Re: Bill Gates and the PC

[Louis N Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Justin Schwartz wrote:

>
> Right. I am using "entrepreneur" in the Austrian sense, maybe originally
> due to Walwas, as Ken suggested, as meaning someomne who creates and
> develops new opportunities, whatever her ownership status, motivtaion, or
> reward. This is hardly idiosyncratic, by the way. It's no more technical
> than using "value" to mean necessary labor time.
>

Louis: Well, Justin, it may not be indiosyncratic in the intellectual
universe you travel in. It is in mine. We have to agree on vocabulary in
order to have a dialog. I was not being an "entrepreneur" when I helped
to start up what was basically an employment agency to place American
skilled professionals in Nicaraguan government agencies. Our volunteers
worked with somebody named Ben Linder who was working on a rural
electrification program in northern Nicaragua and who was murdered by the
contras. This electrical engineer made a point of living exactly like the
Nicaraguans around him. Money did not interest him. That is why he chose
not to take a high-paying job in the US. He wanted to allow campesinos to
have electricity.

One of the things that I learned from this volunteer program is that most
people don't have much of a sense of self-worth working for Bell Labs,
IBM, Lockheed, etc. Their work in Nicaragua with the "bureaucratic"
government agencies you have so much contempt for was much more innovative
and risk-taking than anything they did in the US.

No offense, but we have big differences about this matter and I resent
you attempts to square the circle.


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