[PEN-L:7969] Re: M-I: market socialism and fire insurance

[R. Anders Schneiderman]

>On Tue, 24 Dec 1996, Louis wrote:

>I take one look at this sentence and want to throw the book out my 13th
>story window. Him and his references to Riviere and Le Trosne is academic
>babble. This is how he earns his salary. You earn your salary reading
>economic journals about places like China and Hungary. If you guys ever
>got downsized and had to go out and get a real job like the rest of
>society, I bet your knowledge of inflation figures in Hungary in 1969 or
>the opinions of Le Trosne would go right down the toilet. I could just see
>you two knuckleheads programming computers 8 hours a day (lately, 9) or
>busting your ass as a millwright and reading that sort of stuff when you
>get home.

Louis, I would really appreciate it if you would cut out this bullshit
where you keep posting messages that talk about programmers and millwrights
in the same sentence as if they had anything to do with each other.

Speaking from experience, if you know Unix, Perl, etc. you can make a very
nice living today that's totally outside the stratosphere of most
machinists and skilled carpenters.  If you're any good, you can make at
least $40,000/yr if not $60,000 or more (you may make less working in a
University, but then again, there are lots of bennies from working at the
Big U).  If you freelance, you can earn at least $50/hr if you're any good,
which means you could earn over $100,000/yr.  If you decide to tell your
boss to fuck off, you've got a hell of a better chance of getting another
job than a machinist does.  And, of course, you don't have to spend much
time getting the grease from under your nails or out of your hair.

And that's just compared to a machinist's job. Most folks today would kill
for a skilled blue collar job that pays well.  When I think about the crap
my buddies who've spent their lives working as clerical temps have to put
up with, I thank my stars that I know how to hack. Compared to most jobs
that most people have to settle for, life in the geek lane is pretty cush.


Also, would it really be any more bizarre to hack 8-9 hrs a day and go home
and read Le Trosne than to go home to cozy up with early Comintern articles
like you've been doing?

>Louis: What a joke! Does anybody think that Barclay Rosser would be
>posting all of that highly detailed information about Hungary and China
>to the Marxism list if having this at his fingertips was not part
>of his job?

Gee, I kinda like having people on this list who have that kind of info at
their fingertips.....

I have plenty of issues with academia, but one of them ain't people who
have information and who like to share it; like Max said, this is a good
thing.  Although sometimes things get a little out of hand on PEN-L,
Penlr's don't use their credentials or their specialized knowledge to treat
someone with disdain.  If anything, for someone like myself who's
interested in economics and who's not in the University, PEN-L is a treat;
I get to listen to conversations about lefty economics by smart folks that
I'd otherwise never hear.  Are there conversations that are way too
technical for my taste or that feel irrelevant to me?  Sure, but that's
true of any decent mailing list or newsgroup (anyone who can understand +
enjoy everything that's posted on the Perl newsgroups, for ex, is a very
scary person indeed).  I don't post very much to PEN-L because I've got an
RSI, but I learn a hell of a lot from it.

If you think PEN-L is a waste of time, get off the list.  If you don't,
stick around.  Either way, please stop whining about how these privileged
academics don't understand the real world like you, a nobly suffering
programmer, does.

Anders Schneiderman
Progressive Communications