(07-01-2016, 03:43 PM)Mikebert Wrote:(07-01-2016, 12:24 PM)TnT Wrote: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?(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.
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.
The Venetian traders were not industrialists. They operated the definitive service activity of trading, taking goods that someone already produced in northern Italy or neighboring countries (Austria? Bavaria? Switzerland?) to countries in the eastern Mediterranean basin for trade goods made elsewhere. The Venetians were trading with Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and Arab states of the Levant. They were not making things (typically textiles) as were the early capitalists of Florence and Flanders, whose wares they were selling for luxuries of the Near and Far East.
The model of the Venetian trader somewhat fits modern-day professionals in law, health care, and accounting, or creative people doing well. (OK, works of art are tangible objects, but a really-good artist can take canvases from mass marketers and turn those into objects of great value). So it is with well-paid civil servants.
Wealth is simply wealth. It's good for buying stuff if one has no idea of how to invest it for growth. Being on the team of Microsoft is identity. By the time that one has $10 million in stock, the dividends become an excellent supplement even to slight pay. Simply having the money and no identity as part of something bigger, as I would associate with a lazy person living on a trust fund or a lottery winner, is not a very good life. You'd be surprised how quickly such people (let alone their kids) get messed up. Many go bankrupt, and many succumb to substances. Think also of some of the film stars and pop musicians who maintain a 'free agent' way of life. "I have money, cocaine is available, and I get high". Identity? Low-wage companies in retailing and fast food can try to create a corporate culture that includes a corporate identity for ill-paid workers so that they don't become free agents. So if the only thing wrong with working for Wal*Mart is the low pay... then at least one has an identity that one will not abandon cheaply.
So what would I do if I suddenly got rich? Unlike lottery winners who have jobs that they hate, I would try to keep my old identity or develop a new one. Buying a lake cottage, finding a gold-digging trophy wife, his and hers Mercedes Benz vehicles, a gas-guzzling RV, a cabin cruiser, and maybe a gold-plated toilet wouldn't cut it.
Easy money is as much a curse as a blessing. It rarely brings personal identity. Can people have identity and poverty? Sure. Mass poverty is now the norm in America as economic exploitation has become the most reliable way to get huge profits or enhance existing ones. The fast food business would not be so big if it had to pay wages commensurate with those of assembly-line workers of the 1950s. Mass poverty allows a few people to live like sultans in America, and the few who profiteer from mass poverty want even more of the same. If those profiteers on human suffering are the only investors, then our capitalist model looks like the stereotype that Karl Marx established and we are back to the norms of the Gilded Age.
Maybe we can't create more wealth off further investments. Businesses might be able to gut the market share of beached-whale competitors (think of Amazon.com thriving while Borders died and Barnes and Noble struggles). I have noticed some book-and-record stores surviving by adding used books and audio-video to their business.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.