From: siphon%Momad@Infoserv.Com (Stimpson J. Katz)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Was Ayn Rand, but SOMEONE changed it to incompetence
Keywords: Rand Wingate Siphon Fuller Incompetence Gophers
Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 18:26:02 EST
Reply-To: siphon%Momad@Infoserv.Com
Distribution: world
Organization: MoDeM MaDnEsS BBS   1-516/295-9435


Thank you for a thoughtful response, Mr. Fuller. I only wonder why
Wingate's name made it into your keyword list and mine did not. A
little background:

SJK:

>I defy Mr. Wingate to demostrate how "greed and incompetence on the part
>of corporate executives plays a large role in the [unspecified] mess
>we are in". A much more defensible claim is "greed, incompetence, and 
>stupidiy on the part of government plays a large role in the economic mess
>we are in." 

JPF:

>     Anyone who would throw such defiance around simply has not been
>reading _The Wall Street Journal_ for the last fifteen years.  The evidence
>for American corporate idiocy during the period is *fully* equal to the
>evidence for government idiocy.  I speak as a right-wing loony of twenty
>four carat credentials.

SJK:

>Any Objectivist will be happy to explain to you why incompetent government
>officials can do much more damage than incompetent corporate officers.
>Corporate officers can only damage what they own and are subject to being
>thrown out if they do not do what the stockholders want. Government officials
>damage anything and everything and are subject to being thrown out if they 
>are caught in an illegal act or lose in an election.

JPF:

>     Both Objectivists and Libertarians need to notice that large corpora-
>tions are quasi-governmental.  Even President Eisenhower was aware that big
>government, big military and big industry were already largely indistinguish-
>able from one another forty years ago.  A number of Fortune 500 multinationals
>are larger, richer, more powerful and control more lives than most of the 
>national governments on the planet, and (speaking as a stockholder who has met 
>many other stockholders) most stockholders pay no more attention to the doings 
>of their corporate officers than do voters to the doings of state senators 
>from somebody else's district.  

>     During the three decades when GM was making outstandingly shoddy cars and
>tossing the U.S. car market to foreigners, did the stockholders pay the slight-
>est attention?  They did not.  Were any GM officers or directors ever thrown
>out because of their pinheaded performance?  They were not.  And did this
>example of prolonged corporate idiocy (only one among hundreds that _WSJ_
>readers could cite) do government-sized damage to the country?  It did.

>     I believe *most* strongly in private enterprise, private property and
>all the various other privacies.  I also believe that calling large com-
>panies (or indeed *any* huge organization of human beings) "private" is to
>distort the meaning of the term beyond usefulness.


      I must admit that I had not intended to get into this particular
tack in this particular discussion. Mr. Fuller brings up a point that I too
wish more Libertarians and Objectivists would understand. The point being
that our "private industry" is not as private as we would like it to be (and
often that pretend it is).

      Still, I stand by my original point. In particular, I am fully convin-
ced that government interference in the auto industry has done orders of
magnitude more damage than poor performance by corporate officers.
Specifically, import tariffs make it too easy for American companies to get
away with practices that could never compete on an open market. Obviously,
licensing requirements often encourage bigness.

      This means that it is sometimes easier for corporate officials to cozy 
up to government beareaucrats than to compete on the open market. For this,
businessmen deserve criticism. Typically only big companies can afford to 
do this.

      Yet to state, as Mr. Fuller seems to imply, that 'big is bad' bothers 
me. Opponents of capitalism often state that "replacing big government with 
big business is no solution." While it is true that big governement allows
businesses to be bigger than they would otherwise be (did you see the movie
_Tucker_?), is really impossible for a company to be big and 'good'?

      As far as businesses "controlling more lives that most of the
national governments on the planet," it is important to distinguish 
between the two possible types of control, control by compulsion and 
control by persuasion. Governments default to the first and businesses 
default to the second. To obscure this point is to confuse a gun with an 
argument.

      I know that most stockholders are apathetic, but the stockholders
that have the most to lose tend to be a little more involved. Companies
that are poorly managed are prime targets for corporate raiders. Of course,
the poor managers beg the government for protection from these 'evil
predators'.

      Wingate's original claim was that "greed and incompetence on the
part of corporate executives play a large role in the mess we are in." The
point of my response was that government protections play a large role in
allowing corporate executives to get away with their incompetence. The greed 
only presents problems when corporate officers use the government to further
their own (or anyone's) ends, otherwise, greed is a job requirement.

      When I use the term "private" I usually mean non-government, that is,
operating without the legal right to use force. I wonder what sort of
definition Mr. Fuller envisions for the term "private" if it is impermissible
to call "*any* huge organization of human beings" private. Should "private"
mean small? 

      So far as I am able to discern, Mr. Fuller seems to agree with me
on my primary points in the selected excerpts. I am grateful to him for 
the oppurtunity to clarify some things that I wrote that may not have been 
clear to every reader (and in particular, to Mr. Wingate).


The Siphon (SIPHON@momad.uucp)

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, never to live for the
sake of another man, nor to ask another man to live for mine."