From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 15:52:16 BST
Hi Dan, Arlo, Mark-M, all,
>From: "Mark Steven Heyman" <markheyman@infoproconsulting.com>
>
>Hi Dan, Arlo, and all,
>
>I doubt if Pirsig meant mom-and-pop type businesses in his analogy.
dan:
I think you have a point, perhaps he didn't. Would Bill Gates feel
differently than I do, do you think?
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.
This seems a very different business model from the one you describe
for MRS, Inc.
>msh asks:
>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.
dan:
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
IMO, as usual.
Thanks to all,
msh
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