Re: What do workers compete for?

Albert wrote:

> On Fri, 14 May 2004 01:03:37 GMT
> "Robert J. Kolker" <robert_kolker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Albert wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Ah.  If only that were true of capitalists as well as workers.
>>
>>There are capitalists and there are capitalists. It is the
>>entrepreneurs who carry civilization on their backs, like Atlas.
> 
> 
> Haven't you read?  Atlas shrugged. 
> 
> 
>>This
>>are the innovators and the inventors. Folks like these should be well
>>rewarded.
> 
> 
> Entrepreneurs are rarely innovators or inventors.  They steal from
> innovators and inventors.  Entrepreneurs, when they win, are indeed
> highly rewarded for the innovations and inventions of others.  Bill
> Gates is the perfect example.
>  

How can I explain this? you've identified the pattern, but
you don't understand it's cause.

That really *is* the point of Atlas Shrugged, the metaphor of
the Valley. It is isolated. The Hard Part is getting it *out* of 
the Valley. Into general use.

I do not know what to say except to say that the midwife in 
primitive cultures was accountable for the birth. The conception
is reflex, the raising is the hard part. The birth is just
the critical section.  So midwives accepted the burden of
villification for a greater good. Not because they were
heroic, but because they like babies.

> 
>>No doubt your version of a Capitalist is some asshole who clips
>>coupons from bonds he bought we money he never earned. Yes, there are
>>those. Perhaps if the world followed Carnegie's example that would not
>>have happened. Carnegie who made a billion $$$$ when gold was $20 an
>>ounce did not leave any money or very little money to his children.
>>The bulk of it went into foundations and a system of free libraries he
>>founded so that workingmen could read, learn and improve their
>>situation.
> 
> 
> Actually, his money was so ill gotten and so many people suffered at his
> hands that he tried to buy his way into Capitalist heaven. 
>  
> 

Albert, that's not most capitalists. Most capitalists are... like
old time wildvatters in the oilfeild. They just hope Somebody Up
There Likes Me.

The other guy sare are just stamp collectors, as Carlo Rubbia
said.

See, I saw brief and ****ning glimpse of this before it disappeared
over the horizon.


>>I think when a rich man dies, his wealth should be burned up in a
>>grand potlach. That way his children would not get and neither would
>>the government.
> 
> 
> I think it should all be paid back to it's rightful owners. 
> 

Well, gee, but are we not all that? Either owner****p is exclusive
or it is not. Therer is no muddle ground, by the principle
of modus ponens, sir.

> 
>>A person should be able to take it with him when he
>>dies.
> 
> 
> I can envision a Hell where that is the most appropriate reward.
> 

I personally figure Heaven has really good room service. Don't need 
to take it with you.

> 


-- 
--
Les Cargill