From: ml (mbtlehn@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 18:38:11 BST
Hi Dan, Arlo, Mark-M, all,
Great Discussion!
<snip>
> 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.
>
I am not sure Microsoft's history shows that...
Most of Microslop's success comes from the understanding that
marketing wins in a contest with technical excellence. They made
the point of their business to provide a needed product to the hardware
people in the form of an easier to use system which MS would support
and the headache of that support would not devolve to the Computer
maker. Win-win-win...the majority of customers can use the shaky
patches system of windows to do what they need to do. The hardware
company has no need to invest in support and MS gets paid.
Originally the employees at MS were paid VERY well and would
rather chew a leg off, than leave...it was a magical vision. Now that
Windoggy is a commodity product the wages fall and the other hooks
and gimmicks described are perceived as needed to stay profitable.
...their Dynamic is becoming Static
<snip>----------------------------------------
> 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.
SO TRUE!
I had a business through the 90's with 29 people working. As
with most small business owners, I wanted the best people
and easily 2/3 of them could have run the business as well
or better than I, but they were enough smarter than I that they
could see how much work was involved. They valued the hours
of their lives not spent working when I was working, the other
40-60 hours that gave me an 80-100 hour per week schedule.
The difference between being an employee and owning a business
is the same as having a dream and putting everything on hold in your
life to realize that dream. No vacations for three to five years, missed
kid activities, no movies, no sports, angry spouse. I even paid two of
my employees better than I did myself. This is typical of small 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.
Possible equivocation in this statement.
This sounds like another question of a definition. Exploitation
sounds like it is a word with much baggage, so we have to be careful
to make sure of what we mean. (e.g. We exploit the sun and plants
for all of out energy. Ocean bottom bacteria exploit detritus from above
as their means to survive. Both are true and descriptive.)
The success of interlocking systems of complexity require the most
efficient possible exploitation of opportunity to continue to survive and
evolve. Exploit is not per se bad. If it is between people it must be
done not unfairly. (We exploit Pirsig as the source of our understanding
and excitement vis the MoQ.) --not unfairly, though.
------------------------------------------
> msh says:
<snip>...is ...[the] free enterprise system ... the most MOQ-moral way to
organize an economy?
>
> dan: <snip>
Is the business I'm running a morally sound business,
according to the MOQ?
>
These seem radically different questions. 'Organizing an economy' sounds
like a planned activity creating a static quality (rules to follow)
of a social nature to guide what seems inherently intellectually
dynamic - most markets.
On the other hand, running a single organization per MoQ is to keep
a general set of guiding principals or perceptions in front of you as
you make decisions. Dynamic all around.
-----------------------------------------
> msh says:
>.
<snip>
> 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.
>
I think history and economics shows this assertion not to be true.
Economies South of the Rio Grande are traditionally paternalistic
systems run by a small group of elite in each country. Only at the
village and produce market level are they dynamic and free. If you
are looking at real money you must make deals with the "right"
families. That was a Spanish creation, but the families are also
the ones who traditionally 'pick' their country's rulers.
Yankee companies are simply behaving expediently in working
with the families. When those companies reach in and mess with
the internal system against the families or if the US government
does we usually torque off most of the region and the world.
Mess with it and we look bad, leave it alone and we look bad.
Hmm...sounds attractive. (I know... No one said it was easy.)
------------------------------------------------
> 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.
It is in the FAMILIES' interest to keep their people poor, they
have made the decision to be big fish in small ponds. The
naturally more egalitarian preference in the society of Anglo-Saxon
Germano-Celtoid Rebels is far more interested in much larger
economic ponds - let the fish all grow.
snip
...with a puppy's apologies...hope I did not mess on the floor
in my exuberance.
thanks--mel
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