Re: Bill Gates and the PC

[Justin Schwartz <jschwart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry, but you were being an entrepreneur. In my sense. --jks

On Sun, 28 Jan 1996, Louis N Proyect wrote:

> 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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