AmericanMissive — A friend of mine posted a link to an Op-Ed in the New York Times. The Op-Ed was by Hedrick Smith and entitled “When Capitalists Cared”. I read the article and responded on facebook. I enjoy a discussion about economics and politics, but in this instance it appears, like a Window Salesman, I have overstayed my welcome. Because I enjoy his friendship and do not wish to bombard my friend with more on his facebook page, I have taken this discussion on to American Missive.
To put it simply, I disagreed with the Op-Ed. I do not think I went over the top and turned into a partisan yahoo on the matter. (There was no name calling, and my blood pressure never rose during my reading or commenting on the article. Though, I should know, when the “see more” link starts showing up in your facebook comments, you have probably typed too much.) I just found Mr. Smith’s opinion to be factually lacking and based on false premises.
The reason I read the article was largely because of the title. I consider myself to be a capitalist, so I was curious as to when it was I cared and when it was I stopped caring. Unfortunately, I learned all these events predate my existence so it turns out my heart has no say in the matter. Apparently I am a Capitalist without any colleagues, in a cold, lonely land, with one of two options for a path forward, curl up with time and wither into the shadows, or prey on the less fortunate and rob them of their dignity.
I stipulated that Mr. Smith was presenting a false premise on potentially two fronts. The first would be juxtaposing total aggregate wages with the profits of a minority of businesses employing only a small fraction of the total American Labor pool. And the second was rooted in his conclusion:
“step beyond political rhetoric about protecting wealthy “job creators” and grasp Ford’s insight: Give the middle class a better share of the nation’s economic gains, and the economy will grow faster.”
On the first premise, I found the opinion to be based on a simplistic view of historical economic events. Mr. Smith gave little weight to the invention of the microchip, demonstrated a misunderstanding of economies of scale, a seeming lack of knowledge of German apprenticeships and governmental economic policies rooted in austerity, and the disregard for the scale of impact the 2 billion workers India and China poured into the labor market in the 90′s. His simplistic view of economic history was coupled with a gross misrepresentation of for whom the vast majority of the American middle class works. Or at least, would work if they were not unemployed or working part time.
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