Re: Why Management Seems to Hold the Cards (was FWD [forteana] Health Care: USA, Iraq & Canada)

From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Aug 10 2003 - 11:21:19 MDT

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    From: "Lee Corbin" <lcorbin@tsoft.com>

    > > > Historically, there indeed has often been an oversupply
    > > > of labor and an undersupply of entrepreneurs---and whose
    > > > fault is that?

    > Olga writes
    > >
    > > A fault is a fault is a fault? and a fault by any other name smells just
    as
    > > foul:
    > >
    > > http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/030809/bizeconomy_stress_1.html
    >
    > As compared to what? As compared to when? The 20th century
    > wasn't any picnic, nor was the 19th.

    That was exactly my point in my previous post to your example
    (unfortunately, your example was "[Like in] 1830..."). I wasn't comparing
    today's working conditions to past centuries' working conditions (surely, no
    contest there). We've got it much better now - and those reforms were not
    won easily and were certainly not initiated out of the goodness of the
    mucky-mucks' hearts.
    >
    > "Increasing". Sure, maybe over the last three years as many
    > people learned the truth about how much money they were making
    > and how "great" everything was in the bubble.

    Learned the truth ...? (I'm not sure what you mean, and maybe this point is
    not worth pursuing, in any case.)

    > The fault I spoke of above can be evenly divided between
    > two groups. The first is "workers" who have natural human
    > resentment of achievement and who in addition have fallen
    > for propaganda directed at management and entrepreneurs.

    Sometimes a natural human resentment of achievement is a good thing.
    Depends on what you mean by "achievement."

    > The second is all the Marxists and left-leaning elements
    > of society that teach that being a business person or
    > entrepreneur is giving in to "them" and trying to be like
    > "them". Subtly or not so subtly, many working class people
    > grow up practically thinking themselves to be a kind of
    > traitor should they think of starting their own business.

    Hmmm ... I suppose I'm a left-leaning "element" more than a right-leaning
    element, but, so help me - not only have I never taught anyone that being a
    business person or entrepreneur is giving in to "them" (?), but I've
    actually *been* a business person and entrepreneur (and so have a lot of my
    left-leaning ilky-inky-dinky-doo buddies).

    > Instead of starting businesses, the goal of both these
    > groups the last 150 years has been to "organize", and
    > try to deprive entrepreneurs of their property: most
    > crucially, why don't "workers" who are often in oversupply
    > historically, go start their own businesses?

    Last 150 years, huh? Hello, Earth to Lee. Granted, some women and former
    slaves - who had hitherto not been able to own property (because they, sad
    to say, *were* themselves designated as "property") - not only tried, but
    succeeded in finally being able just to *own* property. Whether some
    entrepreneurs were deprived of their property as a result depended, I
    suppose, on various sorts of things like whether particular entrepreneurs
    (1) owned slaves or (2) were married to women, who (at long last) were able
    to inherit the property from their husbands. Some women and former slaves
    did start businesses, and a few even succeeded. But, if you use your
    imagination, you can probably come up with a few scenarios of how difficult
    it must have been. While reforms at the workplace progressed slowly through
    the 1800s and early 1900s, they really took off starting with the civil
    rights years of the late 1950s and through the 1960s (and the civil rights
    struggle gave impetus to many other "rights" that were eventually
    implemented into the workplace as we know it now).

    Mostly due
    > to the aforesaid propaganda: it serves leftist politicians
    > and theoreticians to keep such ideas out of the heads of
    > "the masses" so as to increase their own relative importance.

    Again, I'm not certain what you mean about the propaganda, leftist
    politicians and theoreticians and "the masses" of which you speak.
    "Increase their own relative importance."[?] ... I have lost my way, baa
    baa baa.

    Olga



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