Neue Debatte - Special Edition - Long Essay on Left Strategy #002 - 04/2017 | Page 24

3 On nations and global capitalism
historical effects. It brings together people of all parts of the world,
makes sometimes hundreds of thousands employees work together
in a single company in one and the same production and distribution
process in worldwide division of labour. The corporate staff gets to
know each other personally as colleagues by intercompany commu-
nication. I can assure everybody by own experience that these global-
ly engaged companies do much for international understanding and
for mankind merging into an integrated human world community.
Doing everything to optimize their international performance they
develop own corporate identities. They bring together men and
women from everywhere who join beyond national narrowness.
The international company I have worked in for more than three
decades has been and is interested in a common corporate identity
to meet the cultural differences and communication problems, not
for philanthropic reasons of course, but for the sake of a trouble-free
and thus cost-effective cooperation. They regularly come out with an
intercompany magazine in English and German that reports about
the worldwide distributed production sides and research and devel-
opment labs and the staffs abroad. Colleagues from somewhere in
the world depict their daily routine at home, their way to work, their
hours in office or workshop and their private activities. It is astonish-
ing how we resemble. During my last years as a claim managing and
quality ensuring employee I was in contact with the subsidiary staff
of approximately 25 countries. I met them when they visited the
headquarters and production sites in Germany. I emailed and phoned
them, minding to reach them in their time zone. Prepared by cross-
cultural seminars I helped to start a production site in China and got
to know personally my counterparts in other Asian countries on a
business trip. I changed my attitudes to foreign peoples without ac-
tually noticing. The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe happened the
month I retired in 2011. I sent a Goodbye-email to all my colleagues. I
wrote:
“I know: times with me have not always been peaceful. In a
globalized world it is not easy to find the right words in all sit-
uations and often we do not know each other well enough for
an appropriate communication. Let me assure you that I al-
ways tried to promote our (…)-organisation and to safeguard
our business. I cannot write to all of you in the present situa-
tion without worrying with great concern about our Japanese
colleagues. We all feel so helpless in the face of these nightmare
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