"Like most Americans, I’ve traditionally celebrated labor on Labor Day weekend—not organized labor or compulsory labor unions, mind you, but the noble act of physical labor to produce the things we want and need. Nothing at all wrong about that!"
"But this year on Labor Day weekend, I’ll also be thinking about the remarkable achievements of inventors of labor-saving devices, the risk-taking venture capitalists who put their own money (not your tax money) on the line and the fact that nobody in America has to dig a ditch with a spoon or cut his lawn with a knife. Indeed, what could possibly be wrong about having a “Capital Day” in odd numbered years and a “Labor Day” in the even-numbered ones?"
"Labor Day and Capital Day. I know of no good reason why we should have just one and not the other."
~Larry Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Education
"I know of no good reason why we should have just one and not the other."
ReplyDeleteBecause the entire Democrat party is full of closet communists who think private ownership of capital goods is teh evuuuulzzz!! That combined with the fact that they're personality type is the one that's attracted to empty symbolic gestures like holidays means there will never be a "Capital Day".
Oh yeah, and because they don't want to draw the attention of the public in general to the role that savings and capital goods play in a healthy economy. Those arguments about economic calculation are pretty darn convincing, so it's better that the stupid proles only think about them in terms of cars or refrigerators instead of oil fields and health insurance.
We don't have a capital day because machines don't need a day off to barbecue and drink beer?
ReplyDeleteOr...
ReplyDeleteHappy Investment Day.
machines without people - the future!
ReplyDeletewe don't need no stinkin labor!
Dr. Perry:
ReplyDeletePerhaps you forgot that there was a time when labor and capital weren't so much at odds with each other. It was the time between the end of World War II and the beginning of the adversarial use of offshoring in the manufacturing sector.
Such offshoring made it OK to consider labor as a problem to be solved with:
* Increasing the amount of middlemen between the business and the worker
* Playing geographic locations against each other to their own detriment, using sports terminology as a way to justify it
* Generally making the legal landscape worse off for workers with the repeated justification that "they already have tons of protections!"
Ironically, I shall be spending my Labor and Capital Day working. Someone's gotta make sure the world doesn't go to Hell while the rest of you are BBQ-ing and partying and drinking!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Ironically, I shall be spending my Labor and Capital Day working."
ReplyDeleteHere's to Jon! glug glug glug
Hmmmm. These ribs sure are delicious. I wonder how Jon is enjoying that baloney sandwich?
Thanks, Ron. When us capitalists unleash the next recession, I'll try not to let it affect you...too hard.
ReplyDeletemachines without people - the future!
ReplyDeleteGeez, Larry! Haven't you ever seen Terminator or The Matrix? We want them just smart enough to do our thankless tasks but not smart enough to think for themselves!
re: "just smart enough"
ReplyDeletenice work if you can get it, eh?