MetroWest Chamber: One Person’s View on Capitalism

By Jim Giammarinaro

President & CEO of the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce

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FRAMINGHAM – We are all products of our experiences and education. Being a business major for both my undergraduate and graduate degree I learned the principles of business and how to incorporate them
either working for a corporation or in my own businesses when I became an entrepreneur.

As a young man I worked in finance at Raytheon, Gillette, and Avery Dennison. I learned to apply what I was taught while learning the specific job requirements within these organizations. Hard work and good analytical skills led to advancement which resulted in an improved quality of life. I not only valued the work but enjoyed working collaboratively with others which resulted in some lifelong friendships.

Being part of the business world was very comfortable for me and it was paying dividends. While at these companies I always worked closely with manufacturing, and it seemed that individuals on the production line were also doing well for themselves and providing for their families. The narrow lens from which I viewed capitalism seemed to benefit everyone.

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I was able to move to New Business Development when I was at Avery Dennison and had the opportunity to travel for work. It was when I had to travel to Mexico for work that my appreciation for our country and the benefits of capitalism increased greatly. We were working on a joint project with Coca Cola and a large bottling plant in Monterrey Mexico to apply a new technology for labelling to Coke bottles. High end graphically pleasing labels were to be applied to Coke bottles which were manufactured in Monterrey. The bottles were manufactured at a facility that had to be over 3 square miles. Day workers were camped out just outside the facility hoping to be called in to work for that day.

Inside the facility there were large ovens that cured the glass bottles and there were very few safety procedures in place. Management seemed to treat the employees as if they were tools instead of human beings. The project lasted for only a few months, but I was very happy that I never returned to that bottling plant. I also developed a greater appreciation for how many businesses operated in our country and became even more thankful for the opportunities that our country afforded people.

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Adopting my son from Russia was another eye-opening experience. The people were wonderful, but their form of government left a lot to be desired. The initial part of our journey called for us to stay in Moscow for four days. After we landed, we had a car ride to the apartment building where our host family lived. For as far as the eye could see, there was long straight roads with apartment buildings on both sides of the street all looking the same. I said to myself, this is communism. The government wanted everyone to have a similar lifestyle regardless of their skills or education. We were fortunate to stay with a great host family. The father was a poet and a musician.

On Sundays he would take the train to St. Petersburg and play in the orchestra. The mother was an award-winning professor at the University of Moscow. Their daughter travelled the world with a performing arts group and the son-in-law was in the movies. An action star, like Sylvester Stallone here. They were a very proud and accomplished family. They also had nothing extra to live on and struggled to have diapers for their granddaughter. The government was not interested in rewarding them financially for their talents and they basically lived in what people in our country would consider to be poverty. The father was somewhat outspoken about the repression from their government and was convinced that the KGB was keeping a close eye on him. The room we stayed in while we were there was warm, and one night we opened the window before going to bed to get some colder air in. When we woke up in the morning the window was shut. The mother apologized but said she had entered our room to shut the window because if the government knew they were “wasting heat” there would be repercussions. This
experience made me appreciate even more what we had in our country and the true blessings of
freedom and our way of life.

Opponents of capitalism and our way of life sometimes make the following arguments:

• Capitalism serves the interests of large corporations and business, not consumers or workers. Rather than benefiting individuals, the market system prioritizes profits and contributes to social harms including income inequality and poor labor conditions.  
• Free markets disproportionately benefit those who have existing resources and capital to support their vision. Plus, capitalism often depreciates those who are not able to work a produce wealth. 
• Capitalism is dependent on a culture of consumption, which can lead to unsustainable waste
  and social and environmental problems globally.

I can certainly understand some of the arguments against capitalism mentioned above. We do not live in a perfect country. I will say, that until I travel to a country that has more to offer than we do, I think I would rather live here and continue to work on some of the problems which in our capitalistic society.

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Editor’s Note: SOURCE and the MetroWest Chamber have formed a partnership. The Chamber’s column will run on Tuesdays on the digital news media outlet.

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