Bob La Quey wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 7:56 AM, Martin Franco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
You imply that a business owner should take all the risks but at best
break even, while only his employees make money?
I meant to imply that there should be no business owner, that the
business should be owned by its employees, not by a single/few
individuals.
My experience has been that very few people want to take on
the responsibilities and risks of ownership. People want to
share profits but rarely losses. In a world where all risk
cannot be avoided one must come up with a mechanism for
compensating the risk takers. How do you propose to do this?
There is an implication that the business owners are taking risk.
The current debacle on Wall Street highlights that those people are not
expecting that there is risk involved.
Risk is only for the small fry, dontcha know.
Profit = Resources retained for future use. Inequity of distribution
exists in all known human systems. Inequity of risk also exists.
Unfortunately classical Marxist analysis of all of these problems
is superficial and impedes and real understanding of the problems.
The Marxist systems have tended to degenerate into bureaucratic
state monopolies of the worst possible kind. Anarchism, in the sense
that you used it, has not ever been found to be persistent. A
sustainable, equitable economy remains an open problem. An open
problem not likely to succumb to old dogmas.
I don't think such a sustainable, fully-equitable economy exists. There
must be some inequity (originally spelled that inequitability--the Net
really is making me stupid) to drive motion in the economy. The goals
should probably be A) a bottom level that we consider a fair starting
point and B) the opportunity to rise from there without a lot of barriers.
The problem currently is that we favor those who have already succeeded.
People who have already succeeded should have *fewer* protections
from risk rather than more.
Please note: this is different from "we should take their money." While
I am no Microsoft fan, I do not want to see them brought down. I *do*
want to see others helped up so that they can provide viable alternatives.
-a
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
