“Though his ongoing illness made last week’s resignation less than surprising, the departure of Apple‘s Steve Jobs from the innovator’s executive suite was and will remain big news,” John Tamny writes for Forbes. “With good reason.”
“Jobs’ success speaks to the wonders of capitalism, a system built on incentives,” Tamny writes. “Under capitalism, those who do the most to remove unease from the lives of others are rewarded handsomely, and Jobs’ billions attest to all that his success meant for others.”
Tamny writes, “After that, a grand thanks is owed to Jobs by chief executives, professional athletes, and U.S. citizens more broadly. If this is doubted, read on.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
“Apple’s goal isn’t to make money.” (Steven Jobs)
What actually Job represents is nothing like capitalism philosophy, where people go trying to do and sell every junk they could possible push in buyers throat, not caring really about anything else other than profits.
Ironically, Jobs philosophy also proved to be incredibly successful in capitalist measurement, despite greed is not the core motivation.
Capitalism doesn’t mean that you have to fuck up everything. If you FU everything that is robbery and does not have anything to do with capitalism.
I did not mean robbery; just usual capitalism is about pushing mediocre or even bad goods to buyers and squeezing everything for the very last dime of profits.
True, but the statement in the article, “Under capitalism, those who do the most to remove unease from the lives of others are rewarded handsomely…” is rather idealistic. There are many people who earn large sums of money in our capitalistic system without removing unease from the lives of others. Some actually profitably create worldwide unease. That is why I ditched Microsoft.
I’m a huge fan of Mr. Jobs, but I wasn’t aware he invented the concept of incentives.
Quite frankly, the article twists itself into knots on expounding the glories of high CEO compensation, while briefly skipping over the fact that Job’s compensation at Apple was just $1 per year.
They seem to be missing the point. Would that most big business CEOs could (i) be truly passionate about what they do–most could be in companies that made fridges for all they care about their product or service and (ii) that they could be compensated ONLY in company stock and (iii) They not be rewarded for exiting the organizations they run.
Actually Catipalism is not just making junk to push down or out.
Capitalism is based on problem resolution and the ability to create the product for a monetary reward.
In any group, you have the self endulged. Wether it be socialism, fascism, or communism. They use the system to obtain reward for the least amount of effort. If that means living off the people or government when they are capable.
Do not distort the lazy and self serving out of any group as the norm.
Capitalism is a good system as long as “people” and “government” do not aid in abuse by the self by assisting in the laziness.
My opinion.
It’s silly to say that the desire to extract the “most reward from the least effort” is limited to socialism, fascism or communism. (fascism is not really an economic philosophy… but I see what you mean) In fact.. capitalism provides the most incentives to get the most reward from the least amount of effort. In capitalism, you get to keep most of that reward. In fact, you can argue that the problem with communism is that it does not reward optimal solutions… people don’t care if they get the most reward for the least effort because they get paid the same no matter what.
Steve’s genius is that he has been very successful in getting people to pay more for better quality. Typically people are quite content with a lower quality product as long as it’s significantly cheaper. Steve has brought a measure of luxury to lower end market. Most people can’t afford to buy a Mercedes, but they can treat themselves to an iPhone 4 and get the same kind of feeling of owning a premium product.
I can think of several athletes from Cuba specifically Sotomayor in the high jump and Robles in the 110m hurdles who are Olympic gold medallists and world champions in their own right and I don’t see anything remotely capitalist about Cuba. The writer’s premise is flawed. The human spirit to strive for excellence transcends political boundaries. It’s more to do with the triumph of the will of the individual than the nurturing of a political system.
Plus 1. Not the usual polarized rhetoric we get here on this site. I’m sure it will degenerate later but for now, BRAVO!
Thank you. I wasn’t trying to be trite but human endeavor cannot be summarized by political systems but by what someone does to define himself and stand out from the rest of the crowd. To try and fail is better than not try at all. I think that sums up Steve Jobs. To try to one’s best abilities and to give one’s best without regard for the inevitable arrows that follow pioneers. For him, mediocrity was never an option.
This isn’t about capitalism. It’s about a man who combined the best of art and science to make things that did cool things look good, beg to be touched, wished to be had. It made technology a friend that was more than seamless, it made it something you loved and wanted people to see. The person who made this happen is Steve Jobs and he was an excellent capitalist, but not at the expense of being esthetics, utilitarianism and joy.
Right, Jobs qualities happened to also make him a great capitalist, not that capitalism made him great.
“Jobs’ success speaks to the wonders of capitalism”
One data point?
How about 64% of US citizens CAN NOT come up with $1000 for an emergency without getting a loan or pulling it from a credit card.
US citizens are not that well off.
What does capitalism have to do with Americas citizens in general?
All “isms” are perverted by basic human drives, such as fear and greed.
After reading the entire article, I am not impressed. The premise is overly simplistic, and just a thinly veiled anti-government, laissez faire promotion with overtones of CEOs deserve massive compensation. I love what SJ has done for Apple, but why is $2.1B considered to be “vastly undercompensated?” He did not do everything by himself over the past decade. Besides, is there a rule that a CEO should receive x% of the increase in company market cap? How much money does a person have to accumulate before it ceases to matter at a personal level? My bet is that the only reason SJ cared about compensation from Apple is that it was the only tangible way that the board could express appreciation and respect for a job well done. I also bet that SJ would trade all of his billions for a few more years of healthy life on this Earth.
Quote from article:
“Apple’s iPhone…is a prime example of how the profit motive regularly reduces the lifestyle gap between the rich and poor for the baubles of the rich neatly predicting the goods we’ll all enjoy if governments get out of the way of progress.”
There is a balance between laissez faire and over-regulation. I do not believe that our government is evil, nor do I believe that taxes are evil or that everything would be wonderful if we simply eliminated all government regulation. We need moderation in all things combined with reasoned discourse and actions. I just don’t get why people are eating up this anti-government stuff.
Moderation is the key. No matter what system you are in, it is extreme power, greed and ego that will screw up the whole system. Capitalism and democracy are not immune from failure just as communism is not lacking in success.
I don’t owe him anything. Using my hard earned dollars to buy his goods and services is thanks enough.
What a lazy-brained crock of horse manure.
The author must have been under deadline and whipped up a fantasy.