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Offlinehongomon
old hand
Registered: 04/14/02
Posts: 910
Loc: comin' at ya
Last seen: 20 years, 1 month
Re: Is worldwide Capitalism impossible? [Re: Phred]
    #1717419 - 07/15/03 04:18 AM (20 years, 10 months ago)

  So you are unable to show us how those who mind their own business and live their entire lives trading with others through mutual consent -- never initiating physical force or fraud against another human -- are to blame for those pressure-filled circumstances? Okay then, let's move on.

Where did I ever say I proposed to show the  cause  of the poverty and mass urbanization I've been discussing?  I have been criticizing a system which capitalizes on those circumstances.  What role in particular that capitalization has in perpetuating those circumstances, or in hindering their amelioration, or in contributing to others down the line--who can be exactly sure.  I did mention some possible links, but who the hell knows.  Your position seems to be that that role is zero, because what these people are doing is "minding their own business and living their entire lives trading with others through mutual consent -- never initiating physical force or fraud against another human."  Sorry, when did the discussion turn from the real world to Capitalistic utopia?  Come on, pinky!  Are you afraid to admit that perfectly "legal" business decisions might not always be ethically or morally sound, even by your Capitalistic standards?

Just to clear something up:
You wrote:
Evade? My initial response was:

I have no problem with people trying to improve their working conditions through propaganda, persuasion, withholding their labor or whatever.

Actually, your question to GazzButt earlier in the thread--the question I jumped in on--was (I added the bolding): ?Could you please explain to us how Bill Gates's greedy possession of three enormous mansions, seven Ferraris and bathtubs full of champagne  prevents anyone else from acquiring enough to live well ? Thanks.?

My reply: Gates' purchase, as well as mine and anyone's can prevent someone else from acquiring enough to live well. (Then I elaborated: it is essentially the customer?s money a company would utilize, were it to choose to fund illegal activity to suppress union activity.)

Your next post you restated (also my bolding): ?How does your purchase of a product  prevent the worker involved in making the product from taking a job with better working conditions??

This is a different question than the one I had addressed, it was asked in reply to another question of mine, it changes the subject, it is evasion.  So we end up, as so often, like two blind men arguing about what an elephant looks like.  But I feel the trunk, and I say to you, "You are right, the elephant can feel like a snake," but you just don't want to feel the leg.

To my: "I can't believe all the onus in that situation is expected to rest on the lowest socio-economic class, with the lowest education and literacy rates."

Sorry, I don't understand this sentence at all. Are you saying the onus in that situation (union organization) should rest on the employer? Employers are supposed to organize unions for their employees? I know that isn't what you mean, but that is how the sentence (in context) reads to me. Please clarify it for me.

I was talking about the determinants for wages and work conditions.  I can see how you would have been confused.  It seems, like I have said, that the argument continually returned to is that those workers aren't obliged to keep those jobs if they're dissatisfied with them. 

You write,
What? News to me. No shareholder expects a company director to be omniscient. If a director pays more for labor than he might absolutely have to, it's no big tragedy. It certainly isn't "unwarranted taxation", it's merely less than supernatural perfection in business management.

I guess you aren't familiar with the term "voluntarist."  It refers to decisions influenced by the company director's sense of morals, where profits went down as a result.  For example, if he doesn't feel it is morally right to pay the workers 30 cents an hour, he voluntarily pay something higher.  Quite a bit different than a wage difference based on his inability to know the magic number.  I'll track down the Milton Friedman essay in which he refers to this as taxation, and therefore, socialism.  It's in a book at the library, and if I can't locate it online, at least I can quote it and reference it for you.  It's actually a good article, as is the opposing one by Christopher Stone.

And yes, it's true that some shareholders vote to sacrifice profits in some other interest.  SRI (Socially Responsible Investment), to name an example, is a growing idea--what do you think about it?

There is nothing "obtuse" (feigned or otherwise) about making an offer of employment to someone at the wage rate you wish to pay.

First, I wasn't refering to the initial offer itself as obtuse, (although it applies) and I think it is clear what I was refering to; second, you may recall that this is in the context of the situation I layed out, where the hirer/firer can't possibly be unaware of the job market.  (Even here in the states, job security is a good thing to enjoy.)  So in that situation if the hirer/firer--or an apologist on an internet forum--uses the statement it certainly does come across as feigned (for I wouldn't consider you so daft, pinky to assume it were genuine) obtuseness.

I know I've skipped over a lot, and I don't want to, but my time is up.  Sometimes I fantasize about being paralyzed from the waist down so I'll left less reasons not to devote more time to internet forums.  I think I would miss the sex, though.

One last thing:

you wrote:
Emotions (feelings) are not tools of cognition. My feelings on the matter are every bit as irrelevant as yours, by the way. You will have noted by now that I have yet to make any argument in any thread on this board that involves my feelings.

My feelings and your feelings may have no relevance, but feelings certainly play a factor in social and political issues.  We may not approve of it, but that's the way it is.  Our history is full of reactions of one group against another--reactions being typically as much feeling-driven as rational (if not moreso). I'm not justifying anything, but that's what has happened.  Name one revolution, one riot, one general strike, one civil war, in which the way people felt wasn?t a significant factor.  I'm sorry I didn't do a better job distinguishing between my feelings and my observations about more general attitudes/feelings, as they applied to what I was saying.

That's all my juice,

hongomon   

[edited to change "charge the workers 30 cents an hour" to "pay the workers..."  sliiight difference.  :grin:

Edited by hongomon (07/15/03 01:14 PM)

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