Another good story. Thanks.

I want to comment on something without giving offense. Please bear with me.

Andrew Carnegie once told a newspaper, “It isn’t the man who does the work that makes the money. It’s the man who gets other men to do it.” Not exactly inspirational. At least he was being honest.

Carnegie might have been right and honest but there is a better way.

A merchant can’t find the nails he needs so takes some of his money and builds a forge and hires a blacksmith. He mortgages the forge to buy some charcoal, iron, hammers, tongs and an anvil. He puts the blacksmith to work and the nails start coming. The merchant now has the nails he needed and he can sell the extra production to help pay the blacksmith. The nails sell well and he could sell more if he could get more production so he has the blacksmith recruit an apprentice. You can see the favorable incentives that makes this work. It benefits the community, the workers and the merchant as long as everyone contributes and treats each other fairly.

Moral is not that the man who gets other men to do the work makes the money. The moral is the man who enables an effective enterprise makes more money than those he hires but he also accepts greater risks and it is not like he does nothing for the money. If the blacksmith had the money for a forge he could have been making the nails and sold them to the merchant. The blacksmith might not really had the business acumen to properly fund and market his work. The merchant really did the blacksmith a favor, picking him over others. A little gratitude would be in order and if the merchant was unfair and mean the blacksmith would be no worse off if he quits than he was before he was hired.

TEK