Re: What do workers compete for?

royls@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

> On Sat, 15 May 2004 19:25:18 -0700, The Trucker <mikcob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
> 
>>Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>> 
>>> royls@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Situation 1: A man works to get his lunch from a nut tree growing in
>>>> nature.  No free lunch there.
>>> 
>>> Underline the word works. No free lunch. He worked for it.
>>>> 
>>>> Situation 2: A man works to get his lunch from that same natural nut
>>>> tree, but this time he must pay another man, who did not plant the
>>>> tree but claims to own it, enough nuts for his lunch, in rent.  The
>>>> worker must work twice as long, so that the tree's owner will get a
>>>> free lunch.
>>> 
>>> Underline the word works. No free lunch. He worked for it.
>>> 
>>> Everything of value in the world costs somebody something.
>>> 
>>> TANSTAAFL.
>>
>>You are right, of course.  The "owner" of the tree must also extract
>>enough nuts from the deal to pay the enforcer of the owner****p privilege
>>a "sweetener".
> 
> No, that must also be paid by the worker, as he is the only one
> producing anything.

The owner must DO something and I will show this below.

>>But most of the nuts needed to protect the owner****p
>>privilege are collected directly from the nut harvester who must now
>>pay the "owner" even more for the nut harvest due to the tax on
>>wages.
> 
> Right.  The worker pays the owner rent, and also pays the enforcer for
> making him pay the owner the rent.  The incomprehensibility of this
> arrangement is apparently part of its charm.
> 
>>It seems that the enforcer and the owner must both "work"
>>for their position, but the work they do is minimal when we consider
>>the amount of nuts they get out of the deal.
> 
> Nope.  The enforcer works, the owner doesn't.

That is incorrect, I think.  The owner must DO something or the
enforcer would become the owner.  The point is that the owner
does nothing other than posture and moralize and, perhaps he
does a sales job on the general public like by giving a paltry
****tion of the rent to a high profile charity.

The lunch ain't free, but by the pound it is very inexpensive.

>>And being good Repugnicans they will speak of "providing jobs" to
>>those who harvest nuts.
> 
> Yes, we can always create more jobs by privileging more and/or bigger
> parasites.
> 
> -- Roy L

-- 
http://GreaterVoice.org
(a work in progress)