Saturday 24 November 2018

"The Consultant"

After reading "The Consultant" and working on the book in class, do you see capitalism and business the same way ?

7 comments:

  1. The consultant, a book written by Rupert Morgan, is about consultants on an island with electricity problem. The book shows the difference between capitalism and business, furthermore this book shows the negative point of capitalism with for example the power of Nick who wants become cannibal

    Sandra Vincent TES1

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  2. “The Consultant” is a novel written by Rupert Morgan. It deals with a consultant whose name is James. He is on a business training seminar on a tropical island in the middle of the Indian ocean with several other consultants from the company Amelyosis when suddenly a global catastrophe happened. After reading this book, I am going to tell you how I see capitalism and business.
    First, capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state and business is a commercial activity. James, the narrator, works for a company and we understand along the way that he is annoyed of his job. His job is about selling services for other companies to not let them capsize. He tells in the book that his job is not real and a little ironic: he sells services to help companies to tell who they must fire because they can’t pay them anymore, but they can pay James. They pay consultants to fire employees. Here capitalism is represented in a micro way by the company where he works: Amelyosis. And we can observe on the island that Amelyosis and more precisely his boss, Rueben Cicero, has the entire power on people: he controls, decides everything and detains the hole capital of the company.
    And we can add that when the catastrophe arrived, the policy established by Nick is a capitalism policy too. It consists in paying more people who are fishing better and hire people who can’t do it and Nick has the hole money (which is food) although he is not doing anything to deserve it but he is the owner of the power, he controlled everything. His aim is to do profits and to be more and more powerful no matter the way to do it and without caring of the others. Humans are less important than profits and power. Capitalism is at his paroxysm. Besides, they are all on an island for a business training seminar which is, in the end, not really useful and instead of spending a lot of money in this journey they could have spent it into charities or something to help other people who are in needy (particularly in India where there is a lot of poverty). However, this training is organised to explain to employees how to sell in a better way, to do more and more profits and tell them how much they are better than the other.

    To conclude, this book is a satire of capitalism and business and this book can offer us another vision of capitalism. I think that capitalism results selfishness, a lot of inequalities and it can’t be a solution.

    458 words.
    Cassandre M. TS5

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    Replies
    1. Sorry, I made some mistakes: it's "annoyed with" instead of "annoyed of", it's "not to let them downsize" instead of "to not let them capsize", it's "he says" instead of "he tells".

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  3. « The Consultant » is a book written by Rupert Morgan and published by Didier. This is a story about consultants who were on a tropical island and after the phones stop working there is no food and electricity anymore so the consultants try to survive. The question is to determine if capitalism and business are always see at the same way. First, business is all the commercial affairs that generated profit by comparison with capitalism that is an economic system generated by free exchange.
    After reading this book I don’t see capitalism and business at the same way because this two notions have pushed characters to do horribe things like the unequality between the consultants and the idea to eat each others.

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  4. After reading the book my vision of capitalism has not really changed, in fact, I already did not have a good vision of capitalism before, I think there is a lot of problem with this system and that inequality can only be increasing. The book reinforced my idea that if you work more you earn more on the backs of others and if you can't do more then there is no justice and you finish to become poor. The book shows well one thing, is that any political idea can become a dictatorship and capitalism does not break this rule, if I think that it is because as the book can show, capitalists always believe they are on the right side and in reality this is also true. Take the example of the United States, they made the war in Korea and Vietnam to counter communism, what did it bring them? Nothing except death, I have the impression that there is anywhere this determination to show that we are the best economic system and this is reflected in the ideas shown in the book.

    184 words
    Alexis De Chiara TS2

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  5. Sorry I made some mistakes : "are seen in the same way", "in the same light", "these two", "the idea of eating each other"

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  6. Hi everyone,

    To begin with, I really liked this book because we learnt many things and it also showed us a different version of capitalism and business.
    Indeed, when people have no hope anymore they’ll do anything to survive and the stronger ones will do everything they can to keep the weaker ones apart.

    Moreover, this book has opened our eyes about how business works and how society especially the consultants work. The writer is telling that the consultants are useless and paid for nothing. It denounces that we are blind and people will do anything to have money even scam others.

    Léa B.
    TS3

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