- Capitalism and Alternatives -

odd definition of work

Posted by: Gee ( si ) on November 17, 1999 at 13:46:51:

In Reply to: Management is not ownership posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on November 17, 1999 at 12:59:50:

: SDF: When people who earn most of their income through investment choose to work, it's a hobby. When the owner of the Dallas Cowboys paces the sidelines at the football games each Sunday, it's a hobby. The owner of the Dallas Cowboys DOESN'T HAVE TO pace the sidelines -- he hires a coach and a set of executive personnel to manage the Cowboys for him, so all of that work is taken care of.

My argument was - what would he be doing if he undertook the coaching job himself whilst owning the team? He would be working. Likewise a fellow who owns a corporation but still comes in to do actual productive work, whether it be a spot of accounts or some welding is working - the nature of the activity does not change because of his bank statement.

: SDF: Excuse me, billionaires don't make tables with their own hands for $20 in order to become billionaires,

The point is that were they to undertake *any* kind of productive work they would be working regardless of how much they owned. the point is that the imaginary billionaire table maker and the imaginary poor table maker would both be working. the former's productive output is not somehow invalidated on account of his wealth.

I am describing what productive work is an absolute, not making that relative and conditional upon a persons wealth.

: SDF: Still conflating management with ownership, Gee? A CEO is not an owner, but you can pretend that one is, if you want to.

If the CEO was the owner then presumably you would explode in a shower of sparks like a 60's Star Trek episode computer unable to deal with some apparent contradiction.

Work and owning wealth are not mutually exlcusive phenonoma as you appear, remarkably, to suggest.


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