But would the young do any better under the same circumstances? Will they do any better when their turns come? The answer is that youth would not and cannot, given the financial and economic framework within which the elders are operating. While the moral convictions of individuals are important in the long run, it is institutions that determine the immediate course of events - particularly the institutions of finance.
Louis O. KelsoEveryone should own a piece of the wealth-producing capital of this country, but not everyone can be a manager. Or should be.
Louis O. KelsoI'm a secret nonmember of the establishment. This isn't a grubby kind of revolution I'm talking about. This isn't Che Guevara stuff. I don't want to live on berries in the woods - I don't think anybody does.
Louis O. KelsoWhat have the masses been clamoring for? Jobs and welfare, and they got 'em. They've also got unions and managements like two armies converting the whole economy into a battleground with the customers as victims, except that the victims are also in the army. They think in battle terms by day and like customers at night.
Louis O. KelsoThe primary cause of disorder and lawlessness today, as throughout history, is the poverty of the many in contrast to the affluence of the few. But a new element of unrest has been added: a growing awareness that mass poverty is caused by defective institutions that prevent our harnessing the physical capabilities of science, engineering, management and labor to create general affluence; in other words, a growing awareness that poverty in any country that is or can be industrialized, is man's not nature's fault.
Louis O. KelsoFull employment is a socially hazardous goal. In effect, it aspires to restore through political expedients the pre-industrial state of toil that science, engineering, technology and modern management are pledged to overcome.
Louis O. KelsoWork is a means; it is not an end. And for any tasks that can be performed or eliminated by a capital instrument, human labor is not the best means... Furthermore, we have science, engineering and management - the three disciplines - that really plan and control the production of goods and services, trying to eliminate labor. Who the hell is government to come along and try to create labor? The people who are producing wealth are trying to eliminate toil, while the politicians are trying to create it.
Louis O. Kelso