Hey Mary, Over the course of human history, profit-seeking business leaders, scorned as greedy capitalists, have done more to preserve human life and lift human beings out of poverty than all the churches, charities and government welfare programs combined. It is economic ignorance that impels critics to vilify society's benefactors. These benefactors deserve our gratitude and praise for without them there would be a lot fewer people alive today and a lot more poverty. Any number of reasons can be cited for the success of capitalism in improving human life all over the globe, but Pirsig nailed it when he wrote: .
"A free market is a Dynamic institution. What people buy and what people sell, in other words what people value, can never be contained by any intellectual formula. What makes the marketplace work is Dynamic Quality. The market is always changing and the direction of that change can never be predetermined. The Metaphysics of Quality says the free market makes everybody richer-by preventing static economic patterns from setting in and stagnating economic growth. That is the reason the major capitalist economies of the world have done so much better since World War II than the major socialist economies." (Lila, 17) Regards, Platt On 15 Feb 2010 at 14:44, Mary wrote: > Hi Platt & all, > > [I said earlier] > if we don't trust the government we can > > vote them > > > out. Not a perfect or speedy solution, but better than nothing. We > > have > > > no > > > power over rapacious corporations. > > [Platt replied] > > Sure we do. We don't have to buy products from corporations we don't > > trust. > > But we do have to work for them. > > Maybe I can't afford or don't want to move. > Maybe I can't find a job in my field anywhere else. > Maybe I can't find a job doing anything anywhere else. > Maybe I can't afford to be without health insurance. > Maybe I am too old to be looking for a new job because I would cause a new > employer's health insurance costs to go up. > Etc. > > Maybe it would be better if there were a few laws with teeth regulating how > corporations could conduct business with respect to their customers, the > environment, and their employees. > Maybe it would be better to not be at the mercy of the judgment of a distant > board of directors we do not know, will never meet, and who have no idea > what and how much their employees actually do every day. > Maybe it would be better if corporations had a legal obligation to treat > their employees with fairness, and we had recourse if they did not. > > Maybe it would be better not to think about the Catch-22 a white-collar > "exempt" (meaning exempt from the labor laws for benefit of you > non-Americans) finds himself in, be grateful to not be among the mass of the > unemployed, and just get over it. ;) > > Cheerfully getting over it, > Mary Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
