From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Thu Jul 08 2004 - 22:06:09 BST
On 8 Jul 2004 at 13:01, Dan Glover wrote:
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:
Hi Dan. Funny you should ask. I started IPC in 1983. I was, and
continue to be, the only employee. I was lucky enough to be born
with a certain amount of brain power and knack for abstract
reasoning, and luckier still to be born at a time and place where I
would be able to take advantage of it. The PC boom of the early
eighties created a tremendous demand for programmers so I was able to
make a living as an independent contractor, the only way I can see to
exist in our society without either being exploited, or directly
exploiting others.
Anyway, in the late 80's, I was working for Ashton Tate, best known
as the creators of dBASE II, III, IV. I passed up several chances to
join AT as a full-time regular employee, preferring to retain my
independence. Had I accepted their offer, I almost certainly would
have ended up at Microsoft, along with almost every other AT
programmer, when AT went under. All of this was writing on the wall,
and no surprise to anyone. I knew that by turning down AT I was also
turning down Microsoft.
If I didn't follow up these opportunities in the 80's, when I needed
the work, I see no reason why I would give up my independence now,
six figures or no.
>
>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.
dan:
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:
I thought I already did. In our current system, someone might make
a moral choice to avoid the exploitation of others by renting herself
for wages. Or, maybe, by starting a business with herself as the
sole employee.
>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.
dan:
Why is it my responsibility to decide if the country my employees are
from (providing they tell me the truth) are defective?
msh says:
It's not. You choose your own scope of responsibility.
dan:
And believe me when I say I'm not helping anyone.
msh says:
I do.
>msh
>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.
dan:
What do you mean by the south? Are you talking the southern
hemisphere? Mexico? Alabama? Please clarify.
msh says:
Sorry. I'm using north-south in the economic sense. Over time, the
phrases 'First World', 'Second World' and 'Third World' have become
synonymous with 'first', 'second' and 'third best'. With the
disappearance of most communist nations, new terminology has emerged
to replace the first-second-third world distinctions. The terms
'Economic North' and 'Economic South' refer to the northern
countries being richer and the southern countries being poorer, as a
rule. So, in the western hemisphere, everything south of the US is
Economic South.
>msh
>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.
dan:
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.
msh says:
Well, if you stay you starve, if you move you have a chance: Not
quite a gun to the head, but...
BTW, this is exactly the way it's intended to work. Arlo's example
of Coca Cola in Tijuana, as well as his discussion of the Eco-South
in general, is well worth thinking about.
Best,
Mark
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