From: Crosby_M (CrosbyM@po1.cpi.bls.gov)
Date: Fri Feb 14 1997 - 08:43:04 MST
On Thursday, February 13, 1997 5:19 PM, Robin Hanson wrote:
<Note the implication though: Most capitalists have never appreciated
the value of free markets,>
Yes. The Wall Street Journal often reports how capitalist foundations
flirt with socialist causes; or just yesterday, Ford fawns to its
unions to find labor peace, stiffing suppliers who can't afford such
fine fixtures.
<... or they would have invested here instead of elsewhere.>
Hmmm, why should they distinguish here from there? Must adventurers
always be judged as pirates just because they see easier pickings over
the uncharted horizon? On the other hand, consider the ultimate
entrepreneurs, farmers, who have the audacity to cultivate compost,
computing with dirt, to turn barren deserts into juicy desserts.
The following emphatically expresses what I have in mind here:
"Pirates gained superiority when they learned that one ship could
carry more things than could a mule's back - that it could go anywhere
in the world.... Pirates of the high seize passed on their secrets -
on the ways of the world - to 'captains of industry', the new
pirates.... When captains of industry found that Earth's resources
were unevenly distributed, they used ships to bring the 'burried
treasures' together. Their economic power boomed.... Mariners lived
in a state of continuous discovery. They had to develop mathematics
to survive.... The closer man lives to the unknown, the more inventive
he becomes - the quicker he adopts new ways."
- R. Buckminster Fuller, _I Seem To Be A Verb_, 1970, pgs 104-124
Mark Crosby
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