From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 07:46:25 BST
Hello everyone
>From: "Mark Steven Heyman" <markheyman@infoproconsulting.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: Re: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
>Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 13:52:43 -0700
>
>Hi Dan, Arlo, and all,
>
>I doubt if Pirsig meant mom-and-pop type businesses in his analogy.
Hi Mark
I think you have a point, perhaps he didn't. Would Bill Gates feel
differently than I do, do you think?
>Maybe. Still, I like Dan's hypothetical business example, but, as it
>stands, there are too many unknowns to evaluate whether or not the
>analogy holds. Can we make the business a little more realistic by
>filling in some of the hypothetical details?
>
>1) What do you produce?
Service- Fire and water damage restoration (Mythical Restoration Services,
Inc.)
>2) What material resources are used in production?
Whatever we need, we use.
>3) How are these resources acquired?
I prefer building the cost of any new equipment required into the bids but
there are times when costs must be overlaid onto the business and carried as
overhead.
>3) What are the environmental effects of your business?
Enviromental effects are the business.
>3) Do you get tax breaks? Low-interest federally-insured loans?
No and no.
>4) How do you decide what's the proper pay and benefits for your
>employees?
Whatever the market will bear.
>5) Are they allowed to unionize?
Yes. But they don't.
>6) Is there a limit to the amount of profit you as owner are allowed
>to make without proportional employee compensation?
Whatever the market will bear. What I mean to say is that each job the
company does results in a small profit which ultimately goes to me, the
owner. Over the course of one month the company might do 500 jobs while the
next month we might only do 350. In order to service the busiest months the
staff must be kept on even through the slow periods. The only limit is the
number of jobs we perform.
>7) If not, what is the moral justification for this?
See above.
>
>More comments interspersed below:
>
> > Arlo:
> >I find it heartening that Pirsig makes the statement "an
> >employee-owned company is more moral than a privately owned company
> >for the same reason that a democracy is more moral than a
> >dictatorship".
>
>dan:
>Now I ask this question because I fail to understand: why is it more
>moral for my employees to own the business rather than me? Would they
>put their blood, sweat and tears into the company the way I have? I
>tend to doubt it. That's why they're employees! ...
>
>... Could they run it profitably? Again, I tend to doubt it. If they
>were cut out to be business owners they would be already, in my
>opinion.
>
>msh asks:
>Kind of an elitist attitude, IMO. Plenty of people don't want to own
>businesses precisely BECAUSE they understand the exploitative nature
>of the process. Nevertheless, they are stuck in a system that
>requires them to rent themselves for wages in order to survive. To
>me, the fact that they would choose to be exploited, rather than
>exploit others, is a sign of high morality indeed.
I didn't mean to sound elitist but I believe here in the US around 95% of
the working population are employees. So let's just say I'm mythically part
of a small minority if that makes you feel better.
>
>dan:
>I started the business, you see; it's like a child to me. A dictator
>of a country did not start the country. I think that's where the
>analogy fails.
>
>msh says:
>A dictator has no country, just as a business owner has no business,
>without the exploitation of people and resources. This, I think, is
>the thrust of Pirsig's analogy.
Yes I can see that now, thank you for pointing it out. Yet I prefer to think
rather than exploiting my employees in my mythical business, I encourage
them towards a better life by providing a decent place to work and a decent
wage.
To further compound the issue though, let's suppose all or nearly all my
employees are illegal immigrants from other countries who are only too happy
to work for ten times the wages they could get in their own countries even
though here that is just a little bit more than minimum wage. Is the
business I'm running a morally sound business, according to the MOQ?
Thank you for your comments,
Dan
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