:: Even if I was starving and living in a box, I would still consider you a greedy hypocrite to call yourself a Christian while denying your piecework employees health benefits.
:: If that makes you feel bad, then I'm doing them a service. And you.
I know you think your hobby serves people, Barry but you have no clue what your about. Running and growing a business will forever be something you claim to know so much about but will have never actually done. Don't you dare say that you have never claimed you know how to run a business. Every one of your posts to me for the last year is a moral judgment of how I'm running mine.
I don't feel even remotely bad as I draw a salary out of my business without providing medical benefits to my employees. You are a pathetic demagogue when you mischaracterize my rationalizations for the decisions I make over here. The business must first be established before it can provide for me or anyone else. You need to get out more often. A simple walk around the block might shed some light on you about the world and how it really works. I'd love to read a business plan you drew up.
:: To say that Stuart benefits by doing what is right, then, is to suggest that there is a soul, or an innate morality, that transcends the material world.
Indeed, Nik. Bless you! You've made a point I hold very dear. Much as we disagree, you understand how to properly evaluate morality. Transcendant vs. humanistic morality is the basis of nearly any argument with respect to collectivist economics. I don't believe I've ever heard Barry argue at that level. I find every other level superficial when the underlying moral basis remains unspoken.
:: Well, you got me there, Nikhil. I WAS hoping that Gort could be shamed into granting health benefits to his employees.
I won't be shamed by a godless morality system, Barry. I know that if there is no God, there is no morality other than the shifting sands of man's fickle fancy - a premise that does not motivate or bind me to act in any particular fashion. Therefore, I have no basis other than legality for anything but self-centered ambition if there is no God.
Explain something to me, Barry. Payroll at my company is about $5000 a week - net. Every month I also pay an additional $5000 in taxes I am forced to manage for my employees. Additional taxes are levied upon me for having them which I also pay out of that sum. What explains the satisfaction I have every single time I write one of those checks? Ask yourself why a guy like me is so awed by the responsibility God gave him of creating and running a business that provides a livelihood for 10 people and families that he relishes the writing of those checks.
Let's see how you twist that one around. In the meantime I'll provide the right medical insurance package when I see the business is stable enough to do so. You are no position to judge that from where you are sitting. Interestingly, I'm finding moral judgment to be the specialty of the left as it runs out of rational reasons to cling to its idealolgy.
:: And even if Gort 'did the right thing' and allowed his employees the power to control their own work, chances are they all could not compete with all the other propeller manufacturers who would continue to use employee exploitation in order to undersell Stuart and his recently liberated comrades. Thus the 'free market' would punish them all with bankruptcy for 'doing the right thing.'
"Doing the right thing" according to whom? You are not God, Barry although I'm sure the world would improve dramatically if you were. At the very least, you'd have a much clearer understanding of the propeller industry. Barring a personal proclamation of deity on your part (and the requistite proof - say a resurrection or two), I'll search for moral leadership elsewhere.
: Only a complete social transformation that smashes the 'free market' mechanism of institutionalized irresponsibility and competitive anarchy can possibly liberate the charitable inclinations of people on a MASS BASIS.
Under capitalism, man built a space shuttle and filled it with wonderful information gathering equipment. Under capitalism, great wealth was created that serves the average person well. Under capitalism man also built the internet and lets penny-ante operators fill it with half-baked crap. You can thank capitalism for creating, sustaining, and tolerating you, Barry.
Stuart Gort
