Jesus Saves! Gretsky Scores!
On Sat, 28 Sep 1996, David Musick wrote:
> Suresh Naidu writes:
>
> "I hate and fear government as much as anyone, but I also fear corporate
> tyranny, and as long as private interests are this selfish and greedy, I will
> pay my taxes to help out my fellow man."
>
> "I think a rwandan farmer should have the same opportunity to become a nanogod
> as the CEO of some big company. I realize I`ve probably contradicted many
> extropian political opinions, but I do embrace the hope for technological
> advancement helping out all of humanity instead of just the rich."
>
> First off, I also am very interested in the well-being of all humans, and also
> hope that all humans benefit from technological advancement. However, I don't
> see the selfish and greedy interests of private business as conflicting in any
> way with the general welfare of humanity. In fact, I see the selfishness and
> greed of the business world as the driving force of technological progress,
> the provider of nearly all the wealth that we enjoy, and I think that selfish
> and greedy business people are the most likely people to actually help the
> poor, even though other people have much more compassion for the poor in
> general.
Really, tell that the the CEOs of Nestle and Shell. I`m sure everybody
on this list knows what these two businesses do to the Third World. face
it, folks, our freedom is built on other peoples oppression. >
> First of all, a business cannot make money except by selling what people want
> to buy. So, a selfish, greedy business person, who only cares about making
> lots of money is driven to provide the best products and most appealing
> services in order to make lots of money. They are in the business of
Umm, wrong. A business is driven to make profits, not make the best
product. They will cut the corners and do everything in their power to
keep production costs low as long as it doesn`t undermine consumer interest.
The fact that products like the electric toothbrush, disposable diapers, are
demanded by the public scares me. You`ll notice that the public is only a
small minority of people, yet entire societies and ecosystems are
consumed in our mad rush for more junk.
> satisfying people's desires, and the ones who do it the best make the most
> money. But there is a great deal of competition in business, and the
> businesses which are more efficient than other businesses can sell products at
> lower cost than their competition while receiving the same amount of profit.
efficiency, smefficiency. Having slave labour is very efficient, but it
doesn`t help the workers any. While I don`t like union structures, they
are necessary if corporations are going to be this evil. What ever
happened to public conscience.
> Thus, they will usually tend to make more money than their competition. Also,
> those which are more efficient can provide higher quality products at the same
> price as their competition and thus outsell them.
Assuming consumers are enlightened enough to know. This is where that
tool of oppression known as mass media comes in.Advertisers can direct
the news by controlling what shows they sponsor. Of course, they can
dictate what the public thinks if they onw the means of communication.
For example, GE owning NBC. Do you think anyone on NBC news will say
anything against SDI, which benefits GE in a major way.
>
> Greedy, selfish business people are constantly driven to outdo each other in
> providing higher quality, less expensive products and services. Thus, their
> greed and selfishness itself drives them to help people more than their
> competition, to be better at providing people with what they desire (and
> fulfilling people's desires is the best definition of "helping people" that I
> know of).
What about the people they screw over in they`re desire to become the
richest fattest people possible. They screw over
>
> But to provide better products and services at lower prices requires making
> progress in technology, improving manufacturing methods and so forth, and this
> is the basic driving force behind nearly all technological progress. Their
> greed drives them to develop better technologies. Nearly all the wealth we
> enjoy comes from our technology. Even the money you are willing to pay in
> taxes to help the poor exists because of the efforts of many greedy, selfish
> business people. Without all the greedy, selfish business people, we would
> all be very poor indeed. If people weren't so greedy, they wouldn't compete
> so fiercely and refine the quality of their products so quickly and
> competently. In fact, I wish people were *greedier* and *more* selfish, in
> general. If they were, they wouldn't tolerate the government taking away over
> half their income, we would all be making way more money, businesses wouldn't
> have to pay so much in taxes and could afford to lower their prices
> considerably (they would be driven to lower them, through competitive greed).
>
> As far as greedy, selfish business people being the ones who will bring
> prosperity to the poor of the world goes, remember that businesses always seek
> to increase their number of customers. When the market gets too difficult to
> enter in rich countries, like the United States, then poorer countries will
> look more appealing to the greedy business people. At first, they will use
> the poor people for cheap labor. And, at this point, the bleeding-hearts in
> America start crying, "Exploitation!" But we must remember that the poor
> people wouldn't work for these businesses unless they were being paid more
> than they were before. They're still in a bad position, yes, but less so than
> before, because they're making more money than before, and they're gaining
> skills. Then, other businesses will want to sell their products to these poor
> people, who can now afford a little more, and now that they have more skills,
> other greedy business people will want to come in and offer them jobs which
> pay a little more than they are getting from their other jobs, so that they
> can attract the best workers. So, slowly, slowly, through the efforts of
> greedy, selfish business people, the poor are raised from their poverty and
> taught how to work and how to maintain a prosperous community. Remember the
> early days of the Industrial Revolution? Remember all the poor people working
> in the factories and all the cries of exploitation? Well, look at the world
> today. We are much richer now than ever. And it is because of all the
> greedy, selfish people that exploit us whenever they can, as mush as they can.
> But to exploit us, they must provide us with something we want, and then
> their competitors will try to outdo them and offer us something even better,
> and it goes back and forth and all around until eventually everyone is very
> wealthy. But we must give it time to run its course. The poor won't become
> wealthy overnight, but they are becoming wealthier than they ever were before.
> We are making progress, and most of our progress comes directly from the work
> of greedy, selfish business people.
>
We are making progress, definitely, but HUMANITY is not making progress.
Ethnic strife brought on by excruciating poverty and famine is ransacking
much of the world. The western nations are a safe haven from the problems
of the world. The biggest problem Canada has, according to the news, is
constitutional matters. These seem to pale in comparison to the plight of
people in Nigeria, where Shell is busy assisting in the extermination of
an ecosystem and the suppression of human rights.
> If the governments would just get out of the way and let the greedy, selfish
> people do their good work, the prosperity would be spread around much faster.
> Coercive, meddling governments are slowing down progress and the advancement
> of prosperity considerably, and they are the biggest enemies of poor people
> everywhere.
Governments are villainous, I agree, but not as much as big business. Big
business has government so firmly in it`s pocket it dictates when we have
was. The gulf war was necessary to justify arms funding, which of course
means more government subsidies. >
> A lot of the reason people are against greedy, selfish people is because they
> imagine that there is only a limited amount of wealth to go around, so if the
> greedy people take more, there is less left for everyone else. Considering
> that nearly all the wealth we enjoy now was not around a few million years
> ago, or even a few hundered years ago, this view is patently absurd. Wealth
> is constantly being created, and most of it is being created by greedy,
> selfish people, and that creation of wealth benefits us all.
Depends on definition of wealth. In our still very industrial age, oil
and other finite reserves imply wealth. Until we expand out into space
and begin harvesting resources from there, we will have a limited amount
of wealth. Especially now that we are so close to the brink.>
> Another point to make is that while greed and selfishness are extremely good
> qualities for a business person to have, they are extremely dangerous
> qualities for anyone involved in the government to have. This is because
> business people _make_ money through voluntary transaction (if they don't do
> it voluntarily, I don't consider them business people, I consider them
> thieves),
Voluntary transaction being you can either work for the bare minimums
and the possiblilty of death on the job or starve. Everybody has choices,
just some people have choices which suck more.
while the government _gets_ its money by forcefully taking it from
> people. Thus, greedy politicians will cause even more money to be taken from
> people and cause tyranny to grow while greedy business people will create more
> wealth and cause prosperity and abundance to spread to everyone.
>
MmMM, food for thought there. Government, in theory, is accountable to
the people, corporations don`t even have the theory. If they can suppress
a minority in order to gain the consumer support of a majority, they win.
Who cares about "liabilities" such as human rights > - David Musick >