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8.12.2004
Speaking of Greed
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This site likes sermons on the virtues of property rights and markets. So the next time you read some Copyleft promise of how we need a new model of production of creative products that depends on a combination gift economy and government tax/subsidy scheme, bear in mind today's sermon, from economist, professor, and columnist Walter Williams:
"We don't give second thoughts to the many wonderful things others do for us. Detroit assembly-line workers get up at the crack of dawn to produce the car you enjoy. Farm workers toil in the blazing sun gathering grapes for our wine. Snowplow drivers brave blizzards just so we can have access to our roads.
"Do you think these people make these personal sacrifices because they care about us? My bet is they don't give a hoot. Instead, they along with their bosses do these wonderful things for us because they want more for themselves.
"People in the education and political establishments pretend they are not motivated by such 'callous' motives as greed and profits. These people 'care' about us, but from which areas of our lives do we derive the greatest pleasures and have the fewest complaints, and from which areas do we have the greatest headaches and complaints? We tend to have high satisfaction with goods and services like computers, cell phones, movies, clothing and supermarkets. These are areas where the motivations are greed and profits. Our greatest dissatisfaction is in areas of caring and no profit motive such as public education, postal services and politics. Give me greed and profits, and you can keep the caring."
posted by James DeLong : 8/12/2004 08:36:10 AM
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