From: Dan Glover (daneglover@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 19:01:39 BST
Hello everyone
>From: "Mark Steven Heyman" <markheyman@infoproconsulting.com>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>Subject: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
>Date: Thu, 08 Jul 2004 07:52:16 -0700
>
>msh:
>He might feel as you do. However, with Microsoft, as with any major
>corporation, it's easy to demonstrate that their "success" derives
>directly from, shall we say, "borrowed" technology, publicly
>subsidized R&D, publicly subsidized advertising via tax breaks and
>higher consumer prices, followed by technically illegal monopolistic
>business practices, conveniently ignored by government for many many
>years, until a "token" prosecution occurs long after the horse is
>galloping down the street. The end result is a huge disparity
>between worker's wages, management salaries, and owner's profit.
Hi Mark
Good points all. Let me ask you though, if one day someone from Microsoft
contacted you with a: Dear Mr. Heyman, we at Microsoft Corp. would like to
extend an offer of employment with our firm. The work is right up your
alley, starting salary somewhere in the middle six figures along with all
the perks a large corporation can offer. Will you accept this position?
>
>msh says:
>The implication, shared by almost all business owners, is that
>employees aren't capable of running a business; if they were, they
>would be owners themselves. My suggestion is that there are other
>reasons why someone might choose to rent themselves for wages, rather
>than run their own business.
Of course there are. But right now I'm having difficulty trying to come up
with one or two. Perhaps you could outline a few reasons. And that job offer
from Microsoft doesn't count!
>
> >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.
>
>dan:
>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.
>
>msh says:
>Sure. And to some extent, with some businesses, this may very well
>be true. But the bigger question is whether or not the so-called
>free enterprise system is the most MOQ-moral way to organize an
>economy, a question you rephrase and ask below.
>
>dan:
>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?
>
>msh says:
>The answer to this question can be either yes or no, depending on
>your scope of responsibility. If the countries which provide your
>labor pool are backward and impoverished due to some national defect
>of their own, (laziness, stupidity, internal corruption), something
>completely disconnected from your own success, then sure, your
>business is morally sound. You're just helping folks out of a bad
>situation.
Why is it my responsibility to decide if the country my employees are from
(providing they tell me the truth) are defective? I have no power over that.
If I hire a fellow and he does good work I could care less if he's from
Poland, Somalia, China, or Mexico. I assume he is here to better himself. I
assume that's what we're all doing here. Whether his country has national
defects has nothing whatsoever to do with this individual who's working for
me.
And believe me when I say I'm not helping anyone. I don't happen to believe
we as human beings have the capacity to help others. I provide an
opportunity for others to help themselves. The motivation has to be theirs.
>
>However, my position would be that, in the western hemisphere, there
>is a direct connection between the wealth of the north, and the
>poverty of the south, in fact a deliberate and inverse relationship.
>I've discussed this relationship elsewhere on the list, and won't go
>into it here, unless someone wants to pursue the issue.
What do you mean by the south? Are you talking the southern hemisphere?
Mexico? Alabama? Please clarify.
>
>From this perspective, the morally sound thing to do would be to
>object, loudly and long, to your government's foreign and domestic
>policies when such policies are designed to increase the poverty gap.
> Even if this means diluting your business's pool of inexpensive
>labor.
I think this is an extremely complex issue. So far as I know no one is
putting guns to the illegal immigrants' heads and forcing them across the
borders. They come to better themselves. And I can't see a thing wrong with
that. As long as better opportunities abound elsewhere, or even rumors of
better opportunities, the Dynamic and morally sound vision is to follow
those opportunities.
>
>IMO, as usual.
Ditto.
Thank you for reading,
Dan
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