How to turn a liberal hipster into a capitalist tyrant in one evening

The Guardian and Observer ^ | May 24, 2015 | Paul Mason

[2ndDivisionVet]

A new play, World Factory, asks the audience to run a clothing factory in China – and even the creators have been surprised at how people have behaved.

The choices were stark: sack a third of our workforce or cut their wages by a third. After a short board meeting we cut their wages, assured they would survive and that, with a bit of cajoling, they would return to our sweatshop in Shenzhen after their two-week break.

But that was only the start. In Zoe Svendsen’s play World Factory at the Young Vic, the audience becomes the cast. Sixteen teams sit around factory desks playing out a carefully constructed game that requires you to run a clothing factory in China. How to deal with a troublemaker? How to dupe the buyers from ethical retail brands? What to do about the ever-present problem of clients that do not pay? Because the choices are binary they are rarely palatable. But what shocked me – and has surprised the theatre – is the capacity of perfectly decent, liberal hipsters on London’s south bank to become ruthless capitalists when seated at the boardroom table.

The classic problem presented by the game is one all managers face: short-term issues, usually involving cashflow, versus the long-term challenge of nurturing your workforce and your client base. Despite the fact that a public-address system was blaring out, in English and Chinese, that “your workforce is your vital asset” our assembled young professionals repeatedly had to be cajoled not to treat them like dirt....

[Lurker]

It’s never their money that’s evil, only yours.

L

[no-s]

teacher had read Ayn Rand

Yes, that's definitely Rand-ian. Altruism is also founded in a selfish interests. Usually people try to overlook or ignore these things, that's why it's such a fertile field for con artists. As for Rand understanding Christianity, remember there's always someone looking to make a buck off the trust of the faithful (whether Christian or Communist, heheh). I speculate that Rand's view on turning a blind eye towards the hypocrisy in order to preserve one's peace of mind was also a selfish hypocrisy, and she wanted to illustrate that (I'm no Randist scholar, btw, but I did enjoy "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead").