Re: Neo-conservatism and workers

        This post was interrupted last week by a technical glitch.

        I think it is of the utmost importance to maintain a distinction
between those who are workers and those who are owners of workers.
Contemporary capitalism makes this difficult, with its co-optation of
workers through "profit-sharing" and "stock option" tactics.  But the fact
remains:  the world is divided into those who work for a living, i.e.,
who derive most of their income from their labor, in the form of wages,
salaries, commissions, royalties, or fees;  and those who derive most of
their income from their ownership of "securities."  I exempt retirees who
derive most of their income from securities acquired as an additional
reward for their labor.  A great and impassable gulf separates the two
categories.  A composer of music, an architect, a medical doctor, a
university professor, or a store manager belongs to the working class, as
surely as a plumber, construction laborer, salesclerk, nurse, or
stenographer.  All are subject to the vagaries and vicissitudes of the
market place.  All work for their livelihood.

        Under socialism, as often said before, the distinction between
manual and brain labor vanishes.  So let us, conceptually at least, forget
about the difference between peasant and proletarian and petty bourgeois.
We're all in the same blasted boat!  

        Cheers,

        Warren