KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (11/14/86)
From: Hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA > You seem to feel that employers employ people >as a favor to them, and suffer no consequences when employees >chose to leave. You seem to think that employers can impose the >most draconian rules on their employees and the employees will >consent, and that any who leave will be unable to find work >elsewhere and will be quickly replaced with other, more >subservient, employees. Obviously, you don't understand >corporate culture, or even the rudiments of economics. This type of view is all well and good when you are a computer professional much in demand but what about the average blue-collar worker? A good blue collar worker is even more in demand. Excellence is within every individual's grasp. All that is needed is willingness to study and work hard. Even people who are blind or deaf or confined to a wheelchair have made profound contributions to the world, and have become very wealthy. I have little sympathy for someone who chooses to attach a grommet to a frob over and over again millions of times for years and makes excellent wages doing so, but who chooses not to learn anything new. Thirty years later, machines (or Japanese) can do the same thing better and faster and less expensively, and he is out of a job. Should the rest of us have to pay? And does it matter whether we pay via a tax for welfare or via higher prices for imported goods thanks to protectionist tariffs? Leaving a steady job for alot of them means relocation and upheaval of a life which they can barely afford right now. Don't Libertarians know about the common man or are they so busy catering to yuppies? I think you have the wrong idea about my background. I am not a college graduate. I have had no formal training in computers. I am self educated. With the help of some friends I was able to get a four dollar an hour job within a week after leaving prison, when I was paroled after two years of a six year sentence for a series of burglaries I didn't commit. A year later I started work at my present company as a metal worker, and worked my way up to my present position as computer professional. I do not think I am privileged. Quite the opposite. If someone in my circumstances can succeed, virtually anyone can. I can't speak for other objectivists or libertarians, but you are right, I DON'T know about the common man. I have never met one. Is there such a creature? ...Keith -------