Globalisation, benefitting the poor of the world.

[Ace42X]

Apple is investigating a newspaper report that staff in some of its Chinese iPod factories work long hours for low pay and in "slave" conditions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5079590.stm

[Qdrop]

what do you know about globalisation, Ace?
what it's designed to do...what it CAN do and does for developing countries?

how can we expect any 3rd world developing country to just "industrialize itself" and somehow become a self contained market?

we know that planned economies don't work.
you need markets, you need capitalism as a cure for poverty....

the key thing missing, however, for developing countries...is the lack of organized, documented property rights- which is key to succeeding in capitialims in a enterprising fashion.

but back to these "sweat shops"....why does everyone swallow down these few Iconic shops found worldwide-blasted all over the media as the poster childs for ALL outsourced factories.

define "sweat shop". what do you consider a sweat shop?
the popular defination is " a huge hot factory with no fans, that employs small children and women for $1 a day to work for 16 hours...if they stop they get beaten or fired, etc etc..."

situations like, while they do exist...are relatively few (despite what you hear in the media almost daily). shops like that just get the most attention...and become Icons in the anti-globalization/outsourcing movement.

what you don't hear...is that in the vast majority of those factories in developing markets....these long hour jobs with "low pay" are actualy miles above thier previous subsistance lifestyle.
understand, NONE of those employees are slaves. people stand in lines for days to GET those jobs...waiting lists are months long.
you need to understand that $2 a day goes ALOT farther in those countries than in ours. it's a completely differant standard of living. $2 a day is enough to pay rent, keep their children fed and in school....things they only dreamed about beforehand.
the 16 hours behind a sewing machine may suck....but compare that the 16+ hours they had spent doing back-breaking farmwork for a fraction of the pay, or the indefinate hours they had spent begging and scavaging...
without this outsourcing, free trade, and globalization in general...these people have NO hope. these countries CANNOT industrialize themselves and become self sufficiant markets...the need foriegn trade/investment.
we get cheaper labor, they get GIANT increases in quality of life...that only continue as they become more organized and can demand more and more (just like we did in the US).

watch this if you haven't already (or read the book):
www.pbs.org/commandingheights

particularly the last few sections of Episode 3.

[EN[i]GMA]

Have you read the book QDrop? I thought it was excellent. One of the better books on globalization I've read.

[Qdrop]

GMA']Have you read the book QDrop? I thought it was excellent. One of the better books on globalization I've read.

i watched the whole documentary...
and i would like to buy the book as well...

as well as "the world is flat"....

i'm finally starting to REALLY understand globalization, it's benifits, it's problems....
interesting stuff.

but Commanding Heights was fucking amazing and SO comperhensive.
i think it was very ballsy to but some foriegn factory workers on camera that actually celebrated their job in these supposed sweat shops, and told how without it, they could never afford to send thier children to school or have stable food and shelter.
they work a shitload of hours, yes....way too many by our standards. but so did americans at the beginning of the industrial revolution....it has to start somewhere.
as technology increases, and the workforce becomes more efficient, the hours required will lessen.
as the workers become more unified (perhaps unions WOULD be a good thing at such a young level of industry), conditions will continue to improve.

i just find so insanely ignorant when people seem to somehow think that 3rd world countries should just have giant corporate skyscrapers airlifted in, and the locals could just show up in suits and ties and start working for 80k a year, and have it JUST like the US...and that anything less is just a tragedy.

[D_Raay]

What you fucking ignorant self absorbed pricks don't seem to grasp is that this is exploitation plain and simple.

Sure let the big companies outsource and line their pockets further because it is good for these poor countries and their poor citizens who are actually better off working 11 hours a day in bad conditions.

These companies figured out how to bypass actually paying Americans a decent wage, and how to kick poor people while they are down and are willing to do anything just to feed their families.

It is disgusting and immoral, and for you to rationalize it in such a way is just indicative of how truly enamored with the smell of our own shit we are in this country.

[EN[i]GMA]

i watched the whole documentary...
and i would like to buy the book as well...

as well as "the world is flat"....

i'm finally starting to REALLY understand globalization, it's benifits, it's problems....
interesting stuff.

but Commanding Heights was fucking amazing and SO comperhensive.
i think it was very ballsy to but some foriegn factory workers on camera that actually celebrated their job in these supposed sweat shops, and told how without it, they could never afford to send thier children to school or have stable food and shelter.
they work a shitload of hours, yes....way too many by our standards. but so did americans at the beginning of the industrial revolution....it has to start somewhere.
as technology increases, and the workforce becomes more efficient, the hours required will lessen.
as the workers become more unified (perhaps unions WOULD be a good thing at such a young level of industry), conditions will continue to improve.

i just find so insanely ignorant when people seem to somehow think that 3rd world countries should just have giant corporate skyscrapers airlifted in, and the locals could just show up in suits and ties and start working for 80k a year, and have it JUST like the US...and that anything less is just a tragedy.

The Economist savaged 'The World if Flat' in their review, or else I would have bought it.

I read instead 3 other books, that I highly recommend:

In Defense of Globalization by Jagdish Bhagwati
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
the Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto (didn't like it as much as the others, but it was good)
and also Commanding Heights.

I find it interesting that the aforementioned Indian economist 'get' globalization and markets. I think their position gives them added understanding.

I also have Martin Wolf's How Globalization Works, but I won't get around to reading until I'm done with Russel's History of Western Philosophy and Anna Karenina, both of which are rather weighty books.

I've heard good things about other books on globalization, namely In Defense of Global Capitalism by Johan Norberg.

I know as well that Bhagwati and Sen both have numerous other books on the subject, that I'm sure are excellent.

[EN[i]GMA]

What you fucking ignorant self absorbed pricks don't seem to grasp is that this is exploitation plain and simple.

Which reminds me; I need to watch the rest of the Corporation today...


Sure let the big companies outsource and line their pockets further because it is good for these poor countries and their poor citizens who are actually better off working 11 hours a day in bad conditions.

Obviously they are, or else they wouldn't be working there.

They are the ones who moved there, and the ones who decide to stay.

I'm not saying the conditions are good, or could not be better; they are abhorrent, and should be better.

As Bhagwati points out in his book, people like you got a factory used for child labor shut down, in I believe Indonesia. The anti-trade left heralded it as a victory for children everywhere and an end to child labor; of course, they didn't follow up on what happened to the children.

Want go guess what happened? They proceded to beggining, child prostitution, and, often, starving.

Another 'victory' against child labor.

Another 'victory' for child starvation.

Now I think something should be done to increase wages and increase safety; but if in the process of doing this, we force these places to close, what have we really accomplished?

For all its humanism (and I know you're going to bash me over the head with sentimental humanism, as is Ace), it lacks practicality.


These companies figured out how to bypass actually paying Americans a decent wage, and how to kick poor people while they are down and are willing to do anything just to feed their families.

And that of course is the key. This way, their families have food. If this doesn't occur, they starve.

What do you mean 'bypass' Americans? Are there throngs Americans out of work? Or is unemployment low?

Americans have jobs, jobs that pay better than stitching clothes. What do you propose, we create 200 million more 'AMericans' out of thin air, to make our clothes, and pay them a 'fair wage' while allowing the poor in other parts of the world to languish and parish?


It is disgusting and immoral, and for you to rationalize it in such a way is just indicative of how truly enamored with the smell of our own shit we are in this country.

You're confusing 'rationalization' with 'think rationally'.

Did I say I liked it? Did QDrop? How am I 'enamored' with it?

For all your whining (and that's what it is), you are doing nothing to help these people because there is nothing you can do; you don't have anything to give them, do you? Nothing except your worthless pity, and they can't eat that.

[EN[i]GMA]

And I have no intention in getting in ANOTHER long drawn out quote war with anyone.

That's my piece, and if you disagree, fine.

But from what I've read (numerous books, I'm willing to put my library against yours) and seen (documentaries like the Corporation AND Commanding Heights) and what seems rational to me, there just aren't any other options.

I would love for there to be something else that could happen here, but I can't see it.

The only countries that have progressed without markets have been authortarian/totalitarian states like China and Russia; I know of Commies that support 'Maoism' in poor countries, as a means for advancement.

But I don't.

Do you?

[Qdrop]

GMA']
The only countries that have progressed without markets have been authortarian/totalitarian states like China and Russia;

all of their recent advancements (particularly China) have been due to thier adopting free market sensibilities.

it's really come down to the point where there IS NO POINT arguing about socialism vs capitalism...or self-sufficiancy vs. globalization, or free market vs. regulated...

the "decision" has already been made....the war (including economic and philosophical ones) have been waged...
capitalism, free markets, and globablization are the winners....
and there really isn't shit anyone can do about it short of large-scale terrorist war....

everyone else is just pissing in the wind....and might as well be lamenting the fall of Rome....

[Qdrop]

What you fucking ignorant self absorbed pricks don't seem to grasp is that this is exploitation plain and simple.

Sure let the big companies outsource and line their pockets further because it is good for these poor countries and their poor citizens who are actually better off working 11 hours a day in bad conditions.

These companies figured out how to bypass actually paying Americans a decent wage, and how to kick poor people while they are down and are willing to do anything just to feed their families.

It is disgusting and immoral, and for you to rationalize it in such a way is just indicative of how truly enamored with the smell of our own shit we are in this country.

hows about you gives us an alternative...

or you can shut YOUR self absorbed prick mouth.


none of the conditions that these people work in are worse than what they had before.
they have far more stable jobs with stable income, housing and food and water, and schooling for their kids.
a GIANT step up.

is it paradise? Hell no.
it'd probably be fuckin hell to me.
just like it was hell to many americans in the early stages of the industrial revolution.
it's starts here....and then it progresses.

don't get me wrong....there needs to be some changes, some "rethinking" of capitalism. the author enigma noted, hernando De Soto, talks of this...and the DIRE NEED for developing countries to instill property rights into thier system....vital for the impoverished if they don't want to be ignored by capitalism....

[D_Raay]

Internationally, WTO faces a dilemma. Most of the organization's third world members—or at least their governments—opposed including any labor rights and environmental protections in trade agreements. They viewed low wages and lax pollution control laws as major assets they could offer to international investors—prime lures for job-creating factories and the capital they so desperately needed for other development-related purposes. Indeed, they observed, most rich countries ignored the environment and limited workers' power (to put it kindly) early in their economic histories. Why should today's developing countries be held to higher standards?

The workers, then, who must shoulder globalization’s burdens, while western companies win cheap labor, western consumers win cheap sneakers and straw hats, and corporate CEOs win eight-figure salaries. And it’s not just third-world workers. Western workers lose when factories in the U.S. close down, and migrate overseas in search of laborers willing to work for poverty wages.

Sweatshops are a way for corporations to exploit the poverty and desperation of the third world, while allowing them to circumvent the living wages, organization rights, and workplace safety regulations labor activists have fought long and hard for in the west.

[EN[i]GMA]

Internationally, WTO faces a dilemma. Most of the organization's third world members—or at least their governments—opposed including any labor rights and environmental protections in trade agreements. They viewed low wages and lax pollution control laws as major assets they could offer to international investors—prime lures for job-creating factories and the capital they so desperately needed for other development-related purposes. Indeed, they observed, most rich countries ignored the environment and limited workers' power (to put it kindly) early in their economic histories. Why should today's developing countries be held to higher standards?

The workers, then, who must shoulder globalization’s burdens, while western companies win cheap labor, western consumers win cheap sneakers and straw hats, and corporate CEOs win eight-figure salaries. And it’s not just third-world workers. Western workers lose when factories in the U.S. close down, and migrate overseas in search of laborers willing to work for poverty wages.

Sweatshops are a way for corporations to exploit the poverty and desperation of the third world, while allowing them to circumvent the living wages, organization rights, and workplace safety regulations labor activists have fought long and hard for in the west.

And in all of that post you never once mention what do to about the problem of poor people STARVING TO DEATH in these parts of the world.

Those all may be valid points, many of them are good criticisms.

But, yet again, 'criticism' doesn't do anything to feed people. Neither do 'ideas'. It takes money, and it takes food.

[Qdrop]

The workers, then, who must shoulder globalization’s burdens, while western companies win cheap labor, western consumers win cheap sneakers and straw hats, and corporate CEOs win eight-figure salaries. And it’s not just third-world workers. so why do the workers come? why not say "fuck you!"?

Western workers lose when factories in the U.S. close down, and migrate overseas in search of laborers willing to work for poverty wages...and granted, THIS is an aspect that troubles me as an american in the industrial/production sector...and as a member of a company that is in direct competiton with printing companies in China who have a much cheaper workforce and can offer much cheaper prices. (currently, thier technology and organization is just not up to par, so we've had the edge overall, for now)
MY job could be at stake.

so don't tell me I'M fuckin being selfish when i talk of US sacrifice for the better of the other countries poor.
my ass could literally be on the line.
what about your job?

i would tend to be in favor of somekind of temporary restrictions or regulations...to SLOW the transition of production jobs from the US to developing countries...because that IS what's going to happen. and the US ecomony needs to adjust.

and it is a GOOD thing for the planet on the whole....
THIS is how you share the wealth....and start spreading that top 1% out....

Sweatshops are a way for corporations to exploit the poverty and desperation of the third world, while allowing them to circumvent the living wages, organization rights, and workplace safety regulations labor activists have fought long and hard for in the west. what do you want, D?
you want corporations to open up plants in Thailand and pay thier employees $15/hr with top notch benefits?
why the fuck would they even bother? what's their business incentive?
they would have none...and they wouldn't build...and the people would continue to starve and languish in poverty.
YAY for D's liberal ideals!...they just killed another 5000 families!
but at least they starved without "unfair" labor prices.
hooray.

you need to have some pragmatism in situations like this...and look at the big/long-term picture.

[Schmeltz]

It's pretty ironic to lambast D_Raay for his callous, shallow, "liberal ideals" that would ostensibly leave people to starve while in the same breath discussing the future of millions of people in terms of business incentives. Perhaps if people thought in terms that focussed more on cooperation and harmony than on profit lines and business incentives we wouldn't be having this conversation.

I also think it's ironic to speak of what globalization is "designed" to do, because it doesn't really seem like any coherent plan could be put in place to rein in something as complex and multifaceted as the whole world's collective economic activity. I sincerely doubt that the people in charge of the world's leading financial or corporate institutions have "designed" globalization to put the developing world on a par with the industrialized world; it is much more likely that they have conceived a loose plan to maximize their own profits and advance their own interests while keeping their pool of cheap labour readily available for perpetual exploitation. If globalization is actually "designed" to raise the standard of living, education, economic security, health, and so on in developing countries, what happens when those countries get to the point where people won't work anymore for two dollars a day? The bottom will fall out and the whole system will collapse.

People might derive some temporary benefits from this type of economic activity, but I'm worried about the long-term picture. It seems to me that this kind of globalization is a temporary fix at best, with any benefit for the majority coming in second place, priority-wise, to the benefits accrued by the tiny minority. Which of those do you think will be sacrificed first when the "design" works its way to its own logical conclusion?

[Qdrop]

It's pretty ironic to lambast D_Raay for his callous, shallow, "liberal ideals" that would ostensibly leave people to starve while in the same breath discussing the future of millions of people in terms of business incentives. Perhaps if people thought in terms that focussed more on cooperation and harmony than on profit lines and business incentives we wouldn't be having this conversation. and if we all had fluffy bunnies for pets, maybe thier would be more hugs.
that's all just moot points.

we cant' sit here and "wish" that corporations would act more like Barney...we have work with what we got.

I sincerely doubt that the people in charge of the world's leading financial or corporate institutions have "designed" globalization to put the developing world on a par with the industrialized world; it is much more likely that they have conceived a loose plan to maximize their own profits and advance their own interests while keeping their pool of cheap labour readily available for perpetual exploitation. that is so not true....and i find it disheartening that someone like you would be perpetuating such a shallow "global" urban legend of sorts.
i trust you read a'plenty...and i trust you have read and educated yourself on globalization and it's history, it's main players (world wide), thier thoughts and agendas, etc.
heads of nations have little to gain by letting other corporations come in and rape thier people indefinately...just for a few kickbacks.
this isn't a Soprano's episode.

If globalization is actually "designed" to raise the standard of living, education, economic security, health, and so on in developing countries, what happens when those countries get to the point where people won't work anymore for two dollars a day? fantastic question...and that NEEDS to happen.
what happened here in America during the industrial revolution? how did we induce change?

The bottom will fall out and the whole system will collapse. you nihilist.

People might derive some temporary benefits from this type of economic activity, but I'm worried about the long-term picture. It seems to me that this kind of globalization is a temporary fix at best, with any benefit for the majority coming in second place, priority-wise, to the benefits accrued by the tiny minority. Which of those do you think will be sacrificed first when the "design" works its way to its own logical conclusion?
but i don't agree with your "logical conclusion".

[STANKY808]

fantastic question...and that NEEDS to happen.
what happened here in America during the industrial revolution? how did we induce change?



Is that really a fair analogy given our current ability to move physical items as well as information and capital around the world relatively quickly and easily?

And do you think these higher standards were just benevolently bestowed upon the working class? Fuck no - people paid with their lives for the 8 hour work day and workplace safety and so on. Ever hear of Pinkerton's or Haymarket?

[EN[i]GMA]

It's pretty ironic to lambast D_Raay for his callous, shallow, "liberal ideals" that would ostensibly leave people to starve while in the same breath discussing the future of millions of people in terms of business incentives. Perhaps if people thought in terms that focussed more on cooperation and harmony than on profit lines and business incentives we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Almost certainly.

I, whether you realize it or not, am inclined to focus on those ideals; I would have no problem sacraficing a part of my profit (say if I were a CEO of a company) for an overall good.

But for all this philosophizing, we still have no clear-cut alternative.

The ideal would be to always place 'people first'. Is that realistic today?


I also think it's ironic to speak of what globalization is "designed" to do, because it doesn't really seem like any coherent plan could be put in place to rein in something as complex and multifaceted as the whole world's collective economic activity. I sincerely doubt that the people in charge of the world's leading financial or corporate institutions have "designed" globalization to put the developing world on a par with the industrialized world; it is much more likely that they have conceived a loose plan to maximize their own profits and advance their own interests while keeping their pool of cheap labour readily available for perpetual exploitation.

Well then it has failed.

Look at Japan.

Once it was used for 'cheap labor' as China or India is today, but now its economic power rivaling the US and the countries of Europe.

Certainly no companies investing in it 'designed' their plans, in the late '40s, to make it a world power; that was almost inconceivable, yet though globalization (and to be fair, through generous government help), Japan is now a leading economy.


If globalization is actually "designed" to raise the standard of living, education, economic security, health, and so on in developing countries, what happens when those countries get to the point where people won't work anymore for two dollars a day? The bottom will fall out and the whole system will collapse.

The idea has already worked in so many countries, I don't know how you can honestly say this.


People might derive some temporary benefits from this type of economic activity, but I'm worried about the long-term picture. It seems to me that this kind of globalization is a temporary fix at best, with any benefit for the majority coming in second place, priority-wise, to the benefits accrued by the tiny minority. Which of those do you think will be sacrificed first when the "design" works its way to its own logical conclusion?

Now this is an interesting point; where do we go when all the cheap profit is used up?

I don't know what that would mean for the overall world economy, but I must say that I hope production, prosperity, and wisdom have, by that time, also grown, and we will be able to solve the problem sensibly.

[catatonic]

What you fucking ignorant self absorbed pricks don't seem to grasp is that this is exploitation plain and simple.

That about covers it.

[Ace42X]

GMA']
Obviously they are, or else they wouldn't be working there.

Of course they want to be slaves, otherwise they wouldn't be working on the plantation...

I can't believe the shit you come out with sometimes.

[D_Raay]

GMA']And in all of that post you never once mention what do to about the problem of poor people STARVING TO DEATH in these parts of the world.

Those all may be valid points, many of them are good criticisms.

But, yet again, 'criticism' doesn't do anything to feed people. Neither do 'ideas'. It takes money, and it takes food.
Instead of saying that globalization is a fact, that it's inevitable, we've also got to demonstrate that while the growing interdependence of the world economy is indeed a fact, it's not uncontrollable.

[D_Raay]

and if we all had fluffy bunnies for pets, maybe thier would be more hugs.
that's all just moot points.

we cant' sit here and "wish" that corporations would act more like Barney...we have work with what we got.

Economically, as globalization is pushed down our throats, people are fractured into tribal communal groups. The world is getting more and more fractured. Nationalism, nuclearism, communalism, fascism, these things are springing up.

In its current form, globalization cannot be sustained. Democratic societies will not support it. Authoritarian leaders will fear to impose it.

[catatonic]

Hmm... I was thinking of a story in the Book of Mormon that's meant to be really terrible where the government gets destroyed and everyone splits into tribes, but when I look at it now it doesn't seem so terrible.

But it's kind of implied from the story that if Christ hadn't come at that moment, all hell was about to ensue in terms of war and stuff.

[FunkyHiFi]

If globalization is actually "designed" to raise the standard of living, education, economic security, health, and so on in developing countries, what happens when those countries get to the point where people won't work anymore for two dollars a day? The bottom will fall out and the whole system will collapse.

I'm glad someone with better writing skills than me finally said this.

I find it hilarious that so many people seem to think Big Business had a meeting somewhere where they decided they would bring prosperity and The Good Life to 3rd worlders out of the goodness of their hearts.....what a bunch of crap. They just wanted the cheap labor and lack of environmental laws.

we cant' sit here and "wish" that corporations would act more like Barney...we have work with what we got.
So you mean I should just rest my hands in my lap, sit quietly and let the corproations do whatever they think will fatten their bottom lines? Jeezus what a frightening thought. IMO corporations are the new oppressors of society - it's just that this time they use slick commercials and buzzword filled corporate-speak to make themselves LOOK different from the heartless leaders/governments of the past who used spears, boiling oil, threats of going to hell and/or sky high taxes to keep their people in line.

It seems to me that this kind of globalization is a temporary fix at best, with any benefit for the majority coming in second place, priority-wise, to the benefits accrued by the tiny minority.
I agree, especially with the "tiny minority" part.

I really don't like relying on products & services from countries with unstable governments, unstable/violent climates, unstable volcanoes, etc. Sorry if this sounds racist or whatever, but those 3rd world countries are 3rd world for a reason & I doubt very much it's because they can't watch American Idol or don't own a 60" HDTV. If someone thinks this is an incorrect conclusion, please educate me.

My selfish question to the members here: in the long run, what does globalization do for us regular ol' middle-class Americans? For Europeans? For the Japanese? Australians?

I haven't read any books on globalization but I'm pretty sure this is the first time the Earth has been invloved in a globalization project, so IMO any such book's conclusion is pure theory at this point.

[Qdrop]

And do you think these higher standards were just benevolently bestowed upon the working class? Fuck no - people paid with their lives for the 8 hour work day and workplace safety and so on. Ever hear of Pinkerton's or Haymarket?

i understand that...and that's the point i was making to Schmeltz's question about when the people will no longer work for $2 a day.
here is a situation where Unions may truly be essential again...particularly when the pool of desparate countries continues to dry up.
companies will have to adjust thier profit levels, innovate for better efficiencies, and pay people more....raising the standard of living.

see, this is where i tend to think that free markets really do work well....without some despotic military control forcing people around... the markets (and the corporations that command them) are ultimately at the mercy of the people in those markets.
the corporations can only snap the whip so long.....
that's the beauty of NOT having a planned or controlled economy...

[Qdrop]

Of course they want to be slaves, otherwise they wouldn't be working on the plantation...

I can't believe the shit you come out with sometimes.

that analogy doesn't even make sense.

plantation slaves were captured and forced to work for no pay.

factory workers in developing countries stand in lines for days trying to get these jobs....
jobs that pay more, and are more stable than anything else they have available to them.
it raises thier standard of living.

now obviously, if you compare that standard of living to our American $80k/year lifestyles...than it still seems like poverty...and it still is by most people's standards....but it STARTS there.

i just don't get it...
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU (ace, Draay, etc) WANT?! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? AND HOW DO YOU PLAN ON GETTING US THERE?!

[EN[i]GMA]

Of course they want to be slaves, otherwise they wouldn't be working on the plantation...

What?

They are they by choice, and work there voluntarily. How is a factory in a 3rd world country, where people work of their own volition, at all analagous to hunting people down, rounding them up, and shipping them in a boat, locked in cages, where they will be forced to do work, cannot leave, and are regularly beaten?

I can't believe the shit you come out with sometimes.

[EN[i]GMA]

Instead of saying that globalization is a fact, that it's inevitable, we've also got to demonstrate that while the growing interdependence of the world economy is indeed a fact, it's not uncontrollable.

Which is a great euphemism.

For what?

What 'controls' do you propose?

[Qdrop]

GMA']

What 'controls' do you propose?

and please show, historically, how a "controlled economy" has ever done anything but crumble.



i truly have always been one to tought "regulated capitalism"...controlling and limiting profits and size, etc.
i figured that this was the best way to truly preserve competition in the market...and further force innovation and natural market price controls.

the problem, i'm seeing, is that history is just not on my side. virtually every example of controlled economies throughout histroy have met with collapse....even regulated economies (like our own) routinely stumble because of the attempts to regulate and control on a lesser level.
Gov't, or any form a central planning, just cannot replace the natural free market....it's an economic impossibility.
it's like trying to "plan" evolution. you can't...you have no idea what the environment will be like in the future...

i'm not saying that we just do away with environmental regulations or anti-trust regulations....i think that is just a necessary chain that all businesses must wear for the good of society...

[EN[i]GMA]

So you mean I should just rest my hands in my lap, sit quietly and let the corproations do whatever they think will fatten their bottom lines?

As opposed to what you're doing now, which is....what?

What are you doing to fix the problem of 3rd world poverty and underdevelopment?

Jeezus what a frightening thought. IMO corporations are the new oppressors of society - it's just that this time they use slick commercials and buzzword filled corporate-speak to make themselves LOOK different from the heartless leaders/governments of the past who used spears, boiling oil, threats of going to hell and/or sky high taxes to keep their people in line.

What are corporations doing that are analagous to those weapons you mentioned above?

"Paying people more than they otherwise would make" = "burning oil in the face"?

???


I really don't like relying on products & services from countries with unstable governments, unstable/violent climates, unstable volcanoes, etc. Sorry if this sounds racist or whatever, but those 3rd world countries are 3rd world for a reason & I doubt very much it's because they can't watch American Idol or don't own a 60" HDTV. If someone thinks this is an incorrect conclusion, please educate me.

[quote]
My selfish question to the members here: in the long run, what does globalization do for us regular ol' middle-class Americans? For Europeans? For the Japanese? Australians?

Oh, so you don't 'trust corporations' because they might raise the standards of the starving, and knock you down a peg.

That's humanistic.

Tell me, for what reason are they 3rd world? Did God dictate it?


I haven't read any books on globalization but I'm pretty sure this is the first time the Earth has been invloved in a globalization project, so IMO any such book's conclusion is pure theory at this point.

Well, of course you would be wrong.

There was a famous period of globalization, before World War I where, to quote Keynes: "Sipping his morning tea in bed, the foreign investor could
adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages."

Sounds like globalization, doesn't it?

And of course, we've had 'globalization' since the end of World War II, to various degress.

Look at what happened to Japan. Success. South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, the rest of the 'Asian tigers'.

Your views are a-historical.

[Ace42X]

GMA']They are they by choice, and work there voluntarily.

And so were the slaves! I mean, while we're just making specious assertions and all.

where people work of their own volition,

In "slave-like" conditions, in a closed compound, which they might well not have been allowed to leave for all we know, and quite possibly weren't as "slave-like conditions" implies.

at all analagous to hunting people down, rounding them up, and shipping them in a boat,

Most slaves were born into slavery. The number who were "hunted, down rounded up, and shipped in a boat" is small by comparison. The slave *trade* was abolished for a century in the west-indies before owning slaves was abolished. During that time, plantations operated happily using the slaves that were born there. The same is true on the American plantations.

locked in cages, where they will be forced to do work,

Can't work a plantation while locked in cages. Can't even work a plantation effectively while chained together. Most slaves were not chained up, the bonds that kept them in place were social. The fear of retribution (upon them and the other slaves, maybe their families too), growing up in a world where all they know is exploitation, having no-where to run, of being lynched on sight if found roaming on their own, and having no way to support themselves in the wild were all very effective ways of keeping people in line. All of these things can be easily applied privately in a country where human rights abuses are parr for the course. Many of them can be applied subtlely in a first world country.

Roman slaves were free to roam markets on behalf of their lords with money in their hands, and didn't run. Roman legionaries clearly could not be chained up, and yet if they chose freedom and would run away from their cohort, a process called "decimation" (the killing of every 10th soldier) would be applied, ensuring that everyone towed the line, meaning that people who would consider leaving were shopped by their own "work-mates."

cannot leave, and are regularly beaten?

You have yet to demonstrate that exploited people working ANYWHERE CAN leave any more than slaves can. And being regularly beaten is no better than working in a situation where you are regularly exposed to physical harm. According to you, a thrashing with a wooden panel is worse than broken limbs caused by run-away mine carts, or losing fingers to a weaver's shuttle. Things that happen regularly to uncompensated workers in third-world country who have no insurance or medical support.

Not to mention that child labourers in Indian sweat-shops ARE often beaten, and are not technically "slaves" by any definition you would offer.

I can't believe the shit you come out with sometimes.

Well, let's look at this from the top.

You say that exploited workers in the third world aren't slaves because they aren't beaten.

Some are, and are not "slaves."

You say they are not slaves because they are free to move elsewhere if they wanted to, even if there is a possibility of retribution, starvation and death.

The same is true for many slaves throughout history.

You say they are not slaves because they were not "rounded up, hunted, caged."

Well, again, plenty of bona fide slaves weren't either.

So, really, objectively, you really don't have a leg to stand on. "They aren't like slaves because it hurts my argument to consider them as such, even though their conditions were literally and specifically referred to as 'slave-like'."

Well, guess what Enigma, it doesn't wash. Once again it comes down to you expecting other people to happily work in conditions that would have you kicking and screaming like the spoilt bitch you are, just to avoid dying of exposure or starvation.

With that argument, you can fuck off and come back when you have a soul.

[Qdrop]

And so were the slaves! I mean, while we're just making specious assertions and all.



In "slave-like" conditions, in a closed compound, which they might well not have been allowed to leave for all we know, and quite possibly weren't as "slave-like conditions" implies.



Most slaves were born into slavery. The number who were "hunted, down rounded up, and shipped in a boat" is small by comparison. The slave *trade* was abolished for a century in the west-indies before owning slaves was abolished. During that time, plantations operated happily using the slaves that were born there. The same is true on the American plantations.



Can't work a plantation while locked in cages. Can't even work a plantation effectively while chained together. Most slaves were not chained up, the bonds that kept them in place were social. The fear of retribution (upon them and the other slaves, maybe their families too), growing up in a world where all they know is exploitation, having no-where to run, of being lynched on sight if found roaming on their own, and having no way to support themselves in the wild were all very effective ways of keeping people in line. All of these things can be easily applied privately in a country where human rights abuses are parr for the course. Many of them can be applied subtlely in a first world country.

Roman slaves were free to roam markets on behalf of their lords with money in their hands, and didn't run. Roman legionaries clearly could not be chained up, and yet if they chose freedom and would run away from their cohort, a process called "decimation" (the killing of every 10th soldier) would be applied, ensuring that everyone towed the line, meaning that people who would consider leaving were shopped by their own "work-mates."


^ this is easily the most ridiculous attempt at debate i have ever seen Ace make.
talk about forcing the square peg through the hole...

enigma, i sincerely hope you do not engage in this section of his post.



You have yet to demonstrate that exploited people working ANYWHERE CAN leave any more than slaves can. And being regularly beaten is no better than working in a situation where you are regularly exposed to physical harm. According to you, a thrashing with a wooden panel is worse than broken limbs caused by run-away mine carts, or losing fingers to a weaver's shuttle. Things that happen regularly to uncompensated workers in third-world country who have no insurance or medical support.
certainly, the working condition and pay have miles to go. i dont' think anyone is saying "oh, it's good enough"....but it starts here.


Not to mention that child labourers in Indian sweat-shops ARE often beaten, and are not technically "slaves" by any definition you would offer.
your entire argument on this part of the topic rests entirely on anecdotal evidence...





like the spoilt bitch you are, just to avoid dying of exposure or starvation.

says the 23 year old Peter Pan living in his parents house, without a job, playing videogames all day.

[catatonic]

Speaking of having a soul, I wandered aimlessly onto this page a month or two back

http://web.satanism101.com/links.html

and noticed that "Introduction to Libertarianism" was one of the links.

Not that that's relevant or anything, as "Satan" could just as likely be decieving me against libertarianism by this link as decieving people towards it.

Another aspect completely ignored here is who has the communication.

[EN[i]GMA]

So, really, objectively, you really don't have a leg to stand on.

Well, except for that, for all your baseless assertions, they aren't slaves.


Well, guess what Enigma, it doesn't wash. Once again it comes down to you expecting other people to happily work in conditions that would have you kicking and screaming like the spoilt bitch you are, just to avoid dying of exposure or starvation.

Does it now?

I 'expect them to be happy'?

Is this how you formulate all your arguments, make them up?

It's pitiful.


With that argument, you can fuck off and come back when you have a soul.

Well, since that 'argument' was entirely drawn from YOUR head, you can fuck yourself off.

[D_Raay]

this is easily the most ridiculous attempt at debate i have ever seen Ace make.
talk about forcing the square peg through the hole...

enigma, i sincerely hope you do not engage in this section of his post.

The ridiculous part being that your specious assertions are somehow more relevant than Ace's. The fact is you don't know.

[Qdrop]

The ridiculous part being that your specious assertions are somehow more relevant than Ace's. The fact is you don't know.

oh, now this is just turning into a trolling exercise.

let's all just try to debate the topics instead of each other's merits.

[D_Raay]

oh, now this is just turning into a trolling exercise.

let's all just try to debate the topics instead of each other's merits.
You're the one who started with that shit.

[D_Raay]

National disintegration caused by global integration is nowhere more striking than in its effects on that most nationalist of all institutions, the military. Military observers seem not to have paid much attention to how globalization blurs the issue of national defense as it erases the economic importance of national boundaries. As nations cease to be separate, loosely connected units, and become nodes in a tightly integrated global network, as their boundaries lose economic significance, then do we really need to defend those boundaries? We will presumably no longer need customs officials or border guards. But what about the military proper? What precisely are they going to defend in a globalized world? The globe is not under threat of invasion. Do we imagine that national boundaries will long retain any political or cultural significance once their economic significance is gone?

With free trade in weapons and militarily relevant technology, and with easy migration of key military and scientific personnel, could the military defend anything -- even if it knew what it was defending?

[Qdrop]

You're the one who started with that shit.

no YOU did, infinite.


enough.

[Qdrop]

National disintegration caused by global integration is nowhere more striking than in its effects on that most nationalist of all institutions, the military. Military observers seem not to have paid much attention to how globalization blurs the issue of national defense as it erases the economic importance of national boundaries. As nations cease to be separate, loosely connected units, and become nodes in a tightly integrated global network, as their boundaries lose economic significance, then do we really need to defend those boundaries? We will presumably no longer need customs officials or border guards. But what about the military proper? What precisely are they going to defend in a globalized world? The globe is not under threat of invasion. Do we imagine that national boundaries will long retain any political or cultural significance once their economic significance is gone?

With free trade in weapons and militarily relevant technology, and with easy migration of key military and scientific personnel, could the military defend anything -- even if it knew what it was defending?

^well then i'd think you'd be all for it.

and if you are going to cut and paste, please list the link or cite the author/referance.

[Ace42X]

GMA']Well, except for that, for all your baseless assertions, they aren't slaves.

Straw-man. Your argument was not that they are not slaves, but that their situation is not analogus. I was merely demonstrating that as you cannot show how they are not "slaves" (and I did show that every definition you gave was inapplicable) you certainly cannot show how it is not analgous.

You said that exploitation was not analgous to slavery because they were not hunted or caged. Most slaves are not either. That doesn't contradict the analogy.

You said slaves are beaten, but so are plenty of sweatshop workers. That does not contradict the analogy.

You said they were "free to leave." Which is specious. In that there are no physical restraints, they are "free to leave." But plenty of slaves were not restrained either, and thus "free to leave".

In each case you have failed to show how the analogy is not appropriate.

It is very simple, and as much as you do not want to face up to your error, you have no choice. You stuffed up, and said some indefensible things. Live it down, retract it, learn from it, or go fuck yourself, whichever you like.

I 'expect them to be happy'?
Is this how you formulate all your arguments, make them up?

Clearly you expect them to be "happy" because your argument was that if they were not happy with the conditions, they would seek alternatives.

4: satisfied; enjoying well-being and contentment
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=happy

Clearly, you do expect them to be "satisfied" and "enjoying well-being / contentment" - otherwise they are inexplicably staying in a situation they dislike, despite being "free to go elsewhere" according to you.

Well, since that 'argument' was entirely drawn from YOUR head, you can fuck yourself off.

It is drawn from what you say and said. Which is essentially trying to justify the exploitation of people and tell us with a shit-eating grin that it is anything other than unjust and abhorent. Which is rich coming from you, considering how intolerable and unsatisfactory you'd find the situation if it was YOU in it.

It is not drawn from "my head." But the words you post here. If it is not what you meant to say, perhaps you should put down the pro-capitalist bullshit in favour something that isn't morally bankrupt. That or take some responsibility for your ideology.

[EN[i]GMA]

Straw-man. Your argument was not that they are not slaves, but that their situation is not analogus. I was merely demonstrating that as you cannot show how they are not "slaves" (and I did show that every definition you gave was inapplicable) you certainly cannot show how it is not analgous.

You said that exploitation was not analgous to slavery because they were not hunted or caged. Most slaves are not either. That doesn't contradict the analogy.

You said slaves are beaten, but so are plenty of sweatshop workers. That does not contradict the analogy.

You said they were "free to leave." Which is specious. In that there are no physical restraints, they are "free to leave." But plenty of slaves were not restrained either, and thus "free to leave".

In each case you have failed to show how the analogy is not appropriate.

It is very simple, and as much as you do not want to face up to your error, you have no choice. You stuffed up, and said some indefensible things. Live it down, retract it, learn from it, or go fuck yourself, whichever you like.

Twice I said 'work there voluntarily' and 'of their own volition'.

If they are working there voluntarily, of their volition, their situation is not at all analagous to 'slavery'.

If they are not working there voluntarily, or of their volition, and choice (leaving their farm or hovel to come work), then there is a slave analogue, as with the people tied to their sewing machines.

But since I wasn't talking about the latter case, and specified the first one through my use of numerous clarify terms (Terms which you willfully ignored to make an irrelevent point and rebuttal), you dont' have any argument.

Continue bitching, if you'd like, but it's not going to garner another response; it was a petty attempt at 'proving me wrong' on a point I didn't even make.

Drop it.


Clearly you expect them to be "happy" because your argument was that if they were not happy with the conditions, they would seek alternatives.

'Happy' =! 'happier'.

They are happier working, then they are starving to death, not happy as in the definition you gave.

Again, you're grasping at straws, trying pitifully to raise an argument where there is none.


It is drawn from what you say and said.

No, it's drawn from your twisted interpretation, which always (conveniently) meanders AWAY from the original argument and to some irrelevent detail you choose to argue about.

Back to the basics: What would you do about/with globalization? What would you differently? What would king Ace?

I know you're dying to tell us; you love to hearself speak.


Which is essentially trying to justify the exploitation of people and tell us with a shit-eating grin that it is anything other than unjust and abhorent. Which is rich coming from you, considering how intolerable and unsatisfactory you'd find the situation if it was YOU in it.

Fuck off and die.


It is not drawn from "my head." But the words you post here. If it is not what you meant to say, perhaps you should put down the pro-capitalist bullshit in favour something that isn't morally bankrupt. That or take some responsibility for your ideology.

I don't see how 'pro-capitalist' ideology enters into this at all, because you have not given (refuse to give) an alternative.

So pragmatically, the only difference you have on this issue as that you choose to bitch about it, impotently, on an irrelevent internet forum and posture like you're better than everyone.

If you're not going to take fault with any specific aspect of policy, or propose alternatives, you're just pissing in the wind. Or to clarify, you are just pissing in the wind.

Congratu-fucking-lations, you've accomplished nothing.

[D_Raay]

^well then i'd think you'd be all for it.

and if you are going to cut and paste, please list the link or cite the author/referance.
Conversely, you'd think you would be against it.

[Ace42X]

GMA']Twice I said 'work there voluntarily' and 'of their own volition'.

Yes, and twice it was bullshit. What precisely does "voluntarily" mean to you? That they turned down a non-exploitative job, so it's their own goddamn fault? That all they had to do was choose to get that job in B&Q and they could be living fat as hogs, and it is because they have a perverse desire to be exploited?

If they are working there voluntarily, of their volition, their situation is not at all analagous to 'slavery'.

"Not at all" - except for all the ways it is identical to? For example beatings, impositions on their freedoms, such as movement, accomodation and diet?

Again, you use the word "voluntarily" and "of their volition" without any sort of justification or explanation. How is their exploitation "voluntary." Were they asked if they want to be exploited? Were they told "Well, you have a choice, totally up to you, you can work for us, or alternatively we'll pay you for doing nothing at all, up to you!"?

Or is this "volition" you speak of quite simply the choice: "you do what we want, otherwise you starve without a roof over your head."

Now, if a slave on a plantation was told "you do what we tell you, or you don't get any food or accomodation" - would you say "oh, they're not a slave then! They can choose not to work!"?

No.

and choice (leaving their farm or hovel to come work), then there is a slave analogue

They have no farms or hovels to leave or return to, they are housed, 100 to a domitory, in the "iPod city." A closed compound.

They are happier working, than starving to death

Slaves are happier working than being beaten. Guess it doesn't justify a damned thing, eh?

No, it's drawn from your twisted interpretation,

No, what you said, the words in it. If it is "twisted" then it is because your ideology is twisted.

What would you do about/with globalization? What would you differently? What would king Ace?

About it? Nothing, I love globalisation. The only problem I have with it is that it is poor uneducated people who have to do it, instead of selfish blowhards like yourself. What would I do differently? I'd march you into every one of these jobs, and force you to do it day in, day out, and then, if you worked really hard and didn't cry too much, I might eventually let you beg to be returned to the life you are accustomed to. I'd then ask some fingerless Indian weaver-children what they think about it and let them decide whether you spend the rest of your days sorting through hazardous chemicals just to survive, or whether to give you the numerous socialist benefits that could lift you out of the daily misery you were subjected to.

I don't see how 'pro-capitalist' ideology enters into this at all, because you have not given (refuse to give) an alternative.

Au contraire, like I said, my alternative would be to make people like you do the jobs, and then see how in favour of capitalism you are. While it would not make the world a better or fairer place, it would amuse me greatly to see how quickly you recant every shred of dogmatic bullshit when faced with the reality of the situation. Perhaps then we'll see how inevitable it is that people like you get paid 50p for putting together 50p's worth of materials to make a $100 product. Perhaps then you might not find the rather obvious "give people a fair wage in decent working conditions" such an appalling and impossible thought. 'Cause if the shoes was on the other foot (pardon the pun) - I really cannot see you saying "oh well, it's market forces at work. I'm just lucky to be benefitting from globalisation."

So pragmatically, the only difference you have on this issue as that you choose to bitch about it, impotently, on an irrelevent internet forum and posture like you're better than everyone.

You could just as well say that, pragmatically, the only difference between someone condemning murder, rape and paedophillia, and someone justifying them is that the former "chooses to bitch about it, impotently, on an irrelevent internet forum, and posture like they're better than everyone."

Yes, pragmatically both people don't do anything. However, the moral difference is very much pronounced. So, enigma, I know that in pragmatic terms you are a no-one whose consumerism is only a drop in the ocean. That doesn't stop your *morality* being bankrupt, and you being a detestable toad.

If you're not going to take fault with any specific aspect of policy, or propose alternatives, you're just pissing in the wind.

Yah, people saying murder, rape and paedophillia are wrong are just pissing in the wind. If you don't have any better alternatives, you should just shut up!

Actually, I do have plenty of alternatives, most of them being the product of common sense. But that is irrelevent, as this thread isn't called "What we can do to combat the exploitation of the poor." Not that it stops you going off on a red-herring in a pathetic effort to deflect criticism from your beloved capitalism.

I mean come on, Enigma, "Yeah, ok, well, you might have a point about globalisation being evil, but because you haven't yet bothered to give an alternative, that magically transfigures it from being an abominable injustice to the epitome of progress."

Put down the bull-shit shovel unless you are going to dig a hole and jump in it.

Congratu-fucking-lations, you've accomplished nothing.

I once again exposed you as the callous, detestable, hypocritical, selfish scumbag you are. Maybe it isn't the most revolutionary or productive use of my time, but at least I am not arguing for the exploitation of human beings in conditions that you could never even dream of suffering.

You want some pragmatic solutions? Here are a few:

1. Everyone who defends the exploitation of these workers has to live as one of them for at least a year, preferably longer. This goes especially for CEOs and owners of the companies. They get to keep their salaries, just so long as they work and live along-side the people who actually do the hard work. At the end of a year or two years stint, maybe they'll suggest that the first few mill was enough money, and perhaps they should retire.

2. No-one gets paid less than a member of a first-world-nation would work for. This means you pay outsourced workers the same rate, inline with exchange rate, as workers in the parent company's country of origin would. If multinationals try to get around it, use a proportional representation. Work out where the majority of units of product are sold to, and pay an equal proportion of workers a rate inline with that nation's workers.

3. No-one works / is obliged to live (by poverty or corporate policy) in conditions that a member of a first-world nation would live under.

4. National employment standards (safety conditions, healthcare, insurance, maximum hours, expected hours, rate of pay, etc etc) are applied to foreign holdings. IE US companies cannot expect over-seas workers to work in sub-US conditions.

These simple steps would make the world of difference, and are not unreasonable expectations of corporate responsibility.

[D_Raay]

The problem with capitalism/globalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment--or at least much handicap--to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.

[Qdrop]

You want some pragmatic solutions? Here are a few:

2. No-one gets paid less than a member of a first-world-nation would work for. This means you pay outsourced workers the same rate, inline with exchange rate, as workers in the parent company's country of origin would. If multinationals try to get around it, use a proportional representation. Work out where the majority of units of product are sold to, and pay an equal proportion of workers a rate inline with that nation's workers.

3. No-one works / is obliged to live (by poverty or corporate policy) in conditions that a member of a first-world nation would live under.

4. National employment standards (safety conditions, healthcare, insurance, maximum hours, expected hours, rate of pay, etc etc) are applied to foreign holdings. IE US companies cannot expect over-seas workers to work in sub-US conditions.



^with those steps, there would be zero incentive for corporations to invest in developing countries for labor.
therefore, the impoverished countries would continue to be impoverished.

your "solution" would be the death nel of globalization, and the death nel of millions of impoverished world-wide. you would sign there death warrants.


i'm starting to realize you have don't have nearly the understanding of free markets or capitalism as i once thought you did.
again, you get stuck in the minutia....and never understand the big picture.

[EN[i]GMA]

They have no farms or hovels to leave or return to, they are housed, 100 to a domitory, in the "iPod city." A closed compound.

They originally left them to come there.


About it? Nothing, I love globalisation. The only problem I have with it is that it is poor uneducated people who have to do it, instead of selfish blowhards like yourself. What would I do differently? I'd march you into every one of these jobs, and force you to do it day in, day out, and then, if you worked really hard and didn't cry too much, I might eventually let you beg to be returned to the life you are accustomed to. I'd then ask some fingerless Indian weaver-children what they think about it and let them decide whether you spend the rest of your days sorting through hazardous chemicals just to survive, or whether to give you the numerous socialist benefits that could lift you out of the daily misery you were subjected to.

Ever the humanist, Ace has no problem with hardship when it's directed towards those whose ideology he dislikes.


Au contraire, like I said, my alternative would be to make people like you do the jobs, and then see how in favour of capitalism you are. While it would not make the world a better or fairer place, it would amuse me greatly to see how quickly you recant every shred of dogmatic bullshit when faced with the reality of the situation.

And I doubt if you sent many avowed socialists to work in various 'socialist' countries you'd find that they didn't like the accomidations there, either.

Would they then be justified in recanting their support for socialism?

Perhaps then you might not find the rather obvious "give people a fair wage in decent working conditions" such an appalling and impossible thought.

How do I not support this?

It's what I'd like to happen, but I don't think it's realistic.

What would you do to make it happen? Again, you've deftly absolved yourself form providing any real solutions, you just make a few insane claims and scamper off like you've acheived anything.


You could just as well say that, pragmatically, the only difference between someone condemning murder, rape and paedophillia, and someone justifying them is that the former "chooses to bitch about it, impotently, on an irrelevent internet forum, and posture like they're better than everyone."

I might have, but I didn't.

And in fact doing that would be of little importance. Whether or not you villify those things wouldn't stop countless people from doing them, none the less.

It would, as I said, be meaningless.

Go ahead and condemn them, but it will have the same effect as if you didn't.


Yah, people saying murder, rape and paedophillia are wrong are just pissing in the wind. If you don't have any better alternatives, you should just shut up!

If you aren't actually saying anything worthwhile, just constantly bitching about it, you aren't accomplishing anything.

Feel free to think it puts you on some moral pedestal, if you would like.


Actually, I do have plenty of alternatives, most of them being the product of common sense.

Then please, trot them out.

Because what I've seen so far is weak, even from you.

But that is irrelevent, as this thread isn't called "What we can do to combat the exploitation of the poor." Not that it stops you going off on a red-herring in a pathetic effort to deflect criticism from your beloved capitalism.

I don't even know where you got that from.

I accept the criticism that the pay is too low, that the conditions are unsafe. I've accepted it numerous times, in this thread.

You just willfully ignore it in order to pretend like you have salient point to rant about.

You don't.


I mean come on, Enigma, "Yeah, ok, well, you might have a point about globalisation being evil, but because you haven't yet bothered to give an alternative, that magically transfigures it from being an abominable injustice to the epitome of progress."

Put down the bull-shit shovel unless you are going to dig a hole and jump in it.

It's not 'evil'. It has particular aspects that I don't like, that are exploitive, but overall it's not 'evil' any moreso than industrailization was 'evil'.

I don't like the low wages or the working conditions either.

What are you trying to accomplish? To convert me to the opinion that I've had this entire time?

You make a fucking war out of nothing, every single time you post. It's asinine.


I once again exposed you as the callous, detestable, hypocritical, selfish scumbag you are.

Don't hold anything back Ace, it's bad for your heart.

Maybe it isn't the most revolutionary or productive use of my time, but at least I am not arguing for the exploitation of human beings in conditions that you could never even dream of suffering.



You want some pragmatic solutions? Here are a few:

They aren't 'pramatic' at all and are solutions only in your mind.


1. Everyone who defends the exploitation of these workers has to live as one of them for at least a year, preferably longer. This goes especially for CEOs and owners of the companies. They get to keep their salaries, just so long as they work and live along-side the people who actually do the hard work. At the end of a year or two years stint, maybe they'll suggest that the first few mill was enough money, and perhaps they should retire.

And of course, while all this is going on Ace, will continue to buy his products cheap, as a result of this labor, and post on internet message boards about how he's 'morally superiour', even though he engages in the very same process he detests.

How many of your products were produced in countries where 'exploitive labor' is present? How do you know that it wasn't employed?

Oh, that's right, you don't. So for all your bullshit, you are still an active and willing participant in the cycle, which makes you as morally culpable as anyone.

Put on your gloves, you're going to need them.

Oh, but I'm sure Ace has never, in his life, bought a product from the Far East, or if he has, he has written assurance from all those who worked on it they were payed a fair, market wage.

I bet for all the shit he places on others for 'supporting' this system, he enjoys the benefits of it. I would say that most of his computer parts were built overseas, and shipped from overseas, on their way here.

And I bet there was someone along that chain who was making less than 'fair market wage'.

Do you know what that makes you? A big fucking hypocrite. Ace could do without his computers, and indeed all electronics not produced in the West. He could, but we all know he doesn't, which shows how far he's willing to take his morality: He'll bitch about it on the internet, but God damn if he'll do anything about it.

Impressive Ace, impressive.


2. No-one gets paid less than a member of a first-world-nation would work for. This means you pay outsourced workers the same rate, inline with exchange rate, as workers in the parent company's country of origin would. If multinationals try to get around it, use a proportional representation. Work out where the majority of units of product are sold to, and pay an equal proportion of workers a rate inline with that nation's workers.

So then what incentive would they have to build factories in the 3rd world in the first place?

None.

SO the factories wouldn't get built and MORE people would starve, as a result of your 'humanitarian' action.

Nice going Ace.


3. No-one works / is obliged to live (by poverty or corporate policy) in conditions that a member of a first-world nation would live under.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

So let me get this straight: Ace's policy to get rid of 'poverty' is to, wait for it, get rid of povery.

That is the worst, most fallacious tripe you have ever vomited up.

It's circular and you know it. It's grandstanding for the crowd, meaningless propaganda that you spout off to make it seem like you actually know what the fuck you're talking about.

So Ace's 'pragmatic solution' (his own words) is to simply 'not oblige anyone to live in poor conditions'.

That's sensible. :rolleyes:


4. National employment standards (safety conditions, healthcare, insurance, maximum hours, expected hours, rate of pay, etc etc) are applied to foreign holdings. IE US companies cannot expect over-seas workers to work in sub-US conditions.

Foreign countries don't have the infrastructure to do any of this.

They don't have enough hospitals, or doctors, or lawyers, or banks, or roads, or schools.

Your 'pragmatic policy' is to give every person in India the same health care standards that exist in the US, BEFORE any foreign invesment/production in the region is allowed?

How are they going to manage that, pray to their Gods? Sacrafice cattle?


These simple steps would make the world of difference, and are not unreasonable expectations of corporate responsibility.

I don't even know what to say.

I'm speachless.

That's the worst thought-out post you've ever made.

No insultry, no hyperbole, just sheer amazement at either:

a) your gall, at expecting anyone to take that seriously
b) your ignorance, in believing your own fairy tales

Wow.

I'm through with this; it's a farce and you know it.

You cannot honestly believe that bullshit.

[EN[i]GMA]

^with those steps, there would be zero incentive for corporations to invest in developing countries for labor.
therefore, the impoverished countries would continue to be impoverished.

your "solution" would be the death nel of globalization, and the death nel of millions of impoverished world-wide. you would sign there death warrants.


i'm starting to realize you have don't have nearly the understanding of free markets or capitalism as i once thought you did.
again, you get stuck in the minutia....and never understand the big picture.

I feel the same way.

Reading that, you get the sense that he has no idea how anything works.

That you can just, as a matter of policy, MAKE countries 'not poor', as if you can go straight to '1st world' from 3rd world, with no harm or loss to anyone.

Think about all those proposals, what they really mean: First world health care standards in countries with no hospitals or doctors?

How is all this stuff going to be financed? Not by corporations, because they have no incentive to spend millions and billions on infastructure when they have no hope of making a profit.

Not by governments, because they odn't have any money to begin with.

So who builds it? Fairies? Ace? Nobody?

I'll go with answer C, nobody.

So, for all of Ace's grandstanding, faux morality, and dictations, he serves up a bunch of nostrums that would HURT the poor far worse than what corporations are doing.

It's a sick joke and so is he.

[FunkyHiFi]

i'm not saying that we just do away with environmental regulations or anti-trust regulations....i think that is just a necessary chain that all businesses must wear for the good of society.

"for the good of society."

AMEN BROTHER.

I've really had it with tiny groups of people - ESPECIALLY arrogant/money-oriented people - with their own ultra-specific agendas getting in my face & telling me what's good for me. And no, I'm not into communism.

The problem with capitalism/globalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: the ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment--or at least much handicap--to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need.
I agree.

I do think capitalism has its place, but it needs to be carefully controlled.

I am also tired of pseudo-intellectuals that hang out in dusty libraries and sterile "think tanks" patting me on the head, saying I should listen to them instead of what my common sense (i.e. gut) tells me. Gut feelings are not always right, but totally ignoring them (due to overthinking + a thick layer of convoluted & filmy theories and vague facts) isn't smart either.

Business people see rules/regulations as chains, but others see them as a common sense method to rein in the negative attributes certain humans either are born with or their upbringing created that keep society as a whole from living happy/productive lives. If I hear one more person say "A person or organization can do anything they like just because they feel like it" I am gonna puke.

[Ace42X]

GMA']They originally left them to come there.

Irrelevent. By that argument anyone who leaves their home cannot be made a slave. I could be told the streets of Chicago are paved with gold, and then not be able to afford a plane ticket to return home. By your argument I choose to be in Chicago, when actually it is not what I signed up for, and cannot escape from.

QED.

Ever the humanist, Ace has no problem with hardship when it's directed towards those whose ideology he dislikes.

Ever the asswipe. Clearly I was being ironic. I do not "like global capitalism", as this whole thread should indicate, so clearly I would not like it any better just because it is you being exploited. My point was that the only reason you support capitalism is because you are the recipient and not the exploited.

And I doubt if you sent many avowed socialists to work in various 'socialist' countries you'd find that they didn't like the accomidations there, either.
Would they then be justified in recanting their support for socialism?

Like England, for example? I very much like my country, the NHS, and I miss the privatised industries that offered safer, cleaner and cheaper transportation, sanitisation, services and amenities.

Or France perhaps? You mean "communist" countries, right? Nice try. Besides, *I* didn't mention socialism directly. You are the one desperately trying to shift the subject onto irrelevent tit-for-tat crap.

Still harking back to "but, but, but they don't live as good as the beneficiaries of capitalism!"

Let's now modify your statement so it is borderline relevent and not a red herring fallacy.

What you mean is "let's ask a socialist if they would rather live and work in a socialist country than in a capitalist sweat-shop."

Let's look at the accomodation: Vietnam a worker will get their own apartment. iPod city, you share your dormitory with 100 other people.

Tough choice, eh?

How do I not support this?

By arguing for a system that this is an anathema to, duh.

It's what I'd like to happen, but I don't think it's realistic.

Of course it isn't "realistic" under a capitalist system. The whole system is designed to bring about and maintain the exact opposite. Which is why, by supporting capitalism, you are not supporting egalitarianism.

What would you do to make it happen?

How do you make anything happen? There are plenty of methods you can use, depending on your position. It is just a question of which you find palatable. I could suggest some more extreme methods, and you would be no doubt appalled. And, inline with your selective morality, you would no doubt think that it isn't comparable to the injustice perpetrated upon the world's poor.

You can force hundreds and thousands of people to work inhuman hours in slave-like conditions, no problem there. But do it to one of your beloved fat-cats? Unthinkable!

Whether or not you villify those things wouldn't stop countless people from doing them, none the less.

Go ahead and condemn them, but it will have the same effect as if you didn't.

Ah, the rhetoric of apathy, from the man who doesn't think that condemning injustice is worthwhile. This is why you're a cocksucker, and part of the problem. It is the silence of people like you, and the unspoken consent, that allows all of the worlds injustices to take part. As such you are personally responsible.

If you aren't actually saying anything worthwhile, just constantly bitching about it, you aren't accomplishing anything.

You may as well say "if you aren't telling people how to put out the fire, just telling people to stop putting on more petrol, you aren't accomplishing anything."

Feel free to think it puts you on some moral pedestal, if you would like.

It doesn't "put me on a pedestal." It is an essential part of being a human being. Your moral ambivalence is not "average." It isn't even tolerable. It is repugnant, and it is why you specifically deserve to work in the terrible conditions the exploited are obliged to work in.

Because what I've seen so far is weak, even from you.

If by weak you mean "highly effective." You think the rich and powerful would deign to work in the conditions they foist upon others?

I accept the criticism that the pay is too low, that the conditions are unsafe. I've accepted it numerous times, in this thread.

Obviously they [the workers] are [better off], or else they wouldn't be working there.

So, by accepting criticism, you mean flat-out denying there is a problem?

And don't try the old "at least they aren't dead!" line. You know that is empty and meaningless rhetoric. You were not just stating an irrelevent point, your intention was to demonstrate that capitalism is anything other than a cynical exploitation of the vulnerable.

You just willfully ignore it in order to pretend like you have salient point to rant about.

Ignore what, your red-herring? I actually, out of the goodness of my heart, and for the sake of argument entertained your attempt to divert the topic from the exploitative nature of capitalism to "hey, but what are you gonna do?" Because you quite frankly don't have an answer for it, other than to go back and try and minmise everything you have been driving at.

"Oh, well, yes, I didn't say it isn't exploitative, and that the conditions are inhuman. I just defend it all the fucking time with everything I say."

Fuck off.

You don't.

It's not 'evil'.

And nor is the atomic bomb. It is a thing, made by humans, and when you cut the crap about "deterance" and how many lives dropping them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved, it doesn't change the fact that it is a pernicious contrivance which kills on an unprecedented scale.

I don't like the low wages or the working conditions either.

Pity, as that is the omega of capitalism. That is what it works towards, that is its goal, that is its r'aison d'autre.

What are you trying to accomplish? To convert me to the opinion that I've had this entire time?

To make you wake the fuck up and realise that the exploitation isn't a coincidence. It isn't a temporary by-product of modernisation. It is what props up the system. The "improval in living conditions" is not a benefit given to the people living under capitalism, it is taking from the many many poor, to give to the very very few wealthy. And the only reason you think anything other than this, and the only reason you think it is a modernising force for good, is because you are the recipient of this exploitation, not the exploited.

You make a fucking war out of nothing, every single time you post. It's asinine.

What is asinine is you arguing for the virtues of capitalism again and again and again, and then trying to brush the noxious fundaments of its operation under the carpet all the time.

Don't hold anything back Ace, it's bad for your heart.

The only reason I hope for the existence of a deity is so that there is some naive and slim chance that you are paid back and in full for the suffering your aloof opinions cause.

And of course, while all this is going on Ace, will continue to buy his products cheap, as a result of this labor, and post on internet message boards about how he's 'morally superiour', even though he engages in the very same process he detests.

Nice try, but wrong. How can I buy products made off of the back of exploited workers when there are none because no-one dare exploit them for fear of being forced to work in those conditions?

How many of your products were produced in countries where 'exploitive labor' is present?

Plenty. But, you see, I personally visited the premisis of every single factory where every single component was manufactured. Oh, looks like I shot your argument right out of the water, whoops!

But seriously, what's your point? That because I live under a system where capitalism is prevalent, it is unavoidable that despite my good intentions people are exploited?

Yes, you're right. As I have maintained, exploitation is an unavoidable part of capitalism, and as I am unable to leave this capitalist system (so much for all this 'own volition' stuff, eh?) I am unable to avoid exploiting people.

Congratulations on demonstrating quite clearly why captalism can never be anything but a system which locks everyone into it, no matter what their intentions or ideology, into a perpetual exploitation of the poor.

The difference is I am trying to make people see this inevitability, and reject the system, whereas you are trying to pretend it is something other than pernicious in a sad attempt to salve your conscience.

To take yourself out of the capitalist system you need... capital. And you get that from being a... Tada, now you see.

which makes you as morally culpable as anyone.

No, it makes me as guilty in contributing to the problem, but not as morally culpable.

I bet for all the shit he places on others for 'supporting' this system, he enjoys the benefits of it.

Yes, I do. Everyone living in the first world does. I have said this many times in many threads. The difference is I have the good manners to feel guilty about it, and say its wrong. Unlike you, who is desperate to tell me how much the exploited BENEFIT from the privilidge of giving people like you the fruits of their labour.

The difference is that I want to change the system so that we needn't be, where you want to defend and perpetuate it.

I guess that makes me a German citizen who speaks out against Hitler, while hypocritically driving his Volkswagen on the autobahn, whereas you are a Nazi who tells us how right and proper Nazism is, even if the gassing of the Jews is an unfortunate but unavoidable side-effect (also hypocrtical), and driving his volkswagen up and down the autobahn.

If that makes you sleep better at nights, knowing we both drive the same road, fair enough. I take comfort in the distinction.

Do you know what that makes you? A big fucking hypocrite. Ace could do without his computers, and indeed all electronics not produced in the West. He could, but we all know he doesn't, which shows how far he's willing to take his morality: He'll bitch about it on the internet, but God damn if he'll do anything about it.

Impressive Ace, impressive.

Except I can't do without them. Can't word-process without a word-processor. Can't edit a database without a PC. Can't even apply for half the jobs in the job-centre without e-mail access. You cannot research to find out *which* companies are exploitative without Internet access. Everything I have done in the last twenty years has been organised around computers, from essays which are required to be typed, to data processing in an office.

Because of "capitalism" (the system I have no choice but to live under) the jobs available to me are limited, with production jobs being exported to the third world, as well as services such as working in a call centre. Employment in the west is orientated around computers.

Even if I were to move to one of the "exploited" countries in order to get a manual job, I would need money to get setup, that requires I work within the capitalist system. And, of course, it would be pointless anyway, the exploited have no voice.

But, again, all off the point. You cannot consume unfairly priced products if CEOs are unwilling to make them at an extortionate price, thereby obliging themselves to graft as hard as their employees in the same conditions.


SO the factories wouldn't get built and MORE people would starve, as a result of your 'humanitarian' action.

Nice going Ace.

Bullshit. Pulling people off the land and into factories that produce iPods and Nikes CANNOT magically generate food. To equate iPod or nike factories with a country's survival should appear stupid to even you. While they are working like slaves for someone else, and the fruit of their labour is being diverted to the rich in the west, they CANNOT be working on self-improvement.

The whites in South Africa used a similar argument to yours to support apartheid. "Without the whites to keep the blacks organised, the whole country would fall apart."

A similar argument was used to justify the UK's collonialism as well as slavery. "Without us they'd all be living in mud-huts."

It was as arrogant and wrong then as it is now. No-one "benefits" from being the exploited people, even though the exploiters historically love telling each other that it is the case.

It is stupid and condescending to think that if it were not for the benevolent capitalists stepping in and saving the poor backwards third-worlders from themselves, they'd all starve.

So let me get this straight: Ace's policy to get rid of 'poverty' is to, wait for it, get rid of povery.

That is the worst, most fallacious tripe you have ever vomited up.

It might well be, if that is what I said. But don't let what I actually said get in the way of your self-congratulation. My policy was not to "get rid of poverty", but to counter-act capitalist exploitation. And I did not say "get rid of poverty." As you should well know, considering you said it below:

It's circular and you know it. It's grandstanding for the crowd, meaningless propaganda that you spout off to make it seem like you actually know what the fuck you're talking about.

So Ace's 'pragmatic solution' (his own words) is to simply 'not oblige anyone to live in poor conditions'.

That's sensible.

Why is it not sensible? Surely the simple expedient of companies paying people enough money to ensure a standard of living that you and I are accustomed to is both right and proper?

How is it not pragmatic?

"prag·mat·ic Audio pronunciation of "pragmatic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (prg-mtk)
adj.
1. Dealing or concerned with facts or actual occurrences; practical."

A company paying someone in china the same price they would be paying someone in the US is certainly concerned with facts and an actual occurence.

I'm through with this; it's a farce and you know it.
You cannot honestly believe that bullshit.

It is not a farce, but you do not know it. Your capitalist theories and economic dogma is a tissues of fiction and lies. Very elegantly crafted fictions, certainly, but they are bullshit.

The reason you are shocked is because you have conditioned yourself into believing the capitalist bullshit that complicates some very simple things.

It is not difficult to treat people fairly, it is not untenable, it is not unimagineable.

For example, you erroneously believe that raising a minimum wage will increase unemployment, for the same reasons you believe that expecting companies to pay third-world workers a fair price will cause them to tank. According to economic theory, of course, you are indisputabley correct. The rationale is impeccable, and in line with pretty much all scholarly thought on the subject.

Of course, economic theory is wrong, because it is all, pretty much without exception, irrelevant bullshit that bares little or no relation to the real world. Raising minimum wage in the UK hasn't resulted in mass unemployment and companies falling apart and starvation in the street.

So, if you want to argue I don't have a grasp of economic theory, feel free. I know the dogma as well as you, probably better. But, like the theory that the universe revolves around the earth in a series of concentric sub-circles, it is trying to force observed tangible things to fit a flawed theory.

Just like the theory of concentric orbits, capitalism can't be "fixed" by trying to fiddle with its intrinsic rules, because the basic premise is intrinsically corrupt, and all the dogma, and "evidence" and statistics is just trying to massage the figures to better agree with what your model predicts.

So, excuse me if I don't enter into economic dick-swinging, it is simply because I do not believe in it, other than as an abstract and contrived irrelevance.

[Ace42X]

GMA']
Reading that, you get the sense that he has no idea how anything works.

I know how it is "supposed" to work. Just like I know that privatisation is supposed to boost effiency (it doesn't) and that increasing the minimum wage is supposed to deter investment and stoke unemployment (it doesn't.)

The theories are bullshit, constructed by ideologues whose sole stock in trade is philosophising about an entirely contrived and artificial system, and pretending that it is congruent with the physical world it so seldom manages to describe accurately.

Worse when they pretend that the world works according to "rules" that they themselves have contrived based according to their ideology and philsophising, rather than any pragmatic implementation of principles.

[EN[i]GMA]

Irrelevent. By that argument anyone who leaves their home cannot be made a slave. I could be told the streets of Chicago are paved with gold, and then not be able to afford a plane ticket to return home. By your argument I choose to be in Chicago, when actually it is not what I signed up for, and cannot escape from.

QED.

Again, you're presupposing that they don't know what the conditions are before they sign up.

They know what the job entails.


Or France perhaps? You mean "communist" countries, right? Nice try. Besides, *I* didn't mention socialism directly. You are the one desperately trying to shift the subject onto irrelevent tit-for-tat crap.

Well, if you were a youth, you'd stand a very good chance of being unemployed.

I guess all those youth that rioted were peachy keen on the direction France is heading, eh?


What you mean is "let's ask a socialist if they would rather live and work in a socialist country than in a capitalist sweat-shop."

Let's look at the accomodation: Vietnam a worker will get their own apartment. iPod city, you share your dormitory with 100 other people.

Tough choice, eh?

Alright, compare a gulag to 'ipod city'.

I can match every appeal to emotion that you can.


How do you make anything happen? There are plenty of methods you can use, depending on your position. It is just a question of which you find palatable. I could suggest some more extreme methods, and you would be no doubt appalled. And, inline with your selective morality, you would no doubt think that it isn't comparable to the injustice perpetrated upon the world's poor.

You can force hundreds and thousands of people to work inhuman hours in slave-like conditions, no problem there. But do it to one of your beloved fat-cats? Unthinkable!



Ah, the rhetoric of apathy, from the man who doesn't think that condemning injustice is worthwhile. This is why you're a cocksucker, and part of the problem. It is the silence of people like you, and the unspoken consent, that allows all of the worlds injustices to take part. As such you are personally responsible.

Oh, in that case, sorry guys!


If by weak you mean "highly effective." You think the rich and powerful would deign to work in the conditions they foist upon others?

No, I think the conditions are deplorable, and I'm sure there are sensible restrictions regarding safety that could be put in place.


Ignore what, your red-herring? I actually, out of the goodness of my heart, and for the sake of argument entertained your attempt to divert the topic from the exploitative nature of capitalism to "hey, but what are you gonna do?" Because you quite frankly don't have an answer for it, other than to go back and try and minmise everything you have been driving at.

"Oh, well, yes, I didn't say it isn't exploitative, and that the conditions are inhuman. I just defend it all the fucking time with everything I say."

Fuck off.

You don't.

I defend it because there's no alternative.

Fine, if you'd like, I'll 'condemn'. I'll damn it to hell: 3rd world exploitation sucks, I'd like to see it stopped.

Now...

What's that?

Oh, the sound of absolutely nothing changing.

Subtract that recanting sentence from my post and the world would function the exact same.

But while you are out blasting anything and everything 'capitalistic', I'll be looking for sensible solutions like safety limits, through effective channels like the WTO.

That's something I would support wholeheartedly.

But please, continue to spout off like I'm out to get the poor or whatever nonsense you dreamt up.


Pity, as that is the omega of capitalism. That is what it works towards, that is its goal, that is its r'aison d'autre.

Which would explain what capitalism has driven down wages consistently since its inception...


The only reason I hope for the existence of a deity is so that there is some naive and slim chance that you are paid back and in full for the suffering your aloof opinions cause.

So who here has the 'repugnant' morality?


Plenty. But, you see, I personally visited the premisis of every single factory where every single component was manufactured. Oh, looks like I shot your argument right out of the water, whoops!

Oh, you sure got me!

Well since all those factories were good, and since I've visited all the rest in the world, and they were good, I think this whole 'globalization' thing is a lie.

Things are fine over there.

Pack up your bags and go home, nothing to see here.


It might well be, if that is what I said. But don't let what I actually said get in the way of your self-congratulation. My policy was not to "get rid of poverty", but to counter-act capitalist exploitation. And I did not say "get rid of poverty." As you should well know, considering you said it below:

So you admit it would do nothing to get rid of poverty?


Why is it not sensible? Surely the simple expedient of companies paying people enough money to ensure a standard of living that you and I are accustomed to is both right and proper?

It's not sensible because no companies would invest for such an oppurtunity.


A company paying someone in china the same price they would be paying someone in the US is certainly concerned with facts and an actual occurence.


But it isn't 'practical' as they wouldn't go through the trouble of setting up in China lest they were to save money.


For example, you erroneously believe that raising a minimum wage will increase unemployment, for the same reasons you believe that expecting companies to pay third-world workers a fair price will cause them to tank.

'Fair' is of course totally subjective.

I think paying them a 'fair' wage is perfectly within order, but I doubt we'd agree as to what is fair.


Of course, economic theory is wrong, because it is all, pretty much without exception, irrelevant bullshit that bares little or no relation to the real world. Raising minimum wage in the UK hasn't resulted in mass unemployment and companies falling apart and starvation in the street.

Which is another strawman.

I can think of no economic text that says 'raising the minimum wage a few dollars over market price" will result in 'starvation in the streets'.

Now, if you were to raise that minimum wage a million dollars, you would see an economic collapse.

It's the exact same principal.

Unless 'inflation' is also a 'capitalist myth' and hyperinflation 'propganda'.


So, if you want to argue I don't have a grasp of economic theory, feel free. I know the dogma as well as you, probably better. But, like the theory that the universe revolves around the earth in a series of concentric sub-circles, it is trying to force observed tangible things to fit a flawed theory.

Just like the theory of concentric orbits, capitalism can't be "fixed" by trying to fiddle with its intrinsic rules, because the basic premise is intrinsically corrupt, and all the dogma, and "evidence" and statistics is just trying to massage the figures to better agree with what your model predicts.

So, excuse me if I don't enter into economic dick-swinging, it is simply because I do not believe in it, other than as an abstract and contrived irrelevance.

Well then what are we to discuss, if not neo-classical economics?

Want to talk 'Marxist economics' instead? 'Neo-Ricardian' economics? You a Sraffian? 'Chaos economics'?

Or should we just do away with a 'system for the allocation of resources' entirely?

[EN[i]GMA]

I know how it is "supposed" to work. Just like I know that privatisation is supposed to boost effiency (it doesn't) and that increasing the minimum wage is supposed to deter investment and stoke unemployment (it doesn't.)

Well I'm glad that you 'know' those things, rather like a theist 'knows' God exists.


The theories are bullshit, constructed by ideologues whose sole stock in trade is philosophising about an entirely contrived and artificial system, and pretending that it is congruent with the physical world it so seldom manages to describe accurately.

Argument from ignorance.

You purport to know the intention of every economist from Smith on, excluding Marx and a few others?

[Ace42X]

GMA']Again, you're presupposing that they don't know what the conditions are before they sign up.
They know what the job entails.

Again, you're presupposing they don't. Plenty of exploited people the world over don't know what they are signing up for.

Well, if you were a youth, you'd stand a very good chance of being unemployed. I guess all those youth that rioted were peachy keen on the direction France is heading, eh?

Irrelevent. Or are you saying you'd rather live in iPod city than France?

Alright, compare a gulag to 'ipod city'.
I can match every appeal to emotion that you can.

Except you can't. You are falling back on COMMUNIST forced-labour prisons from fifty years ago. As I pointed out. You'd have to compare a prison in a third world nation.

I defend it because there's no alternative.

Hahahahahhaha. Text-book is-ought fallacy.

Fine, if you'd like, I'll 'condemn'. I'll damn it to hell: 3rd world exploitation sucks, I'd like to see it stopped.
Now...
What's that?
Oh, the sound of absolutely nothing changing.

Can say that again. It is globalised capitalism you are supposed to be recanting, not 3rd world exploitation, its inevitable product.

Subtract that recanting sentence from my post and the world would function the exact same.

Yes. I could kill you, thereby removing a single capitalist consumer from the world, and it would function exactly the same. You are confusing a question of scale with efficacy. I already illustrated that it is near impossible for someone working within a capitalistic system to detatch themselves from it - it is ridiculous for you to think people will move away from it en masse while they are all committed, both ideologically and physically, to it.

You wanted me to come up with a load of stereotypical socialistic actions like "nationalise everything" and "send in the bolsheviks" and all the inane bullshit that you feel comfortable talking about because you have been programmed with the rebuttals, just like Racerstang can't wait for people to talk about the invalidity of the bible so he can trot out his quotations.

Well no, I don't think that the physical imposition of an equally contrived system onto the people will work any better than it did in Russia. Not without the morality of the people moving along to. That means beating people like you over the head with the tyranny and evil of the system until you stop looking for ANY excuse or fallacy to justify it and take it for what it is. A naked lunch. Then you won't be so eager to tell me about how there are "no alternatives" - something quite clearly bollocks. As if generosity and egalitarianism isn't something you can do by simply *not screwing people over*.

I'll be looking for sensible solutions like safety limits, through effective channels like the WTO.

By "effective" you mean "completely ineffective." Asking corporations to police themselves is like using a wolf to guard the lambs. I suggest imposing financial limits, you laugh me out. Then you put forward something as nebulous as "safety limits" (something that already exists incidently, there are minimum world guidelines already) and then pretend it is any better.

Piss off.

Which would explain what capitalism has driven down wages consistently since its inception...

Plenty of people working in sweatshops earn PRECISELY the same as people working in mills in Victorian England did, and live in IDENTICAL conditions. Capitalism just moved the problem onto others, as we have constantly said. It's a ponzi scheme plain and simple, and the entire "science" of economics is designed to confound the self-evident fact.

So who here has the 'repugnant' morality?

How is expecting you to be "paid back and in full for the suffering your aloof opinions cause" repugnant? What is it about the idea that you will get what you "deserve" that you find repugnant? The bit where you don't get off scot-free for maintaining a corrupt ideology? The bit where you have to repay in some abstract way the plunder you have received from the poor?

So you admit it would do nothing to get rid of poverty?

On its own, no. Like I said, capitalism is a ponzi scheme. Getting rid of the pyramid scheme doesn't mean that all the people on the bottom level of the pyramid suddenly get all the money they were promised in the adverts. It does mean they get to keep their initial $5.

Eradicating "poverty" requires more pragmatic steps, steps which will never be properly instituted, other than coincidentally, under capitalism. But then, we have covered this ad infinitum elsewhere. My point is that if you eliminated all world fraud, that would not automatically make the lot of the poor better, merely that it would make this more *just*. And it is pointless for you to try and ineffectually pick at that, because justice is a perfectly valid aim in itself.

It's not sensible because no companies would invest for such an oppurtunity.

Ah, but they would have to. The alternative would be to mke factories in the US. While, in terms of labour costs and safety, etc there would be nothing to choose between them, there would still be plenty of other reasons to make factories there, such as proximity to resources, to emerging markets (who can now afford the product they are making due to fair wages) and access to readily available workers without jobs, due to the scarcity of workers in the US, due to them being all employed by other factories.

Or, perhaps, call me crazy here, the chinese could make their own factories and build their own products for export and domestic use, instead of having the US setup home there in order to fleece them.

But it isn't 'practical' as they wouldn't go through the trouble of setting up in China lest they were to save money.

Yes, and the Southern states kept telling the North that it just isn't practical to run a plantation without slaves, and that the North would starve without the slave-driven plantations to provide for them. That was bullshit too.

It always amuses me that you are desperate to tell us all that capitalists exploiting third-worlders is for their benefit, and come up with common-sense contorting arguments to try and illustrate this obvious nonsense.

And you are ignoring the obvious:
1. The US has to have factories in China in order to access the workers. If it did then say "well, we may as well move the factories back home" - that is a lot of unemployed US citizens who will be in work. There is not a "net loss" in terms of employed people receiving pay. Infact, the net amount of pay going to the workers has actually gone UP because it has to be inline with the US wage levels. Eventually a factory will have to move to China simply in order to have access to a workforce that isn't working in other factories across the US.

2. The US is not the fountain of all business. While US companies can use their capital to buy-up rivals, and employ market-leverage, they are not the alpha and omega of construction. It is ridiculous to think that China is incapable of manufacturing goods on its own without the US "giving them a hand." As demand increases, so must supply. China can build its own goods for itself and pay a fair price just as easily as it can send the goods to the US for a fraction of their worth.

I think paying them a 'fair' wage is perfectly within order, but I doubt we'd agree as to what is fair.

Indeed, I personally think of "fair" as what I would be willing to do the job for. Because I think it is "unfair" to expect someone else to be obliged (forced to all intents and purposes) to do something I would not want to for rewards I would consider a grave personal insult.

I am not sure what arbitrary criteria you use to judge "fair", but I expect for you a fair wage means "fair... for them."

Which is another strawman.

I can think of no economic text that says 'raising the minimum wage a few dollars over market price" will result in 'starvation in the streets'.
Now, if you were to raise that minimum wage a million dollars, you would see an economic collapse.

It's the exact same principal.
Unless 'inflation' is also a 'capitalist myth' and hyperinflation 'propganda'.

The are certainly "myths" - not in that there is not an observable phenomenon that involves currency decreasing in value in relation to goods, but in that they are an irrelevence. Yes the economy would "collapse" (actually, it is more robust than that, it would 'correct', but that is beside the point) - but as the economy is merely an artificial construct, it would have no great importance.

If everyone instantly received millions of dollars of wages, yes there would be inflation, but everyone would be able to afford the hundred-thousand-dollar loaves with their millions etc. All you would have to do is truncate the 00s off the end of the currency, call them "quiga-dollars" and get on with it.

The economy collapsing doesn't automatically ignite the fields, etc. It doesn't automatically make people stop wanting food, or liking music, etc etc.

The "economy collapsing" is, infact, just an excuse used by economists to explain away why their theories fail to described observed phenomena that have non-economic pragmatic cause and effects. Economics hides the real behind the imaginary.

Or should we just do away with a 'system for the allocation of resources' entirely?

Indeed. Constructing an abstract philosophy to govern the pragmatic distribution of materials and goods removes conscience from the equasion. It is double-think that's sole purpose is to allow the rich, powerful and well-off to consider it right, fitting, proper, etc that they benefit from the suffering of others.

Much like Libertarianism, according to some of the posters here.

Argument from ignorance.

Heh one of your stock phrases. You mean "argument from personal conviction." Quite different.

You yourself have said that increasing the US minimum wage would cause rampant unemployment, inflation, etc etc. You used economic theory to try to justify this. Assuming you are correct in your application, that would suggest that the UK, who not only instituted a minimum wage, but has successively raised it several times, should have suffered economic down-turn. It hasn't. It furthermore would suggest that the US can (and should) comfortably match this, and likewise suffer no ill-effects.

So either: You were talking crap in your minimum-wage rants; or the economic theory behind your rants was flawed.

Oh, and I did note your rapid back-peddaling earlier saying "well, some minimum wage increases would be ok..." Very amusing. I can't wait to see how you slyly and quietly recant your statements in this thread in a month's time.

Now, I have outlined, numerous times in numerous threads, why economic theory is variously and collectively a load of bunk-um. I have pointed out why capitalism cannot help but be unjust. I have pointed out in numerous places how your understanding of economic-workings is flawed (liberty dollar argument, anyone?). Excuse me if I am not in a hurry to double the thread size with repeating things I have illustrated time and again.

It is not an argument from personal conviction, it is an argument from "I don't want to, once again, divert a thread from its primary topic to get into a discussion about why the new found topic of economic philosophising is inherantly pointles."

In the course of the meanderings you have ended up being beaten back, grudgingly from "it's for the best" to "ok, well, yes, it's wrong, but hey, whatchagonnado?" The original topic was, clearly and simply, that globalised capitalism exploits the poor. Despite your tub-thumping, your great defence has been "yeah, well, that's kinda what I meant... Even though everything I have said (in the thread and ever) was trying to avoid grudgingly admitting it."

That's good enough for me. Perhaps when you sit down and think about the thread, you'll go "well, maybe I shouldn't be trying to find arguments to support a system I have been obliged to admit is exploitative and corrupt."

[EN[i]GMA]

Well no, I don't think that the physical imposition of an equally contrived system onto the people will work any better than it did in Russia. Not without the morality of the people moving along to. That means beating people like you over the head with the tyranny and evil of the system until you stop looking for ANY excuse or fallacy to justify it and take it for what it is. A naked lunch. Then you won't be so eager to tell me about how there are "no alternatives" - something quite clearly bollocks. As if generosity and egalitarianism isn't something you can do by simply *not screwing people over*.

This is your plan?

'Don't screw people' over?

Well see, I'm fine with that plan. I have no intention of becoming a capitalist and 'screwing people over'. Not an ambition of mine.

But how are you to prevent this from happening? How are you to institute the policy of 'don't screw people over'?

Your answer to how to make the world better IS 'make the world better'; it's a non-answer.


Ah, but they would have to. The alternative would be to mke factories in the US. While, in terms of labour costs and safety, etc there would be nothing to choose between them, there would still be plenty of other reasons to make factories there, such as proximity to resources, to emerging markets (who can now afford the product they are making due to fair wages) and access to readily available workers without jobs, due to the scarcity of workers in the US, due to them being all employed by other factories.

And what incentive would that have to build them in the first place?

How would they make a profit up and over what they are making now by investing millions and billions on relatively unprofitable ventures?

It doesn't make any sense.

Those 'emerging markets' you speak of would never formulate; it's a self-fullfilling prophecy you're taking about.

IF they built the factories and paid those wages THEN it would make sense to build those factories and pay high wages.

Is it is, it makes no sense for companies to build new factories there if they can't expect to turn a profit, because whether you realize it or not, production output per work hour is lower there; they make less on that labor.


Or, perhaps, call me crazy here, the chinese could make their own factories and build their own products for export and domestic use, instead of having the US setup home there in order to fleece them.

They 'could'.

But they haven't.

They had 30 years or so of Maoism to do that, and it didn't happen to any great extent; China was still poor.

But tell me, how are they to get the capital to build these factories?


1. The US has to have factories in China in order to access the workers. If it did then say "well, we may as well move the factories back home" - that is a lot of unemployed US citizens who will be in work. There is not a "net loss" in terms of employed people receiving pay. Infact, the net amount of pay going to the workers has actually gone UP because it has to be inline with the US wage levels. Eventually a factory will have to move to China simply in order to have access to a workforce that isn't working in other factories across the US.


2. The US is not the fountain of all business. While US companies can use their capital to buy-up rivals, and employ market-leverage, they are not the alpha and omega of construction. It is ridiculous to think that China is incapable of manufacturing goods on its own without the US "giving them a hand." As demand increases, so must supply. China can build its own goods for itself and pay a fair price just as easily as it can send the goods to the US for a fraction of their worth.

Then why hasn't it?

They've had years to build without foreign capital. But it seems they only start building when there IS foreign capital coming in.


The are certainly "myths" - not in that there is not an observable phenomenon that involves currency decreasing in value in relation to goods, but in that they are an irrelevence. Yes the economy would "collapse" (actually, it is more robust than that, it would 'correct', but that is beside the point) - but as the economy is merely an artificial construct, it would have no great importance.

If everyone instantly received millions of dollars of wages, yes there would be inflation, but everyone would be able to afford the hundred-thousand-dollar loaves with their millions etc. All you would have to do is truncate the 00s off the end of the currency, call them "quiga-dollars" and get on with it.

The economy collapsing doesn't automatically ignite the fields, etc. It doesn't automatically make people stop wanting food, or liking music, etc etc.

The "economy collapsing" is, infact, just an excuse used by economists to explain away why their theories fail to described observed phenomena that have non-economic pragmatic cause and effects. Economics hides the real behind the imaginary.


Which again demonstrates how little you know about economics.

'Inflation' isn't simply a matter of 'adding zeroes'; if it were, it wouldn't be a problem.

But in the real world, inflation causes problems with economies.

'Inflation' is tied to a decrease in PPP; with people getting poorer.

Inflation makes people poorer.

It creates problems in trades because you don't know how much the currency is 'really' worth, because you can never know exactly how much inflation is going up or down at any given time; just approximations.

But I don't even know why I'm explaining this to you, you'll simply ignore it.

Suffice it say, I could give you all sorts of reasons, and of course, you would reject them.

May as well preempt that.


You yourself have said that increasing the US minimum wage would cause rampant unemployment, inflation, etc etc.

'Rampant'?

It depends.

If it were high enough, yes.

If it were low enough, no.

A minimum wage of a million dollars would cause huge problems.

A minimum wage of a few cents would cause non at all because it would be totally ineffectual.

You used economic theory to try to justify this. Assuming you are correct in your application, that would suggest that the UK, who not only instituted a minimum wage, but has successively raised it several times, should have suffered economic down-turn. It hasn't. It furthermore would suggest that the US can (and should) comfortably match this, and likewise suffer no ill-effects.

No, you either don't know what's 'suppposed to happen' or you misrepresent it: Inflation creates a loss in job earnings at least equal to the gain in wages.

So some people will see a slight increase (A pound or so) incrase in their minimum wage, but other people will simply not get jobs, because if it would be profitable to employ somone at 7 an hour, but not at 7.50 an hour, if you raise the wage to 8 an hour, that person will go unemployed.

Look at the empirical studies and you'll see aggregate earnings among the whole population never occur as a result of minimum wage; even the Krueger and Card studies didn't find this.

Someone's gain from minimum wage is someone else's loss, either though a job not being created, a pay increase not happening ,etc.

You can't simply dictate money into existence and make people rich.

Even by your own argument (a wrong one, but still), minimum wages would be entirely ineffectual as they would just 'add more zeroes' onto the price; they would do absolutely nothing at all.

So either they are harmful, or they do nothing; either way, they're a waste of time and effort.


So either: You were talking crap in your minimum-wage rants; or the economic theory behind your rants was flawed.

How about neither.

A minimum wage incrase a few dollars over market price will not cause an economic collapse; it might have very small effects overall.

But it won't have any good effects for the population as a whole, just a few good effects for a few certain people, and corresponding losses for others.


Oh, and I did note your rapid back-peddaling earlier saying "well, some minimum wage increases would be ok..." Very amusing.

No, I was just pointing at the obvious fact that a minimum wage increase of say, 5 cents every 10 years would cause no economics problems; indeed, it would have no noticible effect on the economy at all.

Some minimum wage increases would be 'OK' in that they would have no real effect at all.

No back-peddling.

Either it's too small to matter or it's large enough to cause harm.


In the course of the meanderings you have ended up being beaten back, grudgingly from "it's for the best" to "ok, well, yes, it's wrong, but hey, whatchagonnado?" The original topic was, clearly and simply, that globalised capitalism exploits the poor. Despite your tub-thumping, your great defence has been "yeah, well, that's kinda what I meant... Even though everything I have said (in the thread and ever) was trying to avoid grudgingly admitting it."

Well it is 'exploitive'.

But that doesn't mean it isn't necessary or isn't better than their current position.

I don't necessarily like the circumstances, but they are circumstances.

[Ace42X]

GMA']Well see, I'm fine with that plan. I have no intention of becoming a capitalist and 'screwing people over'. Not an ambition of mine.

And yet, you extol the "virtues" of a system which is such that its basic operating principle is that it is condusive to success to screw as many people over in as many ways as possible.

But how are you to prevent this from happening? How are you to institute the policy of 'don't screw people over'?
Your answer to how to make the world better IS 'make the world better'; it's a non-answer.

It is quite simple to institute a policy of non-screwing people over. All you have to do is make sure that the punishment (or even, more accurately) for screwing people over is at least as costly as the benefit accrewed.

Of course, practically, the punishment would have to be steeper in order to make the "well, if it's going to end up even anyway, I may as well see if I can get away with it" factor. The steepness is proportional to how effective detection rates are, and how effective the judicial system is at prosecuting offenders.

That is why I put forward the simple premise that people who benefit from the labours of other solely by an abstract concept of "ownership" (as if you can 'own' the labour of others, hah) should be obliged to work at least as hard for the duration of their job. Someone is a lot less likely to screw over workers if they have to suffer precisely the same circumstances. And if they are willing to, then good luck to them.

And what incentive would that have to build them in the first place?

You may as well say "what incentive is there to have a plantation if you can't use slave labour to get rich off of it!" Your argument is that it is impossible to make profit without exploitation. Firstly, I do not buy into that, and secondly - even if I DID buy into that, I would simply say "good, then people can do without, and no-one will be exploited."

QED.

If a business cannot be sustained without depriving people of a basic standard of living, it should NOT be sustained. It is funny how you argue against propping up a nationalised industry with subsidies because it cannot make a profit on its own, but are more than willing to see a business which cannot make a profit on its own subsidised by the blood sweat and tears of improvished people working in "slave like conditions."

That is hypocrisy, and it is born of your moral bankruptcy.

How would they make a profit up and over what they are making now by investing millions and billions on relatively unprofitable ventures?

They wouldn't, the point of the system is not to help the rich find a new way to get something for nothing. What they would "make" is enough profit to sustain the company and draw a reasonable wage, instead of being given money for nothing other than an abstract concept of ownership.

It doesn't make any sense.

Of course it doesn't. Because you are trying to employ bunk'um capitalistic economic theories to a reality they fail to describe. Their basic premises are null and void.

Those 'emerging markets' you speak of would never formulate; it's a self-fullfilling prophecy you're taking about.

Rubbish. By your argument we'd all be living on fields because there wasn't a big wealthy capitalist to invest in our nation.

The chinese can, have, and do build factories, etc etc without any investment from the west.

IF they built the factories and paid those wages THEN it would make sense to build those factories and pay high wages.

Nice try trying to shift this into a chicken and egg paradox, but rather sad. Firstly, there were factories producing things in communist china way before the US started importing things. It is not like China, India, or any other third world country has no manufacturing base. Secondly, it is idiotic to assume that they cannot, on their own, increase production and grow their own businesses on their own without help from rich investors. Numerous businesses around today grew without out form of foreign investment.

Again, it is the arrogant condescension of the capitalist elite telling third world countries "well, yes, WE did it on our own, on our own terms... But you poor dago-speaking fellows couldn't possibly do it without our help... Telling you what to build, what to charge us, what you can expect to be paid by us..."

And it is certainly not a model that a single western entrepreneur would agree to if they were setting out to make a business.

Is it is, it makes no sense for companies to build new factories there if they can't expect to turn a profit, because whether you realize it or not, production output per work hour is lower there; they make less on that labor.

"production output per work hour is lower there." - Sorry, are you implying that people in the third world are lazy / incompetent work-shy bums compared to US citizens, and they get paid less because they don't work as well / hard?

'Cause that seems to be what you are saying.

They 'could'.
But they haven't.
They had 30 years or so of Maoism to do that, and it didn't happen to any great extent; China was still poor.

Actually, as I said previously, according to an article I read in the Guardian, China is one of the nations doing better than others with third world conditions precisely BECAUSE it didn't follow a free-market approach as found in the numerous other companies currently exploited by the west. And I think you'll find that China, poor or otherwise, had and still has a very strong industrial base long before the west started investing there.

Oh, and Maoism is beside the point, but nice try desperately finding other ideologies to rail against. You aren't going to deflect the topic of the thread from the evils of capitalism.

But tell me, how are they to get the capital to build these factories?

Factories aren't built out of capital, they are built out of bricks and mortar (and metal, for the machines inside, of course), if you put down your economic bullshit you'd realise that. At no point, whatsoever, in any way shape or form does the movement of small pieces of printed paper, or the electronic transfer of 0s and 1s actually aid in the pragmatic, physical construction of the factory.

"How do they get these bricks and stones and mortar" ? They make them, the same way all bricks and stones and mortar is made. They don't need to import them. Same for all the raw materials. The chinese have been making brick buildings for longer than the US has, incidentaly...

Then why hasn't it?

They've had years to build without foreign capital. But it seems they only start building when there IS foreign capital coming in.

It might "seem" that way to someone who hasn't actually paid the slightest bit of attention to the development of industry in China. China has been exporting low-cost goods for decades. Plenty of it coming from forced-labour camps, incidentaly, which speaks more about the repressive regime it has been under, than it does about the virtues of free-market capitalism.

Now, we can get into the complicated minutae of Chinese economic development, as well as its history and industrialisation, but these posts are already inordinantly long, and we could go on indefinitly.

Quite simply, if it required a capitalist investment in order to set up a production centre and thus get people working, then there would be no capitalism, as there would be no initial investment, QED. Furthermore, Russia, rather than having one of the biggest production bases in the world at its soviet peak, would've been 4 bolsheviks sitting around a mud pool. Infact, following all the recent "capitalist investment" in Russian, its CO2 emission levels are still at a fraction of their carbon borrowing quota, not because of "better and cleaner factories" but because there are LESS of them now.

Which again demonstrates how little you know about economics.

'Inflation' isn't simply a matter of 'adding zeroes'; if it were, it wouldn't be a problem.

No, but you can keep repeating that. I understand how it is "supposed" to work, but I thought I made it quite clear that I was dealing with reality, not the fictional world of ill-fitting economic THEORY. You have proven time and time again that you do not really know what inflation is or how it works, which has resulted in me having to bash your head with it several times.

But in the real world, inflation causes problems with economies.

Yes and no. Yes in that it breaks the flimsy and unrepresentative models economists pretend are the same as the physical events which they are trying to depict. No in that the "economy" in practical terms is based solely on physical transactions. You cannot have "problems" with something that is quite physical. The "problems with economies" comes from capitalists, like those working at Enron, who think they can play with numbers to make more numbers, because the numbers they deal with are completely and one-hundred percent divorced from the real world that they pretend to represent.

'Inflation' is tied to a decrease in PPP; with people getting poorer.
Inflation makes people poorer.

Rubbish. Inflation is simply the process of a devaluation of currency for economic reasons. The only people who get "poorer" are people whose assets are "liquid" (IE, whose assets aren't real, IE people who buy magic beans).

Or, to put it another way, Inflation is a name given by economists to any selection of real-life events that distance the real world "economic" events from the purely abstract economic model they have contrived.

It creates problems in trades because you don't know how much the currency is 'really' worth, because you can never know exactly how much inflation is going up or down at any given time; just approximations.

It doesn't "create problems" - it illustrates the underlying and omnipresent problem. That the transaction is illusory, and lacking in substance. It demonstrates that the only thing keeping capitalism and "the economy" together is the willing suspension of disbelief demonstrated by every single human being in the system.

But I don't even know why I'm explaining this to you, you'll simply ignore it.

Not ignore, process and reject as erroneous.

Suffice it say, I could give you all sorts of reasons, and of course, you would reject them.

Indeed, unless you can give physical pragmatic reasons to support it. So far, you are "arguing from ignorance" (or rather, to again be more precise, from personal preference) - "Economics must be reality because I can go into a shop with a dollar and buy a burger. And besides, I like the books they write on it."

May as well preempt that.

Why? It hasn't changed anything. I thought you were against "pointless theorising that doesn't change anything." ? Oh, that's right, you only believe in it when you are using it as a talking point to try and deflect criticism away from your morals, and onto something irrelevent.


It depends.

If it were high enough, yes.

If it were low enough, no.

So your answer is "well, yes and no... I just like to argue about it, but I can;'t say either way." Great. Well done.

No, you either don't know what's 'suppposed to happen' or you misrepresent it: Inflation creates a loss in job earnings at least equal to the gain in wages.

So some people will see a slight increase (A pound or so) incrase in their minimum wage, but other people will simply not get jobs, because if it would be profitable to employ somone at 7 an hour, but not at 7.50 an hour, if you raise the wage to 8 an hour, that person will go unemployed.

Yes, I understand that is the theory. However, let's look at it in REALITY. The UK has a minimum wage now, and it is considerably higher than it was. Employment has not gone down, either proportionally, or at all. So, not only are more people employed, but they are being paid more.

Also, you misunderstand inflation. The "loss in earnings equal to the gain in wages" supposedly comes from the increase in the cost of living that occurs because you have to pay people more (the minimum wage) in order to produce and dispense materials you consume.

That is the theory. In practice, this has not happened. The rate of inflation increased much more rapidly under the heady free-market days of Thatcherism.

Someone's gain from minimum wage is someone else's loss, either though a job not being created, a pay increase not happening ,etc.

Yes, you are forgetting "or the wealthy top level of the capitalist pyramid having to tighten their flabby belts and do without their third bahaman holiday home."

A company cannot work with less people than is necessary, and companies do not employ more people than they need. Companies employ people to "trim the fat" even when they are boasting record profits. So, in reality, as opposed to abstract bullshit theories, there is no-one they CAN cut in order to afford the pay-rise. Doing so limits the viability and productivity of the company. The companies likewise cannot increase their prices, due to competition from their rivals. What ACTUALLY happens is that the money has to come from the top, where there is ample to spare, thereby evening out the distribution of wealth. A laudable and beneficial practice, which has tangibly benefited the UK, despite economists trying to tell the world that our eyes are deceiving us.

Even by your own argument (a wrong one, but still), minimum wages would be entirely ineffectual as they would just 'add more zeroes' onto the price; they would do absolutely nothing at all.

Yes and no. Inflation "adds 0s to the price", not minimum wage. As I showed above, the belief that a minimum wage increase leads to a proportional increase in inflation is a nonsense, and has been proved wrong substantially here and now.

However, if there was a global minimum wage instituted, it would BREAK the ponzi-scheme layout of capitalism. Wealth, in terms of currency, is relative - and as you pointed out, and as I have said elsewhere, the poor cannot just "get richer". However, the effect of the GLOBAL minimum wage I put forward *WOULD* mean that the poor are equally poor across the world. That means the poor in Africa, China and the US would all be equally poor, as opposed to the system now where the poor in China and India actually BUOY UP the poor in the US, so that even the poor in the US get to watch a TV, while the poor in those countries do not even have a proper home.

This would be a step towards tearing down the barriers between the "haves" and the "have nots" and bringing the issue out from the closet. As you pointed out quite succinctly, all of us capitalists with our foreign electronics are benefitting frm their suffering, and even those of us who feel bad about it are comfortable enough to live with it because it is so distant and alien to us. Having the exploited on your own doorstep is quite another matter. Hopefully it would lead to a revolution.

But it won't have any good effects for the population as a whole, just a few good effects for a few certain people, and corresponding losses for others.

Yes, benefit and loss. The difference is that a billionaire won't notice a million dollar loss, in terms of lifestyle. A million dollar gain could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people by an incredibly degree.

Some minimum wage increases would be 'OK' in that they would have no real effect at all.

Either it's too small to matter or it's large enough to cause harm.

Hahahah you really believe this? Ok, put your money where your mouth is. Find out precisely what the maximum amount minimum wage could go up before it is "large enough to cause harm" and then we'll see if it really is "too small to matter."

Because I think you'll find that "too small to matter" for YOU is the difference between eating tonight or not for THEM.

Well it is 'exploitive'.

But that doesn't mean it isn't necessary

Necessary for what? You to have your iPod? What, there isn't enough food to go around in the world, UNLESS they work in a sweatshop making your trainers?

Why, precisely, and putting aside economic bullshit, why, pragmatically, is it necessary for you (not you specifically, you as in someone trying to defend the exploitation, IE you as a capitalist) to exploit THEM in order for them to be able to live comfortably?

Why, precisely, do you deserve better?

or isn't better than their current position.

Which is currently being exploited. You mean their previous position, which you haven't actually described to us in any way shape or form.

And do you really think "it is better than the alternative" is a moral justification? Would you accept "hey, they could've been lynched by slavers as unwanted goods if I hadn't bought them" as a justification from a plantation owner?

I don't necessarily like the circumstances, but they are circumstances.

Heh, priceless. "Circumstances" - "The sum of determining factors beyond willful control."

I thought you said that they were working there "of their own volition" (IE of their own free will) now you are saying, as I was trying to get through to you, that they are there because of "determining factors beyond their willful control."

FINALLY you get the point. Shame you won't acknowledge it though.