[MD] Speaking of intellectuals

[Platt Holden]

Hi Ant:

> Platt Holden stated April 24th:
> 
> “Ant, you left out the following sentence. ‘Your work is compensated by
> its value to others in a free market where goods and services are
> exchanged through the medium of money rather than through a restrictive
> and awkward barter system.’”
> 
> Ant comments:
> 
> Platt,
> 
> No, the sentence was quoted at the top of my post

Quite right. What I was focusing on was the sentence you wrote as 
follows:

>"It was strange to see recently that Platt not only put forward George 
>Orwell as one of his intellectual heroes but to also agree with the 
>great socialist writer, Robert Tressell, that "those who work have a 
>right to own what they work to produce."

Unless Mr. Tressell said something about "work being compensated by its 
value to others in a free market" I don't agree with him at all. You 
see, figuring the value of a employee's work is a bone of contention 
between socialists like him and free marketeers like me. The former use 
various theoretical criteria to determine what a worker is worth 
whereas the latter lets the market decide. Socialists, for example, 
impose a minimum wage on employers while free marketeers allow them to 
pay employees what the market determines.   

> and is actually the
> whole focus of the Tressell piece which shows that for capitalists to
> make profit (rather than, for instance, just take a salary for their
> risk in setting-up a business etc) they _must_ take more than an equal
> share of the value of the worker’s production. Moreover, as capitalist
> companies become more competitive, they are forced to take an increasing
> value share of their workers production hence Western corporations such
> as Nike and British banks now shifting to using Chinese sweatshops and
> Indian call centres (where labour costs are minimal).  In the long term,
> such policies aren’t going to improve the quality of life for anyone
> (either socially and especially not intellectually or aesthetically).

This presumes that Mr. Tressell knows what constitutes "an equal share 
share of the value of the worker's production." Does he mean, for 
instance, that ideally the CEO of a company should take no more in 
salary than a worker on the production line and split the profits 50-
50?

> With due respect to yourself Platt (as an armchair philosopher/artist),
> the only person I know of who seriously applied the MOQ in the real
> “economic” world (from advising the oil giant BP downwards) was Dr
> Robert Harris.  Now, if you read his articles about the MOQ in an
> economic context, the optimal free market economy is not capitalism but
> a free market composed of privately-owned co-operatives.  Harris (‘The
> Evolution of Work & Sustainable Business Models’, an article for “The
> Futurist”, Paradigm Research International, Reston, Virginia. 1997, p.1)
> notes that such companies operate longer, provide a less alienating
> working environment and are more Dynamic (because they generate real
> teamwork, genuine loyalty, trust and therefore the increased sharing of
> information and new ideas from _all_ levels of a company).
> 
> Moreover, Harris provides evidence (in his papers) that privately-owned
> co-operatives are as successful financially, if not more so, than
> companies retaining the traditional capitalist structure.  Harris
> quietly encourages shareholders and directors to share significant
> control and equity of companies with their workers (for the benefit of
> _everyone’s_ long term interests) and I wish him well in this pursuit.

With all due respect to you and Dr. Harris, if his system is better 
than others, it will be adopted freely by entrepreneurs and investors.  
So far I don't see any great trend in his direction. I'm sure you 
wouldn't want to force his system on anyone, would you?

> Platt stated April 24th:
> 
> “As for the excerpt from Tressell’s novel, he conveniently left out the
> risk taken by the capitalist and the investors in the enterprise, not to
> mention the sudden magical appearance of "all the machinery of
> production," as if the "factories, tools and railroads" suddenly dropped
> from the sky.”
> 
> Ant comments:
> 
> There’s no reason that if someone sets-up a co-operative that they
> shouldn’t take a larger percentage of the profits due to their initial
> risk-taking, investment and/or initiative.  That seems fair enough to
> me.  However, it is the idea of static salaries which must go (to be
> replaced by a Dynamic system of profit sharing for every worker) so how
> a corporation or company fares makes a real difference to all workers.
> 
> In other words, it’s all about generating genuine interest and
> commitment in a team framework where everyone is pulling in the same
> direction.  For instance, a co-operative dispenses with the typical two
> factions found in both capitalist and nationalised companies which are
> often vehemently opposed to each other i.e. the owners/government and
> the trade unions.  I can’t imagine the intellectual and financial waste
> that this dualism alone causes in the typical corporation but it must be
> considerable.  (And, no the answer is not just dispensing with trade
> unions as they protect the standards of living for the majority of
> people working in capitalist economies).

Again, the comment above about Dr. Harris applies to your profit-
sharing system. Companies will adopt it by choice if it's better than 
alternatives. In fact, there are a number of companies who have adopted 
profit-sharing for the reasons you cite, but not always with positive 
results. 

> Platt asked April 24th:
> 
> “What’s the current rate of growth in socialist Europe vs. capitalist
> America?”
> 
> Ant comments:
> 
> Socialist Europe???  Where’s that?  Is that a small island off Sweden
> somewhere?  :-)

Are'nt most countries in Western Europe socialist welfare states?  If 
not, what would you call them?  

> Platt then noted April 24th:
> 
> “About half if I’m not mistaken, due no doubt to ‘But what the
> socialists left out and what has all but killed their whole undertaking
> is an absence of a concept of indefinite Dynamic Quality.’ (Lila, 17) --
> among other things.”
> 
> Ant comments:
> 
> That might be so (at least regarding Soviet Communism) but also *don’t
> forget* that the MOQ considers capitalism as a social level pattern and,
> in consequence, secondary to the more Dynamic intellectual values such
> as beauty, justice and freedom:
> 
> “In the MOQ making money is a social activity that should not dominate
> the higher intellectual goal of truth, or interfere with perception and
> pursuit of Dynamic Quality.”  (Robert Pirsig.  E-mail to Anthony McWatt
> dated June 16th 2002.)

I agree. But, I haven't seen where making money interferes with higher 
intellectual goals. In fact, universities, museums, think tanks, 
scientific research centers and the like only exist thanks to the money 
made at the social level.
 
> The MOQ (as a philosophy that recognises social structures as being
> composed of value patterns and, therefore, being as real as anything
> material) can be employed to challenge the alienating assumptions of
> capitalism (rather than just accept it uncritically as you do!) and,
> moreover, leads to solutions that point away from SOM solutions such as
> Soviet Communism (which was, in effect, just a very large capitalist
> corporation where an elite got the major benefits of economic production
> and the working majority received bugger all other than learning how to
> queue for bagel and climb fences).

"Alienating assumptions of capitalism?"  That term "alienation," like 
"exploitation" is right out of the Marxist handbook. As for you 
interpretation of Soviet Communism being just a "very large capitalist 
corporation" my mind boggles. If you find millions dying of starvation 
in America and dissenters being shipped off to disappear in Alaskan 
gulags, do let me know. 

Best regards,
Platt