Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!husc6!seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
From: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: When is a Job Not Employment?
Message-ID: <20871@styx.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Sep-86 18:26:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: styx.20871
Posted: Fri Sep 19 18:26:02 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Sep-86 00:53:02 EDT
References: <1245@drutx.UUCP> <3384@umcp-cs.UUCP> <925@usl.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 21

In article <925@usl.UUCP> elg@usl.UUCP (Eric Lee Green) writes:
> . . .
> Wealth is produced by factories and farms, not by people sitting
> behind desks. Their job is the management and redistribution of
> wealth, not the production of wealth. As such, they are useful. But if
> we start having more people shuffling papers behind government (and
> industry) desks than there are producing wealth for the economy, the
> U.S. shall truly become a third-world nation.

The concept that only tangible commodities constitute wealth is 
not useful. There's a lot of paper-shuffling going on behind desks,
but there's also a lot of contribution to wealth -- research and
development on production techniques, technologies increasing productivity 
of labor, etc., not to mention non-tangible commodities --
information, the arts, and so forth. I agree that the ratio of
paper-pushers to producers is presently unfortunate, but Mr. Green
unfairly represents mental vs. physical labor.

Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb