thoughts on elites

[Odin]

(07-01-2016, 03:43 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(07-01-2016, 12:24 PM)TnT Wrote:

(06-29-2016, 09:38 AM)Mikebert Wrote: *I also do not ascribe to the idea that small mom and pop businesses are capitalist, or that what they do is capitalism.

I think you're right about this.  I like to think about this in terms of "free enterprise" vs. captialism.

Free enterprise can be any sort of cottage industry on up to the point where the business transcends some arbitrary size and/or influence.  Maybe that line in the sand would be the point at which the original entrepreneur can no longer manage his enterprise through one layer of employees? (Or some such concept.)

Some of my ultra-left friends detest almost anything related to "business."  And yet, economic exchange among individuals HAS to take place.  And that exchange is the basis of enhancing one's life through the exchange of surplus resources.

I think capitalism is a subset of free enterprise.  Capitalist involves a "growth ethic".  The capitalistic strives to make his pot of capital grow.  Non-capitalist businessmen, like 15th century Venetian traders, do not seek to expand their business beyond was what is necessary to secure a very good living for themselves and their family.

Bill Gates is said to have expressed amazement with how many of his early employees stayed on the job after the initial stock issue had many them millionaires.  Think about it, you are like 32 years old and suddenly hold stock worth $10 million.  Why not sell the stock, and live on the several hundred thousand dollars income it generates for the rest of your life while you see what life has to offer?

In our society, Sam Walton was lauded for going to work every day and driving his own truck when he was worth $2 billion.  People think the McDonald bros were fools for selling our for millions, when they could (later) have had billions.  Yet later they were dead, whereas when they did sell they were still able to enjoy the money.

There is a real social norm that those with money should invest it rather than spend it (we make tax law such to favor investment income). 

This collection of beliefs is what I call the growth ethic.

This goes back to the Early Modern Period and the emergence of Calvinist Protestantism and related strains in Counter-Reformation Catholicism (like Jansenism) that encouraged hard work over leisure. Though this itself goes back to ascetic tendencies in early and high medieval western monasticism that worked to break down the contempt for labor the elites of the Classical world had.