From: David Morey (us@divadeus.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: Sat Jul 10 2004 - 19:25:10 BST
Hi Dan
What if you die tomorrow
and your daughter becomes the company
owner. Why should she benefit from
the earning capacity of a company she has,
so far, done nothing to bring about?
regards
David M
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Glover" <daneglover@hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
> Hello everyone
>
> >From: Arlo Bensinger <ajb102@psu.edu>
> >Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> >To: moq_discuss@moq.org
> >Subject: Re: MD the metaphysics of free-enterprise
> >Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:15:05 -0400
> >
> >I find it heartening that Pirsig makes the statement "an employee-owned
> >company is more moral than a privately owned company for the same reason
> >that a democracy is more moral than a dictatorship".
>
> Hi Arlo
>
> I tend to disagee with Mr. Pirsig's analogy and I will try to explain why.
> Let's say I start a company in 1980 and I've worked over the years to grow
> it until I now have, oh, say 14 employees who work for me, one who's been
> with me for nearly 10 years. I depend on this fellow and pay him
accordingly
> (yet come year's end he doesn't make close to what I do as owner). Let's
> also say that there are times when I have to be away for extended periods
of
> time and though I pride myself on my salesmanship abilities, it does
happen
> that I invest a great deal of time in a project and end up walking away
> empty-handed (or empty-walleted to be more precise).
>
> On the other hand, I've always made sure my employees get paid first and
get
> paid on time. There have been times when I've literally gone hungry and
not
> paid my own bills in order to ensure that. It's true that when it comes to
> the business I'm a dictator and there's rarely a way to make everyone
happy.
> The buck stops with me and that's a huge responsibility. Only a business
> owner knows that. I have to know when to say no and stick to it. On top of
> everything else there's times when I can't sleep nights since there are
> things that need doing at the business and I'm the only one willing to do
> it. Other nights I can't sleep worrying about a big job coming up and
> whether I've gone and overextended my company on this one.
>
> Now I ask this question because I fail to understand: why is it more moral
> for my employees to own the business rather than me? Would they put their
> blood, sweat and tears into the company the way I have? I tend to doubt
it.
> That's why they're employees! Even my best most trusted ones. They can go
> home at the end of the day and forget business. I can't. The business
> follows me around. Would I sell my company to the employees? Sure, for the
> right price. You better believe it. But would they really be interested in
> being the owners? And the $64.000 question: Could they run it profitably?
> Again, I tend to doubt it. If they were cut out to be business owners they
> would be already, in my opinion.
>
> I started the business, you see; it's like a child to me. A dictator of a
> country did not start the country. I think that's where the analogy fails.
>
> Thank you for your comments,
>
> Dan
>
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