From: mumble@nomail.invalid   
      
   On 06/16/2014 01:17 AM, David Friedman wrote:   
   > On 6/13/14, 4:11 AM, mumble wrote:   
   >> and people are never paid as much as they have actually earned, because   
   >> if they were there would be no profit for the employer   
   >   
   > That way of putting it assumes that the employer contributes nothing to   
   > the final product, hence that "as much as they have actually earned" is   
   > the total value of the product, not that value net of the employer's   
   > contribution.   
   >   
   > If that were the case, one would not have any reason to have an employer.   
      
   Far be it from me to argue economics with a Friedman.   
      
   I stand by my statement that employers hire employees because the   
   employee contributes more than he is paid for, and that profit margin is   
   what keeps the employee from being laid off; for-profit businesses are   
   by-definition not charities.   
      
   If you wish to discuss this further, please note and consider the   
   difference between an employee and a subcontractor, which is   
   significant.  In particular, employees are willing to sign away some or   
   all of their intellectual-property rights in order to obtain pay that   
   they are incapable of generating for themselves.   
      
   Employees are people who are unable to act as subcontractors for various   
   reasons ranging from a lack of entrepreneurial skill to simply never   
   having thought of doing for themselves what the employer will do for   
   them as a benefit of their indenture.   
      
   There is no reason for any employee who is capable of acting as a   
   subcontractor to ever work as an employee; most people who are employees   
   are such because left to their own devices they don't know what to do,   
   they lack the drive to become subcontractors when employment is so much   
   easier.   
      
   And many subcontractors remain in a subcontracting role because left to   
   their own devices they cannot imagine and produce a product they can   
   market themselves.   
      
   As for how this applies to SF writing, the author who creates a   
   completed manuscript from thin air, produces it in a form salable to the   
   customer, and markets the result in its final form, is analogous to an   
   independent business regardless of whether "the customer" is a single   
   publishing house or the general public.   
      
   The author who creates an idea and a few chapters that he then peddles   
   to a publisher for an advance and associated indenture is at best a   
   subcontractor, and the more direction the author takes from the   
   publisher the closer he has moved toward being an employee.   
      
   At least that is how I see it.  I expect that most in this group have   
   vested interests which require them to disagree with this view; that is   
   my expectation because rather than actually discussing the methods and   
   techniques of SF composition, most of the discussion here revolves   
   around the mutual support and back-patting needed by those who have   
   fallen into a particular role short of the "independent business of   
   authorship".  Rather than posts about having sold a completed   
   manuscript, what seems here to be read are posts about having entered a   
   3-book indenture.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)