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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: What is "capitalism"?
Message-ID: <228@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Jun-85 14:12:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: ubvax.228
Posted: Mon Jun 24 14:12:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Jun-85 04:09:21 EDT
References: <470@qantel.UUCP>
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 40

In article <470@qantel.UUCP>, gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) writes:
> Intellectuals gain with every move toward an administered society. The question
> of democracy is orthogonal to whether businessmen or intellectuals make the
> decisions. In fact, businessmen and intellectuals-turned-administrators are
> not radically different animals. It is the incentives and penalties they
> face that makes them different.
> 

Sure, intellectuals gain with every move toward an administered society.  I
also think they gain with every move towards democracy.

What is meant here by orthogonal?  Usually it would imply that the amount of
democracy is unrelated to the power of either businessmen or intellectuals.
I don't agree.  In democracy, persuasive people gain more power, and
intellectuals are more persuasive than businessmen because verbal and
written agility is needed to be intellectual.  One point of democracy
should be that important issues would get more public discussion -- hence
my claims about intellectuals.  And the less democracy, the more an
existent distribution of power and property -- that is, the businessman
-- makes decisions.

As far as penalties go, an intellectual-turned-administrator can be made as
responsible for the failure of the program he administers as any manager
of a company.

> Compare a businessman misjudging, say, the demand for laptop computers 
> to an intellectual predicting that MIRVs will improve U.S. national 
> security or that TVA will end poverty in Appalachia. Retribution is much
> swifter and harsher in the first case than in the second.

The above businessman is a very small one.  Most major companies are large,
and they judge their managers via organizational norms rather than direct
market incentives (sometimes these match, sometimes not -- just as in
politics).

And woe to the stupid politician that decides to take the misjudgments of
the intellectual as gospel.  He could lose a lot.

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw