Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!zehntel!dual!lll-crg!gymble!umcp-cs!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: What is "capitalism"? Message-ID: <531@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-May-85 15:17:30 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.531 Posted: Thu May 9 15:17:30 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 03:48:58 EDT References: <441@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <1831@topaz.ARPA> <1008@uwmacc.UUCP> <1855@topaz.ARPA> <1015@uwmacc.UUCP> <1906@topaz.ARPA> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 22 In article <1906@topaz.ARPA> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes: > Human labor may be hot stuff, but this is not why. Directly ends-oriented > labor produces value in an arithmetic progression: if you can whittle > a thousand balusters in a year, you can whittle 2000 in two years or > 3000 in three years. If instead you use the first year to build machines > that multiply your productivity 100-fold, you can produce 200,000 balusters > in the succeeding two years; if you spend the first year building machine- > making machines, and the second using them to make 100 times as many > machines, the third year you make 10,000,000 balusters. Using the > "*human labor*" method you will accumulate 10,000 balusters in ten years; > using the capitalist method you will make 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 > in the tenth year. If capitalism were allowed to flourish, everyone > in the world would soon be rich; under the socialist regime of squabbling > over the pieces of an ever-shrinking pie, we will all soon be utterly equal > in wretched poverty. Why do you imply that socialists are incapable of increasing productivity this way? Why do you imply capitalists are incapable of squabbling over dividing the pie, shrinking or otherwise? -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh