the trade off have a lot of factor, so it means you weight things. So you do you make sure you get the balanced situation for every situations.

So you can say how to you measure success, how do you measure growth. You look at philosophy. You look at in terms of how much money you make. If something is financially sound, it can be called successful. Maybe there’s no standard. Just like how do you measure success, it’s different from mine.

Like, what’s a good life quality.

Well, but you can find the principles, what’s the difference between success and failure?

It’s a kind of situation you feel satisfaction.

Like we were talking about yagaiism. What’s a mutually beneficial trade, that’s a kind of balance?

But the problem is the earth is silent.

Not so much, we need to learn how to listen!!

But I think balance should be thought of as dynamic, not static. Maybe your physical condition is getting worse, but you get some psychological satisfaction. But you can’t do this for too long, like Angela said, we get exhausted. So it’s the same situation with the earth and the environment. So we take some resources, at the same time we have to guarantee that something can be recovered.

I think the bottom line of keeping balance, is not doing any bad to either side. Even if we don’t get the same portion…

It’s unbiased to each side.

I think the balance is dynamic on each side.

A dynamic balance is a kind of stability.

Matter is continually transformed, nothing is lost, nothing is gained.

Like the yinyang of taichi.

Another kind of balance is harmony, if you harmonize everything.

Or like the two fish, if one fish moves, the other one has to move.


War is inevitable in a capitalist system. It’s an alternate economy, where you buy things so that things get broken, so that you have to start buying things again. The only reason we haven’t had another one, is that we’ve had china and India as markets to move into. If they weren’t there, we’d need another war.

But wouldn’t you say ecology is a kind of industry, or a kind of economy. Because were talking about green industry, and chief sustainability officer. If consider the economy, and combine the economy and ecology, it’s a kind of business. So do you think some kind of activity related to ecology is business is a good.

I think it depends on the commitment of the company to change.

It can be scientifically quantified, though. We can quantify the balance, and that means we can maintain the ecology, so that means sustainability can be achieved.

Closing statements:
So what is wealth?

Well, money, right.

Well, but money is just relative value, it’s like saying, I have a lot of relative value, so I’m wealth.

Or it’s like a storage for productivity. So saying you have money is like saying you have storage.

And some storage is more stable than others. I have euros!

So, wealth is little like health.

Yeah, but health is a little easier to define, if you’re not sick, you’re healthy, eh?

They’re two sides of the same coin.
I think when you’re seriously ill, you’ll think your health is your wealth.

My colleagues always say, we work over time, then we get the salary rise, then we take the money to see the doctor.

So it’s a kind of balance, because we need doctor.