"...technology and capital just appear under cabbage leaves, and have nothing to do with entrepreneurs."
Not true, but neither does it have everything to do with entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are just like everyone else, they work here, like you and me. They have their contribution to make, like everyone else does.
The world is not the playground of the entrepreneurial mentality, nor has it been placed here as a tool for their self-actualization. We all have to live here, and this idealization of the entrepreneur is simply an excuse to allow those who see themselves that way as intrinsically more
creative and productive, hence more vital and deserving than the rest of us. Well, at least, genuine entrepreneurs might some claim to that opinion.
No, entrepreneurs are not the enemy. But all businessmen are not entrepreneurs any more than most politicians are statesmen, most are employees, just like us, who only fancy themselves as captains of industry or movers and shakers. Or they justify their own lack of entrepreneurial success to the machinations of evil collectivists. Personally, I prefer scientists and artists as role models.
The fact remains, and you have not disputed it yet: The experience of human labor and industrial organization throughout history, but particularly since the advent of mechanized industrial technology two centuries ago, has been one of increasing democratization and progressive improvement in social welfare, without it causing any obstacles to development or loss of productivity. We know by now that industrial development is not a zero sum game, and that we can all benefit and prosper from it.
But every single element and strategy in that progressive agenda, every single advance and benefit, has been opposed
and undermined by the managerial and commercial classes, with every legal, legislative, economic and even violent means at their disposal. The arguments against social justice are are allways the same, indistinguishable, whether it be child labor laws or a national health system. And a century later, the change is accepted as if it had been the most natural outcome of economic forces.
Our contemporary economic and political freedoms have not been bestowed upon us by the largesse of entrepreneurs, they've been payed for in blood, on picket lines and in street battles and shop floors, not just on military battlefields. Too many of us wear a necktie now and have forgotten that, or how quickly we too can simply find ourselves as just another employee.
I understand that all changes need not be well-considered, and all sides have a right, if not an obligation, to oppose policy they feel may be counter-productive to the community as a whole, or unfair to any segment of it. But honest debate or disagreement is not the issue, it is the casting of any change and progress as a single threat from a single enemy. The Us vs Them mentality is not the world-view of Marxists and Anarchists alone, it appears to be the natural condition of everyone who feels he alone is responsible for his good fortune and those who lack that good fortune have no one to blame but themselves.
Current Events » in reply to Productivity
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
The whole thread (37 posts)
- Bush threatens to veto $7 billion a year for kids health insurance.
- Bringing on Bagdom
- And one for the road...
- Oh, here's your link
- We've already done this one.
