From: sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Organization: my opinions only
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 23:40:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.182942.4893@Princeton.EDU>
egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.174235.12399@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com (Seth Breidbart) writes:

>>It's still voluntary, unless the farmer is physically preventing him
>>from working for someone else.
>
>In many cases, farmers do exactly that to Mexican workers.

And farmers who are caught doing exactly that to Mexican workers get
sent to prison.

>  And in many
>other cases, economic terror IS physical prevention of choice.  When
>you're offering to let me (or my children!) starve, that's tantamount to
>physical coercion.  Also, coercion can be quite subtle.

Well, Ed, I'm quite willing for you to starve.  Now explain how I've
coerced you.

>For as Marx wrote one hundred years ago, the employee/employer
>relationship is by nature coercive to the employee, since the employee
>has only one thing to sell.  This is his time, and Marx shows how the
>employee's time is uniquely irreplaceable...whereas the employer sells
>access to the means of production, an access which is NOT, for the
>employer, irreplaceable.

If the employer's machines are idle for 8 hours, they are idle, and
that wasted capacity cannot be recovered.  If a laborer is idle for 8
hours, that time cannot be recovered either.

As an employee, I have many things to sell.  They all involve the use
of my time, but I can sell my expertise in several fields.  (Would you
say that the owener of a store only has one thing to sell, since all
transactions require his time at the cash register?)

>  If this seems wrong to you, ask yourself: why
>is it, in our society, do the direct producers of wealth, whether
>computer programmers or Outward Bound instructors, always seem to fare
>badly until they become administrators, managers, or brokers of the
>services of another?

Define badly.  I know several computer programmers, not
administrators, with incomes well into six figures.  I know a faculty
member with similar annual income, mostly from consulting.

>  That is, I can make lots more money if I can
>arrange with ten programmers, each earning 35.00/hour as contractors at
>various companies, to pay me 10.00/hour for finding them the job
>(brokerage.)  I can make 100.00 per hour, and the magic is that I still
>have my time!  I can market other programmers, work on a job myself, or
>sit on my duff!  

By matching a programmer who is willing to work for $35/hour with a
company that is willing to pay $45/hour, you have enabled $10/hour of
value to be created.  If the programmer could find the company at a
cost of less than $10/hour (times however many hours he did the work
for), or if the company could find programmers for that cost without
your help, then they wouldn't be paying you.

>  But you cannot deny that there is an element of coercion
>about it, for the programmers in my "stable" have to be persuaded to act
>against their interests, which would seem to be either to do nothing, go
>on welfare, or become brokers themselves.

If they do nothing, they starve.  If they go on welfare, they have to
give up their Porsches and they lose their self-respect.  They'd
rather be programmers, doing interesting (to them) technical work,
than brokers who have to deal politely with the assholes at the hiring
companies and the prima-donna egos of good programmers.

For instance, I'm an excellent programmer, I enjoy it, and I'd hate
being a broker and probably wouldn't be any good at it either.

>  The idea that this situation,
>with its irreducible elemnt of unfairness (an unfairness which is indeed
>celebrated by capitalist ideologues in their honest moments), is
>something that we'd choose for ourselves given the power is nonsense.

Huh?  What unfairness?  I'm doing what I want.

>>When did you last see a true democracy?  And would you accept one, if
>>the majority will included things you believe are evil and immoral
>>(e.g. slavery)?
>
>Of course, rights and separation of powers are a check upon democracy.

Rights are a necessary one.  Separation of powers is procedural, and
useful.

>My point is that you can emphasize bogus rights to the destruction of
>democracy.

Of course, the question then is who gets to decide which rights are
bogus and which are real.

>  This is what the National Rifle Association does, in a
>country in which the majority would prefer to see some form of gun
>control.  And the Supreme Court's care for the rights of Viktora
>directly thwarted the democratic will of St Paul, NOT to safeguard a
>minority, but to protect a sick white racist.  

Sick white racists aren't a minority?  In that case, you shouldn't be
promoting democracy so hard.

Seth		sethb@fid.morgan.com

Newsgroups: misc.legal