Is that a problem?
It's common in capitalism for people to
freely associate in cooperation to achieve
goals. There are chiefs & there indians.
If the indians don't like their roll, then they
too may start their own company, & employ
others.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Capitalists may have the same mentality as Nazis: that people must be enslaved
- Thread starter Estro Felino
- Start date
It's common in capitalism for people to
freely associate in cooperation to achieve
goals. There are chiefs & there indians.
If the indians don't like their roll, then they
too may start their own company, & employ
others.
Heyo
Veteran Member
You don't know much about laws, do you? There are laws and regulations on how to run a business, you could plaster Broadway with. Laws that say that corporations are people and have a right to "free speech" (and money is speech) - allowing them the unlimited possibility to bribe politicians (in the US).
Many laws that "regulate" corporations, are written by the corporations, and rubber-stamped by Congress.
Bribery isn't legal in all capitalistic democracies, but that only means that corporations have to be more creative elsewhere. Money is power, and the accumulated money of big corporations makes them more powerful than some governments. This power is the second major problem with capitalism.
Heyo
Veteran Member
You gave an example of someone not getting rich by working long hours, deep thinking, and making lots of decisions. He only got rich after employing people. So, it was the hard work of other people that made him rich.
I'm questioning the "freely" here. There is an information and power imbalance.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
I mean "hard work" as compared to employees in the same sector and country. The "hard work" I am referring to is basically doing the equivalent of 2, perhaps 3, full time jobs at once.
To me, this is a bad faith comparison.
Compared to those people, who live in extremely different circumstances in drastically different economies and countries, the "toilet lady" at a random truck stop in a western country also doesn't "work hard" while making perhaps 10 times the amount of money those miners make.
As a matter of fact, if you would take the working circumstances and conditions of those people in say Congo and apply them here in Belgium, most likely you'll end up in jail for blatant violation of all kinds of laws concerning working conditions, minimum wage, worker rights, etc etc etc.
When I say that I have put in loads of hard work, I mean as compared to employees in the same sector and country I am in, obviously.
When I hire a software engineer to offset part of the workload to create the software product, that person comes in and his / her particular assignment is waiting on their desk. It doesn't fall out of the sky. There is hours upon hours of market research and analysis put into that. Many times, the engineer doesn't even know what the module is used for and many times also, the engineer doesn't even care. (s)he just comes in, does the assignment, gets paid for it and gets a pat on the back for a job well done. There's no investment, no worrying about the bigger picture, no capital burning, no 14-hour workdays to work it all out, none of that.
Well, first it simply isn't part of my business to offshore workloads to countries with cheap labor.
And while I obviously also have moral issues with sweatshops and what-not... there's a flip side here.
It's rather easy to say that it's all about the greed of the owners so they can make more money. But try to think a bit further.
Suppose Nike moves production of their shoes to a western country where minimum wage is 6x the wages in Bangladesh or whatever country.
Compliance with working condition laws in that western country will also raise costs with a factor of 3 or whatever (nicer facilities, airconditioning, etc).
What do you think this will do to the price of Nike shoes?
The reality is that at that point, the Nike shoe business will become unsustainable. Because average Joe will no longer be able to afford them.
The 100$ pair of shoes will now cost 400 bucks or more.
This is not meant to be an excuse for why it is okay to use such sweatshops and exploit people in those low-income economies in such fashion - because I do indeed have moral issues with that. But there is much more to it then merely blaming it on the "greed" of capitalists.
If tomorrow working condition laws and minimum wage in the entire world would be on par with "western standards", then pretty much overnight prices of almost everything would inflate so much that pretty much every middle class family will either go broke or will no longer be able to afford 70-80% of the goods they take for granted today. Clothing, electronics, etc.... all prices would double, triple, or more.
The very same people who today complain about the "exploitation" of low-income workers in those economies, would be in the streets in massive protests complaining about how life has become too expensive.
This is not an easy problem to solve. And simply blaming it on "greed" is far to simplistic.
Those capitalists "further up the food chain" were once small businesses also.
Apple started in Steve Jobs' garage.
And if Apple today would produce their iPhone in the US rather then in China, it would cost the consumer 3000 bucks. At least.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
This will depend entirely on the future of the business.
To take two extremes:
- something disruptive may happen in the sector which might make my business obsolete and then I'ld lose everything.
- the company might go international and become the standard of the sector on an international level, at which point I'ld be a billionaire
This is part of the life of an enterpreneur. The future is uncertain and pretty much a black hole.
My wife, who's an employee in some big company, can actually calculate to the cent how much pension she'll get at what age. She has that certainty.
I don't. I might become filthy rich, I might go completely broke. It all depends on how the company will perform.
If you wanted to engage in a debate with me, you would speak of the profit maximization and of microeconomics, instead of anecdotal arguments.But wait there is more.... you favorite guy is there too
World's Richest Politician Is Worth $200 Billion, Owns A $700 Million Jet
Despite officially claiming an annual salary of $140,000, Russian President Vladimir Putin's reported net worth and lifestyle tell a different tale.www.ndtv.com
So don't even try to sell me Capitalism transforms men into greedy people, who lose their humanhood,
And I guess as long as you include Xi, Putin, Kim and Castro in that group, well then I guess you might be able to call them greedy wolves..but entitled...nope I am entitled to call them. Entitled means believing oneself be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. Nah, Communists are Greedy Wolves too, especially the higher you go up the Communist food chain
That corrupt politicians exist in any economic system...is a given.
But that is irrelevant to the discussion.
anotherneil
Well-Known Member
Why not? I think it's very normal. Profit maximization corresponds to good business performance.
I want people and companies I do business with to be obsessed with profit maximization, otherwise it means they don't care about their customers or the quality of their goods or services.
This is paradoxical...
Considering that in order to maximize the profits, most entrepreneurs prefer to use cheap and unsafe materials to save money. The quality is gone.
rocala
Well-Known Member
True, but often it is only in the "fast buck" sense. In the service industry, I have seen many such companies lose their contracts due to this shoddy practice.
anotherneil
Well-Known Member
I guess by "cheap" you mean materials of substandard and inadequate quality. You're making a flawed assumption, here, that somehow using cheap and unsafe materials for whatever reason translates to maximization of profits. In a free market society, this is not true. Customers aren't going to want to purchase things made of "cheap and unsafe" materials, and that would mean no maximization of profits. They'll go out of business. There is no paradox, here.This is paradoxical...
Considering that in order to maximize the profits, most entrepreneurs prefer to use cheap and unsafe materials to save money. The quality is gone.
anotherneil
Well-Known Member
And if they lose their contracts, how can they possibly maximize profits? Please show me the math/logic here for that.
rocala
Well-Known Member
There is none. I am showing that the cheap road to profit maximisation often backfires.
anotherneil
Well-Known Member
Oh, ok, I get it now - you're just attacking a strawman.
How can they know the quality of the raw materials employed?
How do you maximize the profits?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Spoken like someone that clearly never operated a business and fails to think things through properly.This is paradoxical...
Considering that in order to maximize the profits, most entrepreneurs prefer to use cheap and unsafe materials to save money. The quality is gone.
Do you think a product made with "cheap and unsafe materials" will sell well?
Think it through...
You find yourself in a store as a customer looking for a new washing machine.
They have 2 options. Both cost 500 bucks.
The first one is well made using safe and quality materials.
The second one is made using unsafe and cheap materials.
Which one do you buy?
Do you think ANYONE would buy the second one?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
If it's not apparent at first notice, it will be quickly become apparent during usage. It will get bad reviews and a bad rep.
Lot's of different ways. An obvious one being optimization of business processes so they operate at the most cost effective way possible.
For example, back when I worked as a software consultant, I was once tasked with auditing an administrative department to optimize it.
I identified one specific administrative task which was recurrent several times a week, with small variations. 2 full time employees kept themselves busy all day to process these tasks manually. I ended up designing a simple piece of software for it and reduced those two full time jobs to clicking a few times to account for the variations and the rest was automated.
I charged 12k for the program. So a one-time 12k investment meant the company could now save a good 100k in wages + benefits a year.
The quality of service remained unchanged. In fact, it even improved because now customer administration could be processed within minutes instead of days.
anotherneil
Well-Known Member
There are at least 2 "they"s involved, the manufacturer and the customers; which one are you referring to, the customers?
If the answer is the customers - they can read the literature on the product, or they can ask the manufacturer/vendor, but the customers are probably not going to care about the raw materials that were used; the customers are only going to care about the quality of the finished product. It's possible for a manufacturer to have a way of turning cheap raw materials into a good quality finished product. If the manufacturer isn't putting a good quality finished product on the market, then customers aren't going to return to purchase their product anymore; they could also get bad reviews for bad quality products, their customers won't recommend the product to others, and their reputation could go down the drain. Manufacturers cannot maximize profits by putting products on the market of unacceptable quality in the finished product.
If the answer is the manufacturer - the same applies; the supplier of raw materials is in the exact same boat as the manufacturer is with their own retail customers. If the suppliers of raw materials aren't delivering the correct raw material or raw material that doesn't meet requirements, then the manufacturer won't go with that supplier, and the supplier won't be able to maximize their own profit either.
By making sure that you put a finished product on the market that is of good quality, when the customers need the product, and at a price that isn't too high or too low. If the product is priced too high, then very few customers are going to be willing to buy it or to afford it. If the price is too low, then they're profits won't be maximized.
Last edited:
You gotta work long hours, do a lot of deep thinking, and make a lot of decisions when you employ other people. That's why managers almost always work longer hours than the employees. My argument stands.
When you sell your labor to the highest bidder, you freely choose the information and power imbalance in order to get their money.
We are not in the 19th century any more.
There are labor laws that try to mitigate this power imbalance. Sometimes there is perfect equality between employer and employee.
I believe you. However, I've noticed a common tendency among a lot of people (not just business owners) that they believe that they do more work or that their job is harder or more valuable to a given enterprise. Or that they're just smarter, better, faster than others.
Not in an era of a global economy where countries are interconnected with each other on an economic basis. There's a cause-and-effect relationship in which much of the capitalist world is gripped by poverty, exploitation, and despair, while a few lucky countries (such as ours) hoard most of the wealth.
I understand what you're saying, but I just don't think it's right to point out that just because it's another country, it doesn't count. It's still within the global capitalist economy, so it has to be included in any thorough and honest analysis of capitalism.
All too often, I see people looking solely at the U.S. or Western Europe and proclaim "Capitalism is wonderful," while blatantly ignoring the original source of most of their wealth to begin with or the vast majority of countries where people aren't living quite so well.
And in your case, if you treat your employees well and don't exploit them, then that's a credit to you as an individual human being, not a credit to "capitalism" in general.
I would also wonder why we, the West, don't do anything about these atrocious situations in countries like Congo.
On a nearly daily basis, we hear about how horrible it is in places like Iran, North Korea, etc. and justify sanctions against those countries, yet conspicuously silent about countries like Congo. No sanctions on them, since Western capitalists make money from it.
Or even Saudi Arabia, which also has a horrible human rights record, but as long as capitalists make money, then they're A-OK. Then there's China, where we've heard a lot of hate towards lately, yet Western capitalists can't put their money where their mouth is and extricate themselves their economic relationships with China. Why don't we cut off all trade with any and all countries not considered "free" by Western standards?
As for your example of the "toilet lady" at the truck stop, it's interesting to note that, in recent years, businesses have had more difficulty in filling some of these menial, low-wage positions - even to the point of having to shut down operations due to a lack of staff (such as what has happened to a number of restaurants). The irony about it is that most capitalists don't seem to understand why. They just chalk it up to "nobody wants to work" without giving much serious examination to the issue. It's similar to arguments from business owners whose livelihood has depended upon employing undocumented immigrants and having them work under the table.
Yes, but just because you are personally moral and decent, that doesn't negate the overall arguments and perceptions about capitalism in general. A small business owner in a Western country is hardly in the same league as the top corporate and banking leaders (along with the owners of those sweatshops), yet they're all operating within the same global capitalist economic system where one part affects the other.
I've heard this argument before, so I'm familiar with this particular angle you're presenting here. And there is truth to what you say, at least in terms of how much prices would rise if manufacturing of things like shoes, clothing, and electronics were brought back to Western countries.
However, there was once a time when most of these things were made in the U.S. In 1945 (for obvious reasons), half of the world's manufactured goods were made in the USA. However, wages and living standards also increased in the years that followed, and America experienced a great economic boom which lasted until the early 1970s - even before there was really much outsourcing or talk about "global economy" or free trade. We even still had tariffs and duties on imports, and yet, America was still doing great. Life was good, and it seemed to be getting even better (not just economically, but also in terms of civil rights and social justice). If not for our government's incessant warmongering, things could have been even still better.
In any case, I don't see how there was any pressing need or urgency to push for outsourcing. Reagan and his ilk claimed to want to "fix" the American economy when it wasn't even broken.
Unfortunately, the Powers That Be in America threw caution to the four winds and embarked on this program which encouraged companies to close up their US-based operations and relocate overseas where the labor was (and still is) significantly cheaper. This has led us to the current situation as it stands today, where companies like Nike make a fortune on exploited sweatshop labor, as you describe above. The situation you describe isn't something that just happened out of the blue. It was due to choices made by our government - choices they didn't need to make and choices they should not have made. But it was all touted as something that would be good for our economy.
Now, from what you're saying here, we can't seem to go back.
Are we in a situation analogous to the South on the eve of the Civil War? That was their argument when faced with the prospect of actually having to end slavery and pay plantation workers fair wages. It would have been too expensive and it would have negatively impacted upon their economic well-being.
Of course, they might have also argued that there was more to it than capitalist greed. There was also a lot of talk about "preserving a way of life." That's another big thing that the US government claims to want to do.
Yes, I'm aware of many of these rags to riches stories where individuals or companies might start out very small and then build up a huge financial empire. They're very compelling and inspiring to a lot of people. One also hears such stories about athletes, too. Musicians, actors, and others who started out from humble beginnings and made it big. I remember hearing that Madonna first showed up in NYC with only $50 in her pocket and turned into an international superstar. It's these kinds of stories which make people believe that America is truly the land of opportunity and that all it takes is hard work (and a bit of luck and pluck) to build one's fortune. All one has to do is "want it," and it will happen.
But to your point, I agree that this is not an easy problem to solve. But it is something that will have to be solved, one way or another. There are indications that parts of the world aren't too happy with the current situation where they're facing dire consequences because Western consumers want cheaper iPhones. At this point, I think most Americans might be willing to forego cheaper iPhones if they can get cheaper housing, cheaper food, cheaper gas, and universal healthcare - among other things which are more necessary than iPhones or Nike shoes.
Last edited: