"Sin" in western business ?

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Productive labor, earning wages, makes the markets, for innovators to sell to.

yes to a liberal this is very very true. Henry Ford, the supplier, is no more valuable than the customer who buys or demands his car!!

Without customers, nobody could sell anything.

yes to a liberal this is true even though without sellers customers would have nothing to buy.

Of course conservative intellectuals know that customers are effortlessly and instantly created merely by birth - everyone is born a a customer of food and air, yet nothing changed for 5 million years, despite all these customers, until just recently a few rare geniuses emerged who could supply us the things that that created civilization.

 

[georgephillip]

UE is not welfare.

even minimal unemployment benefits are "a form of welfare"

Lincoln said much the same in 1861...

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital.

"Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Lincoln was a politician, campaigning for office, by flattering people's Pride. Logically, Capital (machines, factories) are not the product of blue-collar labor. Instead, they are the intellectual products, of innovative entrepreneurs. For example,

• Thomas Newcomen & James Watt developed the steam engine, for pumping out mines, not miners generally;
• Eli Whitney developed the Cotton Gin, not cotton-pickers generally;
• Eli Whitney developed interchangeable parts, not musket-makers generally;
• Henry Ford developed the rolling assembly-line, not car-assemblers generally.

General blue-collar laborers deserve zero credit, for those innovations, from which they have benefited, via the Industrial Revolution, and rising standards of living for all ("Newcomen's & Watt's steam-engines lifted this world out of poverty").

liberals despise profits and see them as the product of greed.

I know many liberals. And I know none that despise profits.

stereotypically, blue-collar points to the Greed of white-collars for "profits", for which they themselves are Envious. Nobody minds their business being profitable, when those profits accrue to themselves, in higher wages. Finger-pointing appears to be a case of "best defense is a good offense", behind which everybody acts more-than-less the same

Logically, machines and factories require blue-collar labor to come into existence.
Jack hammers, cranes, bulldozers, and rail roads depend on human labor for their physical manifestations.

Eli Whitney's cotton gin not only gave fresh life to the profit of upland short cotton harvested by chattel slaves; it also contributed to the moral bedrock of factory conditions in the Lowell Mills.

"In 1869 The New York Times described the system of wage labor as 'a system of slavery as absolute if not as degrading as that which lately prevailed at the South'"

Wage slavery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

 

[Widdekind]

Logically, machines and factories require blue-collar labor to come into existence.

yes -- people get good jobs, building "capital" machines & factories; and then get good jobs, working on those machines at those factories. All of those good jobs flow from the original "spark of innovative creativity" of an innovator & entrepreneur, as people are hired to implement their "vision". All of which is important, and economically valuable. But nobody should deny, to innovators, their "intellectual property", in having been the first to think up the idea(s). Labor is not "superior" to innovation & entrepreneurism; labor is required to implement them; and without labor, nobody would be doing anything productive, to earn any money, to buy anything at all. Productive labor is not "bad"; but, it is not fair, to claim your blue collar is "superior" to Thomas Newcomen & James Watt, and the years they spent tinkering & improving upon technology, that later bettered everybody's lot in life. Pres. Lincoln used the word "superior" to pander to voters' Pride & Egos, not because labor is actually economically "superior" to innovation. Without innovation, we'd all be chimpanzees, considering termite-fisher-sticks and nut-smashing-stones to be "high technology", and living hand-to-mouth, subsistence only, with no surplus production to grow the economy. Modern earth economies are the "fruit" of ages of innovation, for which everybody who benefits "ought" to be grateful -- not scornfully claiming "superiority"

 

[Rshermr]

Logically, machines and factories require blue-collar labor to come into existence.

yes -- people get good jobs, building "capital" machines & factories; and then get good jobs, working on those machines at those factories. All of those good jobs flow from the original "spark of innovative creativity" of an innovator & entrepreneur, as people are hired to implement their "vision". All of which is important, and economically valuable. But nobody should deny, to innovators, their "intellectual property", in having been the first to think up the idea(s). Labor is not "superior" to innovation & entrepreneurism; labor is required to implement them; and without labor, nobody would be doing anything productive, to earn any money, to buy anything at all. Productive labor is not "bad"; but, it is not fair, to claim your blue collar is "superior" to Thomas Newcomen & James Watt, and the years they spent tinkering & improving upon technology, that later bettered everybody's lot in life. Pres. Lincoln used the word "superior" to pander to voters' Pride & Egos, not because labor is actually economically "superior" to innovation. Without innovation, we'd all be chimpanzees, considering termite-fisher-sticks and nut-smashing-stones to be "high technology", and living hand-to-mouth, subsistence only, with no surplus production to grow the economy. Modern earth economies are the "fruit" of ages of innovation, for which everybody who benefits "ought" to be grateful -- not scornfully claiming "superiority"

I have not seen an argument that labor is superior to management or ownership (capital). I have seen a good deal of the opposite argument. The point is, you can not have production of anything without capital and labor. Both are necessary.

In terms of the invention argument, I believe that to be a juvenile argument. From my experience in business, most inventions and improvements come from engineers and systems people, or labor who work directly with product. Not to diminish the ceo and ownership in general, who still have to supply the $'s to make it all happen.

What drives me to distraction are the efforts being made to many on these posts to diminish the value and contribution of labor. That is, in my humble but correct opinion, just plain ignorant.

 

[georgephillip]

Logically, machines and factories require blue-collar labor to come into existence.

yes -- people get good jobs, building "capital" machines & factories; and then get good jobs, working on those machines at those factories. All of those good jobs flow from the original "spark of innovative creativity" of an innovator & entrepreneur, as people are hired to implement their "vision". All of which is important, and economically valuable. But nobody should deny, to innovators, their "intellectual property", in having been the first to think up the idea(s). Labor is not "superior" to innovation & entrepreneurism; labor is required to implement them; and without labor, nobody would be doing anything productive, to earn any money, to buy anything at all. Productive labor is not "bad"; but, it is not fair, to claim your blue collar is "superior" to Thomas Newcomen & James Watt, and the years they spent tinkering & improving upon technology, that later bettered everybody's lot in life. Pres. Lincoln used the word "superior" to pander to voters' Pride & Egos, not because labor is actually economically "superior" to innovation. Without innovation, we'd all be chimpanzees, considering termite-fisher-sticks and nut-smashing-stones to be "high technology", and living hand-to-mouth, subsistence only, with no surplus production to grow the economy. Modern earth economies are the "fruit" of ages of innovation, for which everybody who benefits "ought" to be grateful -- not scornfully claiming "superiority"

I think Lincoln was saying capital doesn't exist without labor while labor existed for thousands of years without capital. Innovation and entrepreneurship seem closer to labor than capital; both rely heavily on the "cultural inheritance of mankind" which CH Douglas defined as "the knowledge, technique, and processes that have been handed down to us incrementally from the origins of civilization."

Since capital controls the means of production in our current economic system, most of the dividends from our collective inheritance accrue to a very small percentage of all workers.

 

[Widdekind]

you can not have production of anything without capital and labor. Both are necessary.

humans without tools (capital) cannot be (very) productive, e.g. you could only carry a handful of dirt or gravel. Even something as simple as a shirt used as a scoop would let you carry armloads more at a time. Tools (capital) multiply human labor tremendously, making labor much more productive & profitable.

most inventions and improvements come from engineers and systems people, or labor who work directly with product. Not to diminish the ceo and ownership in general, who still have to supply the $'s to make it all happen.

Thomas Newcomen & James Watt (steam engines), or the Wright brothers (airplanes), seem the former sort. Venture Capitalists, who invest in start-ups, made Silicon Valley, yes ?

What drives me to distraction are the efforts being made to many on these posts to diminish the value and contribution of labor.

i must be confused. In 1861, as acting President, Lincoln said, in aside, that:

It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.

So, Pres. Lincoln, amidst the US Civil War, was discussing the divide, between "white collar" & "blue collar" ?

• "capital" = owners (stock-holders)
• "labor" = workers

And, Pres. Lincoln was siding with the latter, over the former ? i don't understand what he's saying -- literally interpreted, "capital" = machines, factories; and "giving capital rights" would mean allowing machines & factories to vote. "Capital" = machines, factories; capital = super-valuable large property. Capital should be protected as valuable property ("industrial jewels"). If people vandalize capital, they should be forced to compensate capital owners (stock-holders). Lincoln did mention protecting capital.

i don't understand what he's saying. Life & limb trump property, e.g. 'tis better to allow a factory to be bombed, and evacuate the workers. In what way is capital made "superior" to labor ?

• nothing happens without labor employing capital (equipment, machines, factories)
• no capital is invented (and marketed) without innovators (and entrepreneurs)

i don't understand any conflict. Nor do i understand devaluing capital -- trying tearing up a road, without a jack-hammer; or building one without trucks & tractors. In what way does labor assert "supremacy" over capital (owners?), or owners over labor ? A fair wage, for earnest labor, is "Capitalism".


Alan Grayson: Lincoln: "Labor Is the Superior of Capital"