Dear Friends,
It seems to me, there is a myth that pervades modern thinking, that myth is, the new class seeks the benefit of all while the bourgeoisie seek only profit. The myth both misstates reality and implies, the result of the first will be good, and the second bad. It misstates reality because it presumes members of the new class are selfless, which is of course absurd, if we are to accept they are human beings. They, like you and I, are self interested, and being self interested, they use the power their professions give them to maximize their individual profit. To claim otherwise, is to claim they are not human beings, angels perhaps? Moreover, the result of the professionals maximizing their personal profit, (greed), yields a much worse result for humanity, the economy and especially liberty, than a filthy industrialist’s profit driven greed. To be rational we must look at the result, pragmatically, to see which form of greed is better for humanity.
A capitalist in the traditional sense is not actually driven by greed, so much as a desire to make a thing work. All the greats have been this way. Ford built his cars to make a profit of course, else he couldn’t have made his cars, but hos primary motivating drive was to produce cars for everyone. Entrepreneurs devote their lives to their personal drives, profit is just a by product, the goal is to produce. Once the entrepreneur is dead, the sons manage the business into the ground and the grandchildren become half wits, unable even to screw in a light bulb without help. That is the reason for the saying, shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. This explains why the grandchildren of industrialists need trust funds… they would quickly burn through any amount of money and starve in short order.
Today we hear about how mechanization will drive everyone out of work. Marx said when the forest of arms looking for work grows ever thicker and those arms become ever thinner, that’s when the revolution will take place… because the invention and widespread use of the mechanical loom would drive people out of work. What he didn’t realize though, was that the mechanical loom allowed the price of a wool coat to get so low a humble worker could afford to buy one, instead of having to stuff his shirt with straw in winter. Moreover, the workers in fabric factories didn’t have to endure the repetitive motion problems that plagued those pulling and pushing a traditional loom. As the new class prophet, Marx was denigrating the means and profit of entrepreneurs, he missed the result of their labors. A higher standard of living and lower physical demands for the average worker.
What is the result of someone building a thing continually improving upon it and making it available to ever more people? Our modern world. Everything you consider a necessity was initially a luxury. It was an entrepreneur who probably invented it in the first place, then made it available to everyone to the extent it has become a necessity. At one time sewing needles were a luxury! If not for people who have an inner drive to build, innovate and create, humanity would, and indeed history proves… stagnate. Absent a means for entrepreneurs to fulfill their inner desire to create, there is no advancement, there can be no advancement. It is only through the creation of products, implementation of ideas and new ways to structure firms that we all have a phone in our back pocket that also takes pictures and is connected to an endless encyclopedia.
When the new class is given free reign to their avarice, they pursue business plans that alienate their customers, destroy their brands, wreck the reputations of once great companies they took over from industrialists and entrepreneurs, drive down wages so they can get ever more extravagant bonuses, pillage pension plans, move jobs overseas, hold workers in contempt… and all at the shareholder’s expense. Firms are bankrupted, economies crash, wages are held down, legal fees skyrocket and liberty must be curtailed to stop people discussing what is going on. All these externalities clearly are negative and indict the unlimited ability of the new class to feed it’s greed.
Without spending acres of trees elaborating on this and belaboring the point, when the greed of the new class is allowed, the lot of mankind is lowered, when the greed of entrepreneurs is allowed, the lot of mankind is improved. Looked at pragmatically then, it makes sense that entrepreneurship should be encouraged, and the ability of CEOs, lawyers, politicians, bankers, journalists, bureaucrats, economists, doctors, and other professions requiring a bachelors degree or better should be controlled. The old class, the bourgeoisie, should be allowed their greed, so they can make the modern equivalent of wool coats available to everyone.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
