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From: tbray@mprvaxa.UUCP (Tim Bray)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: Enforced socialism?!?!?!?
Message-ID: <519@mprvaxa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Apr-84 11:03:01 EST
Article-I.D.: mprvaxa.519
Posted: Fri Apr  6 11:03:01 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Apr-84 05:41:06 EST
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I think jj's term "union-enforced socialism" is a contradiction in
terms.

Socialism is based on state control of a large part of the the
economy.  Free Enterprise is SUPPOSED to be based on enlightened
self interest, free play of market forces, and all those other
good fairy stories.

Unions are organizations constituted of participants in
the free labour market acting in their own enlightened self-interest
to increase their value in that market.  Now some unionists may
be politically committed to socialism (damn few in the US).  But
they are part of the free market and can no more impose socialism
than the "Moral Majority" can impose morality.

But that's different, you say?  Oh I see, enlightened self interest
is only for the propertied, not for the peons...

Actually, based on my experience in the private sector, I think the
original poster was entirely correct in that the North American
private sector is destroying itself (and our planet, as a by-product)
through excessive focus on the quarterly bottom line.

The problem is that if I as a corporate manager change my focus to
the long-term, my quarterly profitability will decline, and with it
my ability to attract the investment capital necessary to make important 
strategic moves.  So I am locked into the vicious and eventually
self-defeating quarterly-bottom-line cycle.

The problem with capitalism is that it doesn't work.