Reblogged:Happy Labor Day!

[Gus Van Horn blog]

By a happy accident, I forgot to leave a note Friday that I'd take today off, so here I am posting. To my rescue comes an article by Fredric Hamber that has been republished by Capitalism Magazine a few times. In "This Labor Day Celebrate Man's Mind," Hamber offers the following corrective to a widespread misconception about the nature of productive work that, unfortunately, motivated those who pushed for this holiday:

Image via Wikipedia.

Contrary to the Marxist premise that wealth is created by laborers and "exploited" by those at the top of the pyramid of ability, it is those at the top, the best and the brightest, who increase the value of the labor of those at the bottom. Under capitalism, even a man who has nothing to trade but physical labor gains a huge advantage by leveraging the fruits of minds more creative than his. The labor of a construction worker, for example, is made more productive and valuable by the inventors of the jackhammer and the steam shovel, and by the farsighted entrepreneurs who market and sell such tools to his employer. The work of an office clerk, as another example, is made more efficient by the men who invented copiers and fax machines. By applying human ingenuity to serve men's needs, the result is that physical labor is made less laborious and more productive.

An apt symbol of the theory that sweat and muscle are the creators of economic value can be seen in those Soviet-era propaganda posters depicting man as a mindless muscular robot with an expressionless, cookie-cutter face. In practice, that theory led to chronic famines in a society unable to produce even the most basic necessities.

Well said, and I thank Mr. Hamber for making today's accidentally-scheduled post both quick and valuable!

-- CAV

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