The Recession and Nietzsche

While reading a blog post by Mr. Brad Delong, I began to see another side of the recession. Specifically it's corrective abilities. When the economy retracts and people begin to hold more of their money, the companies with the lowest profit margins fall first. Size only matters when the government is there to step in and lend a helping hand. This corrects the business environment by allowing only the strongest to survive.
Mr. Delong opened my eyes to the corrective powers of the recession on the individual company; their ability to dismiss those worker who's production is the lowest. In economics we view companies as purely profit motivated, but I believe that laws and business ethics (mostly laws) are giving them a little more of a sympothetic behavior when dealing with employees. For instance, if a company had only 2 employees and one did twice as much work as the other, in good economic times they would both be retained. However, because of the economic downturn, the company has a justified reason to unload the poorer preforming employee. As the economy begins to pick up some steam and more workers are needed, this company will look to hire another worker like the one they retained, thus increasing their productive capacity as the economy bounces back. This has the potential to create exponential growth of profits, because not only are more people consuming products, but now this company has a more productive staff.
For businesses, the recession shows us, "that which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger." Nietzsche