Capitalism: A love story

[jverne]

If we put aside the ad hominem arguments against Moore, what are some legitimate critics of this movie?


Corporations clearly and borderline legally manipulated politics. Bribery, hidden deals, infiltration,...
How does on actually minimize this from happening? Maybe from time to time an armed revolt is a good idea, not because it would end such practices but reset them to lower levels.
IMO democracy (especially in the US) was hijacked a long time ago a hard reset would be needed.

I don't know which specifics we should go into, there are too many.
The leaked citigroup memo was frightening alone. Death Pheasants,...
Ultimately we'll end up on free market/regulated market issue.

What do you think which is better? Personally i opt for a regulated, but if it's regulated by the wrong people it kinda nullifies the point.

Just like we have an "anti-corruption agency" here. An employee of the ministry of finance had to defend (word??) her diploma against a commite where one professor rejected her. She arranged the financial minister to call the commite and replace the professor. The scandal came out trough the media, that's where the anti-corruption agency found out about it. After investigation they concluded that it was an act of corruption but it was not illegal so no action could be taken. Well thank you very much for that!
Same can be said for financial regulators. It's all a corrupt bunch.

Aside from rattling guns...how can you change the situation? Vote someone else? Hah if that was true then it would work a long time ago.
I guess until people are hungry and homeless they won't revolt.
But hey i'd enjoy my ass if 100,000 Americans marched fully armed to wall street/congress/white house.

What do you think about small government that only regulates and not runs it's own show?
For instance, imposes laws that would prevent bad loans/interest rates/preexisting conditions.

 

[Noodle]

Corporations clearly and borderline legally manipulated politics. Bribery, hidden deals, infiltration,...
How does on actually minimize this from happening? Maybe from time to time an armed revolt is a good idea, not because it would end such practices but reset them to lower levels.

This is more due to problems within the government than the business. You can't blame a business for wanting to do that, but you can blame a system that requires political candidates to take bribes and use back-door deals and such.

Ultimately we'll end up on free market/regulated market issue.

What do you think which is better? Personally i opt for a regulated, but if it's regulated by the wrong people it kinda nullifies the point.

Just like we have an "anti-corruption agency" here. An employee of the ministry of finance had to defend (word??) her diploma against a commite where one professor rejected her. She arranged the financial minister to call the commite and replace the professor. The scandal came out trough the media, that's where the anti-corruption agency found out about it. After investigation they concluded that it was an act of corruption but it was not illegal so no action could be taken. Well thank you very much for that!
Same can be said for financial regulators. It's all a corrupt bunch.

I like the idea of an anti-corruption agency, but you'd have to ensure it would never become dominated by any one party.

But hey i'd enjoy my ass if 100,000 Americans marched fully armed to wall street/congress/white house.
What do you think about small government that only regulates and not runs it's own show?
For instance, imposes laws that would prevent bad loans/interest rates/preexisting conditions.

[/QUOTE]

Most Americans would probably enjoy that even more.

I think that less regulation is generally better. The only place I see regulation as being completely necessary is personal protection like OSHA, the FDA, Health Inspectors, etc. The Better Business Bureau does a good non-intrusive job.

If there was less regulation we would never have to worry about bad loans. If a bank makes too many bad loans, then it's their own damn fault. If we didn't regulate is, then we wouldn't have any banks left that did that.

In general, regulation costs businesses money, and those costs get transferred to reduced wages/low employment, and higher prices.

Free trade is also important. It greatly increases competition across the board to force prices lower, as well as providing other low-cost goods. The American consumer wins. The American worker doesn't have to worry about a possible pay cut because the things he buys are cheaper as well.

 

[Tagaziel]

If there was less regulation we would never have to worry about bad loans. If a bank makes too many bad loans, then it's their own damn fault. If we didn't regulate is, then we wouldn't have any banks left that did that.

Deregulate the banking industry? No thanks, I don't want to pay scandalous interest rates or have no guarantee that my money is actually safe. Laissez-fare capitalism doesn't work, it only leads to cartelisation and supercorporations.

In general, regulation costs businesses money, and those costs get transferred to reduced wages/low employment, and higher prices.

So without regulations, corporations would no longer be interested in making as big a profit as possible?

Get real.

Free trade is also important. It greatly increases competition across the board to force prices lower, as well as providing other low-cost goods. The American consumer wins. The American worker doesn't have to worry about a possible pay cut because the things he buys are cheaper as well.

Uh, what? Everything in the industry is interconnected. Low cost goods necessitate a low cost manufacturing process, something America is incapable of. Why do you think China is so popular? They have a very low manufacturing cost and if absolute free trade would be put forward, every company who would be able to afford it would make their stuff in China and transport it, putting fully American companies out of business with their cheap shit.

Nobody wins. Except for China and the corporations.

 

[Noodle]

Deregulate the banking industry? No thanks, I don't want to pay scandalous interest rates or have no guarantee that my money is actually safe. Laissez-fare capitalism doesn't work, it only leads to cartelisation and supercorporations.

\

I'm not saying remove regulations entirely, just stop keeping alive miserable fail-opolies.

So without regulations, corporations would no longer be interested in making as big a profit as possible?

Get real.

Competition would drive prices down. They already do, but the current equilibrium price is higher than it would be with less government regulation. In econo-speak, it shifts the supply curve to the left, resulting in higher prices.

Uh, what? Everything in the industry is interconnected. Low cost goods necessitate a low cost manufacturing process, something America is incapable of. Why do you think China is so popular? They have a very low manufacturing cost and if absolute free trade would be put forward, every company who would be able to afford it would make their stuff in China and transport it, putting fully American companies out of business with their cheap shit.

Nobody wins. Except for China and the corporations.

It's the American companies that are manufacturing the stuff over there. Think Nike.

The only difference is that China gets all the cheap-ass manufacturing jobs. If there were fewer regulations on this side of the ocean, then American companies might be able to afford to build in America. If not, then we manufacture in China, and we get cheaper goods. Regulating free trade raises costs for everyone. Free trade also forces some monopolies and oligopolies to behave competitively, which is a plus.

 

[VictimOfScience]

It's the American companies that are manufacturing the stuff over there. Think Nike.

The only difference is that China gets all the cheap-ass manufacturing jobs. If there were fewer regulations on this side of the ocean, then American companies might be able to afford to build in America. If not, then we manufacture in China, and we get cheaper goods. Regulating free trade raises costs for everyone. Free trade also forces some monopolies and oligopolies to behave competitively, which is a plus.

American companies that function like this don't actually manufacture anything except a brand/image. There is no American production of goods whatsoever by these companies. American workers who work for these companies work at white-collar jobs. The actual manufacturing jobs go overseas to export processing zones which hurt everyone except the multinational corporations running them and the typically oppressive and corrupt foreign governments hosting them. Local workers and production systems suffer greatly at the expense of these monstrosities. "Free trade" is an incredibly horrible reality for everyone except those running the show. No amount of regulation/deregulation will change this because the standard of living in the US is impossibly higher here than in these third world nations. These companies could not get away with paying US workers less than $1 a day or forcing them to work in unsafe conditions for too many hours a day, nor would they get the tax breaks and other monetary benefits that these foreign governments give them to invest in their country.

Capitalism has ravaged the earth and will continue to do so until some sort of catastrophic event or series of events brings the world's most powerful nations to the point we have almost reached today. The world's wealthy and powerful elites NEED to learn that at some point the oppressed masses that they have done nothing but steal from and abuse will realize that they hold all the power in this game. IWW organizer Joseph Ettor was right when he said:

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists."

Anarcho-syndicalism FTW!! :thumbs:

 

[PvtRyan]

American companies that function like this don't actually manufacture anything except a brand/image. There is no American production of goods whatsoever by these companies. American workers who work for these companies work at white-collar jobs. The actual manufacturing jobs go overseas to export processing zones which hurt everyone except the multinational corporations running them and the typically oppressive and corrupt foreign governments hosting them. Local workers and production systems suffer greatly at the expense of these monstrosities. "Free trade" is an incredibly horrible reality for everyone except those running the show. No amount of regulation/deregulation will change this because the standard of living in the US is impossibly higher here than in these third world nations. These companies could not get away with paying US workers less than $1 a day or forcing them to work in unsafe conditions for too many hours a day, nor would they get the tax breaks and other monetary benefits that these foreign governments give them to invest in their country.

Capitalism has ravaged the earth and will continue to do so until some sort of catastrophic event or series of events brings the world's most powerful nations to the point we have almost reached today. The world's wealthy and powerful elites NEED to learn that at some point the oppressed masses that they have done nothing but steal from and abuse will realize that they hold all the power in this game. IWW organizer Joseph Ettor was right when he said:

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists."

Anarcho-syndicalism FTW!! :thumbs:

Sigh. The effect of large multinationals on developing countries as a whole is positive. They bring relatively high paying employment to those countries. For every dollar Unilever invested into Indonesia, four dollar stayed behind in Indonesia.

The global life expectancy is increasing, as is the GDP of developing countries, as are wages. The rich may get richer, but so do the poor.

The only thing that really helps developing countries are investments by the private sector. This, combined with the necessary regulations of stable governments, but also the internet that creates informed and conscientious consumers through transparency and openness is what will make the difference. Not bullshit socialist pipe dreams.

Armchair socialism is really aggravating.

 

[Noodle]

Armchair socialism is really aggravating.

I love you.

 

[Noodle]

edit: whoopsy double post mod delete plz.

 

[PvtRyan]

I'm probably very 'socialist' by your standards though.

 

[Shyam]

The only thing that really helps developing countries are investments by the private sector. This, combined with the necessary regulations of stable governments, but also the internet that creates informed and conscientious consumers through transparency and openness is what will make the difference. Not bullshit socialist pipe dreams.

Armchair socialism is really aggravating.

This. India is a perfect example of this. The main reason it has been putting up 8% economic growth is due to the private sector.

 

[VictimOfScience]

Sigh. The effect of large multinationals on developing countries as a whole is positive.

So you are saying that Cuba is better off for all of the US investment we had there? United Fruit was HUGELY popular with the campesinos as I recall. :-\ Vietnam is better off for all of the foreign influence and money invested so wisely there? Peasants in China too must be better off now that so many countries are getting slave labor there that makes the government richer and the multinationals richer but continues to oppress the laborers. So you are saying even Haiti is doing just fine thanks to all the money multinationals have invested in their country to help them develop infrastructure and education?? Please get real and realize that this may help developing governments make money but that does not equate to the situation of the laboring poor improving. In many cases it it the exact opposite. These governments are often violating human rights everyday with their military dictatorships and corrupt officials, so is this what you call a "positive effect" on the world? Imperialism is the main tool used to keep in place the Capitalism system. Remember this one? The world where companies use their economic influence to prop up or bring down governments would be a frightening and bleak one indeed. Groups for free trade like the WTO do not care about people (as their mouthpieces and ad campaigns would have you think). It cares about profit (i.e. capital) and it will build its palaces on a foundation consisting of the bodies of the workers of the third world.

Armchair socialism is really aggravating.

LOL. Who the **** is talking about socialism? You want more of the State then be my guest...just keep it away from me.

 

[PvtRyan]

So you are saying that Cuba is better off for all of the US investment we had there? United Fruit was HUGELY popular with the campesinos as I recall. :-\

Eh, the US' involvement with Cuba is an example of free trade? News to me.

Vietnam is better off for all of the foreign influence and money invested so wisely there?

Considering the near doubling of life expectancy, the massive decrease in infant mortality and the five-fold increase of average income there over the last 50 years: yes.

Peasants in China too must be better off now that so many countries are getting slave labor there that makes the government richer and the multinationals richer but continues to oppress the laborers.

Again: yes. Overall they're better off than they were before China's economic explosion. Is everything perfect? No. Is it getting better? Yes.

So you are saying even Haiti is doing just fine thanks to all the money multinationals have invested in their country to help them develop infrastructure and education??

Say what now? I don't think there's much investing going on in Haiti.

Please get real and realize that this may help developing governments make money but that does not equate to the situation of the laboring poor improving.

And how the fuck not? Governments make money through tax over the company's income and in order to generate that the company needs people to work for them, generating employment at relatively good wages. Your assertion of slave labor makes absolutely no sense, the work at the multinational has to be at least as well paying as the "native" jobs, otherwise no one would work there.

In many cases it it the exact opposite. These governments are often violating human rights everyday with their military dictatorships and corrupt officials, so is this what you call a "positive effect" on the world?

And this is relevant to the argument, how? Are those dictatorships somehow the result of these multinational investments? Would the situation be better without them? Wouldn't the company benefit much more from a stable government and a new source of wealthy consumers?

Imperialism is the main tool used to keep in place the Capitalism system. Remember this one? The world where companies use their economic influence to prop up or bring down governments would be a frightening and bleak one indeed. Groups for free trade like the WTO do not care about people (as their mouthpieces and ad campaigns would have you think). It cares about profit (i.e. capital) and it will build its palaces on a foundation consisting of the bodies of the workers of the third world.

China's investment in Africa has nothing to do with imperialism. It's strictly business, not even covered in some veil of charity. And guess what? It works. Are there still corrupt governments in power. Yes. Would the absence of the Chinese here improve that? No. Will the economic influence of the Chinese improve that at some point in the future? Yes, when jobs and economic prosperity come, the rest will follow, eventually. You're also unfairly disqualifying countries like Brazil and India.

Don't the numbers mean anything to you? As a general rule, no developing country is worse of because of multinational involvements.

LOL. Who the **** is talking about socialism? You want more of the State then be my guest...just keep it away from me.

Well, you oppose free trade, saying it's a "incredibly horrible reality", what other options does that leave us with? Your "laborers" rhetoric stinks of it too.

 

[Tagaziel]

I'm not saying remove regulations entirely, just stop keeping alive miserable fail-opolies.

Or maybe instead of tearing down the system, we actually enforce the rules for a change?

Competition would drive prices down. They already do, but the current equilibrium price is higher than it would be with less government regulation. In econo-speak, it shifts the supply curve to the left, resulting in higher prices.

Competition isn't a magical device that makes stuff cheaper. In order to compete, companies would have to cut corners even more than they're doing right now, which would result in poorer quality products.

It's the American companies that are manufacturing the stuff over there. Think Nike.

The only difference is that China gets all the cheap-ass manufacturing jobs. If there were fewer regulations on this side of the ocean, then American companies might be able to afford to build in America. If not, then we manufacture in China, and we get cheaper goods. Regulating free trade raises costs for everyone. Free trade also forces some monopolies and oligopolies to behave competitively, which is a plus.

You do realize that deregulation and making America competitive with China means that wages paid to menial workers would have to be comparable with Chinese ones, right? And you do realize that it's way, waaay below the current standard of life there?

 

[jverne]

More important than private investments is a stable government, that can focus resources on a particular need.

 

[Noodle]

Competition isn't a magical device that makes stuff cheaper. In order to compete, companies would have to cut corners even more than they're doing right now, which would result in poorer quality products.

You do realize that deregulation and making America competitive with China means that wages paid to menial workers would have to be comparable with Chinese ones, right? And you do realize that it's way, waaay below the current standard of life there?

Or they could charge a little more for a higher quality product. That's why we have different tiers of quality within similar products. It also motivates them to research an actual better product. They do a little more than marketing, you know.

They wouldn't have to be lowered all the way down to China's level. You also have to include the costs of running business internationally, shipping, etc., as well as societal pressures to make it in America. It would also be a lot cheaper to produce here if there were fewer corporate taxes.

The government is what makes it more expensive to produce here, and then the government should try to protect them from the problem created... by the government?

 

[VictimOfScience]

Holy ****ing quote war.

Look, I don't think I will ever believe what you say is so great about free trade and multinational foreign investment being good things for the world as a whole since they have only served to create more oppression and larger class disparities the world over. I don't think you will believe that any of my points are valid either.

To sum this mess up, as we all hopefully can agree, the Capitalist system has brought the world to the brink of instability and chaos in its wantonly cruel exploitation and domination of both man and nature. Many more people are suffering than profiting, many ecosystems are in the same boat. What will it take to fix this sorry state of affairs? Look here because I have never seen it stated better anywhere else.

 

[unozero]

American companies that function like this don't actually manufacture anything except a brand/image. There is no American production of goods whatsoever by these companies. American workers who work for these companies work at white-collar jobs. The actual manufacturing jobs go overseas to export processing zones which hurt everyone except the multinational corporations running them and the typically oppressive and corrupt foreign governments hosting them. Local workers and production systems suffer greatly at the expense of these monstrosities. "Free trade" is an incredibly horrible reality for everyone except those running the show. No amount of regulation/deregulation will change this because the standard of living in the US is impossibly higher here than in these third world nations. These companies could not get away with paying US workers less than $1 a day or forcing them to work in unsafe conditions for too many hours a day, nor would they get the tax breaks and other monetary benefits that these foreign governments give them to invest in their country.

Capitalism has ravaged the earth and will continue to do so until some sort of catastrophic event or series of events brings the world's most powerful nations to the point we have almost reached today. The world's wealthy and powerful elites NEED to learn that at some point the oppressed masses that they have done nothing but steal from and abuse will realize that they hold all the power in this game. IWW organizer Joseph Ettor was right when he said:

"If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists."

Anarcho-syndicalism FTW!! :thumbs:

you commie GDIAF.

stop using the PC it was manufactured by Capitalists

 

[VictimOfScience]

you commie GDIAF.

stop using the PC it was manufactured by Capitalists

LOL. I had to look at Urban Dictionary to see what the shit GDIAF meant. And the computer wasn't made by Capitalists. The computer was manufactured by grossly underpaid Asian workers. The company that profits from its sale to me are the Capitalists, so you are right, in a way I am supporting this travesty of global justice. Everything is interrelated nowadays. I have no inherent problem with this, I just wish it could be a more mutually beneficial relationship for all. If that is wrong then I don't want to be right!

 

[15357]

LOL. I had to look at Urban Dictionary to see what the shit GDIAF meant. And the computer wasn't made by Capitalists. The computer was manufactured by grossly underpaid Asian workers. The company that profits from its sale to me are the Capitalists, so you are right, in a way I am supporting this travesty of global justice. Everything is interrelated nowadays. I have no inherent problem with this, I just wish it could be a more mutually beneficial relationship for all. If that is wrong then I don't want to be right!

What?

You get your PC, the thing of your desires.

The workers get their pay, their sustenance that allows them to live one more day.

The Capitalists get their profit, the thing of their desires.


With the profit, the Capitalists make new things, which capture your attention, and the cycle begins anew. Oh, of course the workers could use more pay, but then again, who doesn't?

 

[Noodle]

It was invented by capitalists, much like most of the devices you use on a daily basis. No capitalism = no computer, cell phone, tv, car, etc.

You are easily the most blatantly and idiotic communist person on this forum I have seen.

 

[Eejit]

It was invented by capitalists, much like most of the devices you use on a daily basis. No capitalism = no computer, cell phone, tv, car, etc.

That's some mighty fine false logic there pard'ner.

 

[Noodle]

That's some mighty fine false logic there pard'ner.

Okay, they wouldn't be impossible, but they were created by capitalists. You get the point.

 

[PvtRyan]

Look, I don't think I will ever believe what you say is so great about free trade and multinational foreign investment being good things for the world as a whole since they have only served to create more oppression and larger class disparities the world over. I don't think you will believe that any of my points are valid either.

What? Don't play this off as a "lets agree to disagree" sort of thing. I've shown you why I'm right, but you haven't shown why you would be right. You just go on with your overly dramatic indignant rant about the evils of capitalism and the plight of the "laborers", stating your opinion as fact. Do you understand how numbers work? A life expectancy of 75 in Vietnam > a life expectancy of 42 in Vietnam 50 years earlier, agreed?

To sum this mess up, as we all hopefully can agree, the Capitalist system has brought the world to the brink of instability and chaos in its wantonly cruel exploitation and domination of both man and nature.

See? Here you go again. No. I don't agree.

 

[VictimOfScience]

I've shown you why I'm right, but you haven't shown why you would be right.

Ok, ffs. Here is why I am right:

I think it is best to start with examples of how the Capitalist system represents an endless cycle of reaping profit by exploiting not only the natural resources of the world but the people of the world as well. As long as this persists, there will never be any measure of equality or opportunity for peace and compassionate living on Earth.

Take the Alberta Tar Sands project, for instance. Companies like Petro Canada and Royal Bank of Canada are huge investors in this project. The waste, misuse, and disregard for the popultaion both human and animal is evident in the fact that Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year, processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada, and the toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space. In the race to suck even more fossil fuel from the quickly drying planet so that profit can be made, there are huge expenditures that not only ravage the natural environment, they misappropriate fnds that could go to feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, assiting the sick, or sheltering the homeless. Instead the profit reaped from the Earth goes directly into the pockets of the Capitalists running the show.

These banks in particular are also sponsors of the 2010 Olympics. The Olymipcs that everyone celebrates as a peaceful and beneficial event that helps the countries of the world come together in the spirit of unity are a sham and a shame. The recent Olympics resulted in over 100,000 trees cleared in the Callaghan Valley, a rare wetland destroyed to house the Hydrogen Highway, mountain blasting to expand the Sea-to-Sky Highway, Whistler’s last remaining urban forest cleared for a temporary medals plaza, and 68,000 kgs of ammonia used to power the Whistler Sliding Centre. In addition, millions of dollars were spent on Orwellian security measures to protect these games that could have been spent on the educational/social/healthcare-related issues that Vancouver and Canada are facing. There was a 373% increase in homelessness during the games even though the Bid Committee promised that not a single person would be displaced. "The Olympic industry uses sports and athletes as commodities to market corporate products,” says Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation and editor of no2010.com. “Governments use the Olympic Games to attract corporate investment." These are blatant examples of how Capitalism's unquenchable thirst for more and more profit completely exploits every social and environmental resource that it can. The cost to the infrastructure is great.

I mentioned Haiti earlier. Haiti is a great example of how Capitalism all but destroyed a country (the rest was left to Mother Nature). Haiti has followed a development strategy based on low-paid, labour-intensive assembly operations for foreign investors. Not only has this strategy failed to bring any significant or sustainable economic development but, by focusing on these assembly operations, the international planners who laid out this strategy have purposefully ignored the potential of domestic agriculture and other types of local production. As a result, Haiti has become more dependent on foreign aid, more dependent on imports, and more vulnerable to natural disasters (as recently made evident by their total lack of infrastructure following the earthquake). Also take note of the recent Hope for Haiti benefit with Wyclef Jean as an emcee. Wyclef Jean comes from one of the most affluent and well-connected families in Haiti. His uncle, Raymond Joseph, is currently Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., and is working hand in glove with the Obama administration to ensure that as few refugees get into the U.S. as possible. In the days directly following the quake, Wyclef released a public statement demanding that the American military invade his country. His uncle Raymond, prior to becoming ambassador, had also operated Haiti Observateur, a right-wing newspaper that had beaten the drums against Aristide since the early 1990s and publicly supported the death squads who were murdering supporters of the president. Wyclef's charitable foundation raised upwards of $1 million a day in the disaster's wake. However, Internal Revenue Service records show the group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean's appearance at a benefit concert. Though the Wyclef Jean Foundation, which does business as Yele Haiti Foundation, was incorporated 12 years ago--and has been active since that time--the group only first filed tax returns in August 2009. How much of this money actually reaches the needy in Haiti remains to be seen, but clearly Haiti is a country that has been completely yanked apart by foreign powers and their greedy, profit-driven interests.

And you mentioned Vietnam. Disney and McDonald's have been some of the worst offenders in terms of human rights violations in their lust for more goods manufactured at cheaper prices (Capitalism at its finest). 17 year-old women work 9 to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, earning as little as $.06 an hour in the Keyhinge factory in Vietnam making giveaway promotional toys--especially Disney characters--for McDonald's. After working a 70-hour week, some of the teenage women earn just $4.20! A basic meal in Vietnam costs $.70. So, 3 meals would cost $2.10, yet many of the young women at the Keyhinge factory making McDonald's/Disney toys earn just $.60 cents after a 10-hour shift. Just to eat and get back and forth to work, the women estimate they would need to earn--after deductions--at least $.32 an hour. So, the wages at the Keyhinge factory do not even cover 20% of the daily food and travel costs for a single worker, let alone her family--not to mention rent ($6.00 a month for a single room) and other basic expenses. Things may be getting better, but this is still no way to live. Just be cause you can earn more working in these intensive environments does not mean that you should. Pro-sweatshop arguments discuss it as an improvement over subsistence farming, but ask many peasants if they would rather work their own land or work a multinational's factory and the answer will be clear. Capitalists love the pro-sweatshop argument because if the peasants make a little more money, then maybe they can potentially become little Capitalists themselves and put feed the machine by putting their hard earned money back into the system by buying goods they didn't need in the first place. The campesinos in Cuba did NOT buy into this myth by supporting United Fruit. This is why they supported the Revolution of Castro. The multinationals would do well to learn from past mistakes.

Capitalism is also the direct cause of over 10 BILLION deaths a year in the form of the US animal agriculture industry. The suffering of living creatures now occurs on a level that is impossible to comprehend. Intensive factory farming which raises animals as fast as it can so that they can be slaughtered and sold for profit as quickly as they can means more and more animals are packed into dark, concrete pens or sheds, fed antibiotics to prevent the rampant spread of disease caused by these horrific living conditions and poisons to stimulate appetite (for instance, arsenic in the case of modern chickens), and completely prohibited from exhibiting their species-specific natural beahviors. Their lives are full of fear and distress and torment until they are transported in crowded open air trucks in freezing cold or stiffling heat to the slaughterhouse where they are killed while they are ideally unconscious but are sometimes fully awake unfortunately. Ground beef and chicken in 'washed' with ammonia before it is packaged for sale. The industry preys on its workers as well, blocking formation of unions so that the workers of some of the most dangerous jobs in America can get paid a living wage or get health benefits. The stress on the workers also results in stress on the communities where they live. Cheap housing goes up near the slaughter facility and the workers (who are oftentimes illegals or at least illiterate) move in and are driven to drink or do drugs just to cope with the daily stress. If they get hurt, there is no insurance coverage for them. If they complain, they are fired and another worker is brought in. A huge number of these operations rely on illegal immigrants because they don't hold any cards and the company can control them utterly. The bare minimum one can do is to look up 'Factory Farming' on wikipedia and one will find all one needs to know in terms of the human health impact, the animal health impact, the animal welfare impact, and the environmental impact of meat production. A reasonable person, a compassionate person would look at the evidence documented not only there but in a huge multitude of places across the Web and the world around him and decide that this sort of exploitation of the weak by the strong, this sort of oppression of one group of living creatures over another group of creatures is utterly abhorrent and must be stopped if we are ever to become a more peaceful and compassionate world where everyone can living free of oppression.

Capitalism also spells eventual doom for many of the very workers in America who make up the consuming public under this current system due to the corporate trend of outsourcing all manufacturing to these export processing zones all over the world by directly bringing about the destruction of local economies in the US. In the past decade, an estimated 12% of American companies are sending manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. About 4 million direct, manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States with another 4 million to 5 million supporting jobs disappearing with them. One look at the automobile industry in the US will explain how dire the situation is. If these trends persist as they have been allowed to by the wealthy elite, America will become a developing nation, no longer a leader in science and technology. The middle class will cease to exist as a buffer between the rabble and the aristocracy and the situation will degenrate.

All is not lost yet however. One would be hard pressed to find a stronger resistance to Capitalism and its corrupting and destructive influence than Chiapas, Mexico. There, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation under Subcommandante Marcos (among others), are waging a war against foreign (and domestic) military and corporate invasions. They simply demand that their lands and resources remain under their control. The rural and indigenous people of the countryside support them with all of their might. While it is possible that they might earn more money if foreign investors built factories there, these people value their culture and their ties to their native land more than the almighty dollar and this is a sentiment devoutly to be wished of all people across the globe. Thanks to its foundations built upon the uprooting of Native people, the US as a nation has no cultural identity other than to identify as the ravager; the exploiter; the consumer; in other words, the Capitalist.

In one sense, Globalization is just what humans do. It is the process that brought humans out of Africa to spread to the rest of the world. However, in the economic sense, it is Imperialism brought about by Capitalist expansion. We owe it to ourselves as members of the human race to take moral responsibility for one another the way smaller communities and tribes have in the past and indeed continue to do in the more remote parts of the world where governments have failed to enforce their will (like upland Southeast Asia), but NOT by imposing some sort of political or economic control over them. Unlike any other species, we have something called, "Ethics," which essentially means thinking not just about our own interests, but putting ourselves in the position of others to see what it is like for them. How do our decisions about what to consume in the US and other developed nations affect those in the Global South? What can we do differently to ensure their situation does not get any worse as we would not want our situation to get worse if we were in their shoes. If we as a global community ever want to achieve a reasonable facsimile of equality for all, we MUST abolish Capitalism.

(Phew. Done. I am not putting a bibliography together for my sources. They are my books and some websites.)

See? Here you go again. No. I don't agree.

Yeah, I didn't think you would. Maybe you will now?

 

[Maestro]

 

[Noodle]

We owe it to ourselves as members of the human race to take moral responsibility for one another the way smaller communities and tribes have in the past and indeed continue to do in the more remote parts of the world where governments have failed to enforce their will (like upland Southeast Asia), but NOT by imposing some sort of political or economic control over them. Unlike any other species, we have something called, "Ethics," which essentially means thinking not just about our own interests, but putting ourselves in the position of others to see what it is like for them.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!


...I'll make this relatively short and simple.

If we followed your... "logic", we would still be a small, undeveloped little tribe that survives only on the use of primitive instinct and brute force to wear out are own little existence, and possibly die out in the process. There's this little thing... called "rational self-interest". It makes the world go 'round. It is what moves society. It drives civilization forward. Every aspect of humanity's progress was brought forward by it. What if Henry Ford had gotten all sympathetic towards train-builders? What if the steel manufacturers had felt bad about crushing out some stone masons? What if Galileo didn't want to discredit and ruin all the scientists that thought the Earth was at the center? What if Columbus wanted to be kinder to the folks who taught that the Earth was flat? What if Tesla felt bad for Edison, and didn't develop AC? I do apologize since I can't really depend on isolated anecdotes like yourself. I'm pretty sure you are dependent upon the products of my examples, especially the last one, seeing as you are on a computer.

Yours is a philosophy of regression. It is a philosophy based, not on reason and the reality around us, but altruistic illogic that has no bearing on the reality of logic. It values, not what we create, but what we don't create. It punishes creation, success, and achievement, and it rewards laziness, incompetence, and immorality. It is an immoral supplier of guilt, and uses guilt to meet it's ends. You can't guilt society into moving forward. Guilt is immoral. "Ethics" isn't about sympathy, it's about respect for the individuality of people.

What we would do in someone else's shoes should have no bearing on what we do in our own. Are own are the only shoes we will ever be in. What we would do in your imagination is irrelevant to what we would do in reality.

[insert sense of closure]

Edit: Also, to blame individual hardships on a system based on individualism... is foolish. Blame the people in charge. If someone murders your family, you don't blame the police. You blame the murderer.

 

[Polaris]

VictimOfScience, if you think that communist system treat people, enviroment or animals anyhow better you're very, very naive.

 

[Noodle]

VictimOfScience, if you think that communist system treat people, enviroment or animals anyhow better you're very, very naive.

He doesn't think. He feels. There's a difference, albeit a subtle one.

 

[unozero]

He'' tell that every attempt at Communism so far isn't real Communism.

 

[Polaris]

Yeah, that's what they always do.

 

[Sparta]

If we followed your... "logic", we would still be a small, undeveloped little tribe that survives only on the use of primitive instinct and brute force to wear out are own little existence, and possibly die out in the process. There's this little thing... called "rational self-interest". It makes the world go 'round. It is what moves society. It drives civilization forward. Every aspect of humanity's progress was brought forward by it. What if Henry Ford had gotten all sympathetic towards train-builders? What if the steel manufacturers had felt bad about crushing out some stone masons? What if Galileo didn't want to discredit and ruin all the scientists that thought the Earth was at the center? What if Columbus wanted to be kinder to the folks who taught that the Earth was flat? What if Tesla felt bad for Edison, and didn't develop AC? I do apologize since I can't really depend on isolated anecdotes like yourself. I'm pretty sure you are dependent upon the products of my examples, especially the last one, seeing as you are on a computer.

Hang on, what you're responding to and what he said are completely different things.

In that particular paragraph you quoted he's referring to capitalism as imperialism and he's condemning it's imperialist atrocities (which to my estimate is largely why people who oppose capitalism, oppose capitalism). You're saying by that logic he's automatically condemning industrial, scientific, mathematical, technological, basically any kind of innovation what-so-ever, when he's not at all.

He's not talking about the actions of private individuals, he's talking about the actions of governments/corporations as a whole. He's talking about the Reagan administration and it's complicity in financing and arming Nicaraguan rebels who killed tens of thousands of their own citizens. He's talking about governments being involved drug-trafficking in nations where they running covert operations in order to finance said operations (China, The U.S. and the U.K. all do this). He's talking about corporations like Nike running sweatshops in the Phillipines where they pay their workers 6 cents an hour to make shoes.

He's talking about employing your conscience when it comes to the impact an organization's policies and actions have over private citizens of it's own country and especially other nations. Not Tesla having pangs of guilt for developing AC or any of that nonsense. What he was talking about in that paragraph won't stifle innovation, it has practically nothing to do with it and you took it completely out of context.

It values, not what we create, but what we don't create. It punishes creation, success, and achievement, and it rewards laziness, incompetence, and immorality. It is an immoral supplier of guilt, and uses guilt to meet it's ends. You can't guilt society into moving forward. Guilt is immoral.

For a starter, I agree that Communism is ridiculous and it will never work, but this is... I don't know how to explain it... It's both right and wrong, yet you could still say the same things about capitalism and democracy and it would still be just as right and wrong.

Capitalism rarely innovates because it doesn't need in order to gain capital. Look at all of popular culture and think of how many studios have been innovative and compare that to those that have followed successful business models instead. The banks are consistently responsible for the economical collapse of numerous nations throughout the world on an almost regular basis of once every decade or so and yet they still reward their executives with record-breaking numbers of bonuses. Communism (like East Germany before the wall fell) doesn't innovate because it doesn't have the private industry or the finances to do so, but that doesn't stop them from holding massive rallies and public gatherings where they reward individuals for increasing production efforts with increasingly hard work and creativity etc etc etc

As for what you said about guilt, that's not bound to the philosophy of communism/socialism, that's bound to propaganda and every government uses propaganda in one form or another. Either it's "Go out and help us pick up the trash" in this Obama administration or it's "You're either with us or against us on terrorism/Iraq" in the Bush Administration.

"Ethics" isn't about sympathy, it's about respect for the individuality of people.

I totally agree, but no government on the planet is truly ethical. Everyone has double standards when it comes to people who oppose them and their way of life.

 

[VictimOfScience]

VictimOfScience, if you think that communist system treat people, enviroment or animals anyhow better you're very, very naive.

Please stop talking about socialism and communism. I am not suggesting socialism and communism as a cureall. Everyone is right in remarking that these systems have heretofore failed. I do think they have more merit than our own current system, but what I have supported from the beginning was anarcho-syndicalism or anarcho-communism (which is a hugely different from straight-up communism). Look it up.

Ethics" isn't about sympathy, it's about respect for the individuality of people.

Ethics refers to well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. It also refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. Sympathy is about compassion for others and an understanding of their situation. As such, I would argue that Ethics is about sympathy. It is about recognizing the situation of others and then behaving in a manner consistent with your standards.

"rational self-interest". It makes the world go 'round. It is what moves society. It drives civilization forward. Every aspect of humanity's progress was brought forward by it. What if Henry Ford had gotten all sympathetic towards train-builders? What if the steel manufacturers had felt bad about crushing out some stone masons? What if Galileo didn't want to discredit and ruin all the scientists that thought the Earth was at the center? What if Columbus wanted to be kinder to the folks who taught that the Earth was flat? What if Tesla felt bad for Edison, and didn't develop AC?

This is where we differ I suppose. While I agree that certain advancements have helped the human race in their selfishness (read: desire to survive), I don't believe that much of what we have accomplished has served much of a purpose. Would humans have disappeared entirely if we never invented electricity? If we never invented TV? If we never learned that our planet is not the center of the universe? No. None of these advancements that people seem to think of as imperative for our survival as a race had our desire for survival as a motive for its creation. Your questions interest me as thought experiments, but nothing more. I would personally rather work towards a planet where everyone has what they need to survive. If some of these developments come along as well, then fine, but technological progress means very little to the vast majority of the world's population who will never be affected by it at all anyway. I don't understand this urge to keep advancing and progressing...for what? Seriously, I am asking you what is the end result we wish to achieve with this? Would the world really be so bad if we stopped advancing computing processing speeds or finding new ways to view television? I personally don't think so. Anyway, this discussion could turn into something else entirely, but suffice it to say that there is no meaning of life. Everyone is in charge of giving meaning to their life. For me this means trying to make the world a better place for all living creatures than it was before I got here. It means not trying to amass as much 'stuff' as I can at the expense of others. This is why I disagree with Capitalism.

What we would do in someone else's shoes should have no bearing on what we do in our own. Our own are the only shoes we will ever be in.

(Fixed.) And Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. What we would do in someone else's shoes should have IMMENSE bearing on what we do in our own. But for the grace of God (or whatever) you are in the shoes you are now. This callousness toward the plight of others might change very quickly should events beyond your control set you very quickly into exactly those other shoes. When you stop caring about others' feelings and ignore their condition, you are freeing yourself from feeling any guilt when your actions harm them. This is how Capitalism thrives. If you would not want someone to hit you in the head with a wrench, think how they would feel if you hit them. I would be willing to bet that they feel exactly the same as you. If you don't want another power invading your land to plunder your resources, imagine how others feel when your power does exactly that. Being able to identify with the situations of other living creatures on this planet is imperative if we want the violence and oppression to stop.

Blame the people in charge.

I do. The people in charge are the ones perpetuating the system, though the masses are sadly complicit when they continue to prop-up our ridiculous sham of a "democracy." This is why we have to change the system. This is why we need to be in charge of ourselves because for too long those in power have proven themselves all too capable when it comes to creating divisions between us to keep us at each other's throats instead of marching on Washington (what do you think the American Revolution was about?) and far too incapable of caring for the least of us and ensuring that the poorest of the nation have equal treatment and consideration and opportunity. We need true, authentic, original democracy in the purest sense of the word.

 

[Noodle]

Sparta,
I was responding to his whole post somewhat, not just the part I quoted.

Also, I was really talking about the philosophy and reasoning behind his communist tendencies, not explicit communism. That's why my examples are a bit off-center from his. It stemmed from his last paragraph.

True, Capitalism doesn't result in nothing but pure innovation, but the idea is that it encourages and rewards it using a logical system, not propaganda or guilt. Eventually, it WILL be required once the current companies that depend on successful business models compete to the lowest possible price. At that point, innovations must be made to either create a better product or build the current one more efficiently.

And the banks... that's a tricky issues, but I would have supported letting the banks fail, and possibly bailing out the affected customers directly. If you consistently let the banks fail for being stupid, sooner or later they will have to stop being stupid.

As for the guilt, that's where I get into the overall philosophy, not just the governments. It's the basis of the "man is his brother's keeper" philosophy that I disagree with. That's also how innovation is stifled, as seen in my slightly detached examples.

 

[Noodle]

Please stop talking about socialism and communism. I am not suggesting socialism and communism as a cureall. Everyone is right in remarking that these systems have heretofore failed. I do think they have more merit than our own current system, but what I have supported from the beginning was anarcho-syndicalism or anarcho-communism (which is a hugely different from straight-up communism). Look it up.

I'm arguing against collectivism as a philosophy.

Ethics refers to well-based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. It also refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. Sympathy is about compassion for others and an understanding of their situation. As such, I would argue that Ethics is about sympathy. It is about recognizing the situation of others and then behaving in a manner consistent with your standards.

That's just your definition of ethics. That's fine, but trying to impose those ethics on me is unethical.

This is where we differ I suppose. While I agree that certain advancements have helped the human race in their selfishness (read: desire to survive), I don't believe that much of what we have accomplished has served much of a purpose. Would humans have disappeared entirely if we never invented electricity? If we never invented TV? If we never learned that our planet is not the center of the universe? No. None of these advancements that people seem to think of as imperative for our survival as a race had our desire for survival as a motive for its creation. Your questions interest me as thought experiments, but nothing more. I would personally rather work towards a planet where everyone has what they need to survive. If some of these developments come along as well, then fine, but technological progress means very little to the vast majority of the world's population who will never be affected by it at all anyway. I don't understand this urge to keep advancing and progressing...for what? Seriously, I am asking you what is the end result we wish to achieve with this? Would the world really be so bad if we stopped advancing computing processing speeds or finding new ways to view television? I personally don't think so. Anyway, this discussion could turn into something else entirely, but suffice it to say that there is no meaning of life. Everyone is in charge of giving meaning to their life. For me this means trying to make the world a better place for all living creatures than it was before I got here. It means not trying to amass as much 'stuff' as I can at the expense of others. This is why I disagree with Capitalism.

With that line of thought, we'd still be in the Dark Ages. Possibly before. What you are wanting is a society of stagnation. You want to stop all progress. The same progress that gives meaning to many people's lives. Progress is the logical and moral pursuit of man. To create. To produce. You don't depend on your computer for survival, but it allows you to communicate and to learn. We could live without electricity, but isn't life so much better with it? Would you prefer not being able to talk to family and friends on your cell phone?

If you think that bare survival is our only goal, than feel free to return to your cave.

(Fixed.) And Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. What we would do in someone else's shoes should have IMMENSE bearing on what we do in our own. But for the grace of God (or whatever) you are in the shoes you are now. This callousness toward the plight of others might change very quickly should events beyond your control set you very quickly into exactly those other shoes. When you stop caring about others' feelings and ignore their condition, you are freeing yourself from feeling any guilt when your actions harm them. This is how Capitalism thrives. If you would not want someone to hit you in the head with a wrench, think how they would feel if you hit them. I would be willing to bet that they feel exactly the same as you. If you don't want another power invading your land to plunder your resources, imagine how others feel when your power does exactly that. Being able to identify with the situations of other living creatures on this planet is imperative if we want the violence and oppression to stop.

See, this is what I was talking about with the Tesla example and stuff. Our reality is dominated by reason and rational thought, not by feelings of sympathy.

Also, the initiation of physical force is immoral. I think we can agree on that.

 

[VictimOfScience]

I'm arguing against collectivism as a philosophy.

And that is fine. Feel free to do so, but where do you draw the line, esp. in our society? There are many examples of public space that are collectively "owned" by taxpayers and that we may all use; many resources that can be used by everyone. Should we stop this and privatize everything? We are certainly approaching that state in the US right now. Lack of public space is a growing concern of many.

That's just your definition of ethics. That's fine, but trying to impose those ethics on me is unethical.

That's a pretty standard definition of ethics really. But yes, we all have our own standards and behave accordingly, even if those standards are quite low.

Progress is the logical and moral pursuit of man. To create. To produce. You don't depend on your computer for survival, but it allows you to communicate and to learn. We could live without electricity, but isn't life so much better with it? Would you prefer not being able to talk to family and friends on your cell phone?

I strongly disagree that Progress is the logical and moral pursuit of man. When left to their own devices, why do so many indigenous peoples choose not to accept or even develop modern advances within their cultures and their societies? I think it is because 1. they actually have a culture that does not revolve around producing and consuming more and more goods for profit and 2. that culture does not necessitate taking more than they need to survive. In societies like this, familial ties are stronger, ties to the land are stronger, and this would do nothing to engender the "logical" development of things like cell phones. It would not somehow be a moral imperative to invent a TV. See what I am saying?

If you think that bare survival is our only goal, than feel free to return to your cave.

I can't. The industrial mining company from Japan that is investing in my area won't let me anywhere near the cave that my community used to enjoy.

Also, the initiation of physical force is immoral. I think we can agree on that.

Yup. :thumbs:

 

[PvtRyan]

Ok, ffs. Here is why I am right:

I think it is best to start with examples of how the Capitalist system represents an endless cycle of reaping profit by exploiting not only the natural resources of the world but the people of the world as well. As long as this persists, there will never be any measure of equality or opportunity for peace and compassionate living on Earth.

Take the Alberta Tar Sands project, for instance. Companies like Petro Canada and Royal Bank of Canada are huge investors in this project. The waste, misuse, and disregard for the popultaion both human and animal is evident in the fact that Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year, processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes in Canada, and the toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space. In the race to suck even more fossil fuel from the quickly drying planet so that profit can be made, there are huge expenditures that not only ravage the natural environment, they misappropriate fnds that could go to feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, assiting the sick, or sheltering the homeless. Instead the profit reaped from the Earth goes directly into the pockets of the Capitalists running the show.

Yes. Totally the fault of a free market. Or, perhaps, because there apparently exists a need for these resources. Is the absence or the presence of the free market at all relevant here? The resources are needed and in order to use them, you need to get them from the Earth. The profit made here is quite irrelevant. And you seem to have some weird idea of where profit goes, as if the "elite fatcats" all go Scrooge McDuck on us and collect their profits in a big warehouse before swimming in it, never to return back into the economy again. Money doesn't disappear, the profit is invested and paid to shareholders (you know, the people).

These banks in particular are also sponsors of the 2010 Olympics. The Olymipcs that everyone celebrates as a peaceful and beneficial event that helps the countries of the world come together in the spirit of unity are a sham and a shame. The recent Olympics resulted in over 100,000 trees cleared in the Callaghan Valley, a rare wetland destroyed to house the Hydrogen Highway, mountain blasting to expand the Sea-to-Sky Highway, Whistler’s last remaining urban forest cleared for a temporary medals plaza, and 68,000 kgs of ammonia used to power the Whistler Sliding Centre. In addition, millions of dollars were spent on Orwellian security measures to protect these games that could have been spent on the educational/social/healthcare-related issues that Vancouver and Canada are facing. There was a 373% increase in homelessness during the games even though the Bid Committee promised that not a single person would be displaced. "The Olympic industry uses sports and athletes as commodities to market corporate products,” says Gord Hill, a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw nation and editor of no2010.com. “Governments use the Olympic Games to attract corporate investment." These are blatant examples of how Capitalism's unquenchable thirst for more and more profit completely exploits every social and environmental resource that it can. The cost to the infrastructure is great.

It's a silly display of power and grandeur, I'll grant you that. But I don't know if the net result of an Olympics is positive or negative, if it costs money or brings it in. But these are exceptional events and hardly basis for a structural argument.

I mentioned Haiti earlier. Haiti is a great example of how Capitalism all but destroyed a country (the rest was left to Mother Nature). Haiti has followed a development strategy based on low-paid, labour-intensive assembly operations for foreign investors. Not only has this strategy failed to bring any significant or sustainable economic development but, by focusing on these assembly operations, the international planners who laid out this strategy have purposefully ignored the potential of domestic agriculture and other types of local production. As a result, Haiti has become more dependent on foreign aid, more dependent on imports, and more vulnerable to natural disasters (as recently made evident by their total lack of infrastructure following the earthquake). Also take note of the recent Hope for Haiti benefit with Wyclef Jean as an emcee. Wyclef Jean comes from one of the most affluent and well-connected families in Haiti. His uncle, Raymond Joseph, is currently Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., and is working hand in glove with the Obama administration to ensure that as few refugees get into the U.S. as possible. In the days directly following the quake, Wyclef released a public statement demanding that the American military invade his country. His uncle Raymond, prior to becoming ambassador, had also operated Haiti Observateur, a right-wing newspaper that had beaten the drums against Aristide since the early 1990s and publicly supported the death squads who were murdering supporters of the president. Wyclef's charitable foundation raised upwards of $1 million a day in the disaster's wake. However, Internal Revenue Service records show the group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean's appearance at a benefit concert. Though the Wyclef Jean Foundation, which does business as Yele Haiti Foundation, was incorporated 12 years ago--and has been active since that time--the group only first filed tax returns in August 2009. How much of this money actually reaches the needy in Haiti remains to be seen, but clearly Haiti is a country that has been completely yanked apart by foreign powers and their greedy, profit-driven interests.

Que? Aside from the Wyclef Jean story seemingly having nothing to do with anything, the conclusion that I marked in bold is not one that is logically drawn from the argumentation right above it. Haiti has a hugely corrupt government, of course it's not susceptible to economic growth and foreign investments. Other countries are and have shown massive improvements.

And you mentioned Vietnam. Disney and McDonald's have been some of the worst offenders in terms of human rights violations in their lust for more goods manufactured at cheaper prices (Capitalism at its finest). 17 year-old women work 9 to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, earning as little as $.06 an hour in the Keyhinge factory in Vietnam making giveaway promotional toys--especially Disney characters--for McDonald's. After working a 70-hour week, some of the teenage women earn just $4.20! A basic meal in Vietnam costs $.70. So, 3 meals would cost $2.10, yet many of the young women at the Keyhinge factory making McDonald's/Disney toys earn just $.60 cents after a 10-hour shift. Just to eat and get back and forth to work, the women estimate they would need to earn--after deductions--at least $.32 an hour. So, the wages at the Keyhinge factory do not even cover 20% of the daily food and travel costs for a single worker, let alone her family--not to mention rent ($6.00 a month for a single room) and other basic expenses. Things may be getting better, but this is still no way to live. Just be cause you can earn more working in these intensive environments does not mean that you should. Pro-sweatshop arguments discuss it as an improvement over subsistence farming, but ask many peasants if they would rather work their own land or work a multinational's factory and the answer will be clear. Capitalists love the pro-sweatshop argument because if the peasants make a little more money, then maybe they can potentially become little Capitalists themselves and put feed the machine by putting their hard earned money back into the system by buying goods they didn't need in the first place. The campesinos in Cuba did NOT buy into this myth by supporting United Fruit. This is why they supported the Revolution of Castro. The multinationals would do well to learn from past mistakes.

It's not peasants that work at factories, they have work, it's the unemployed and women as your example shows. Are you implying that multinational investment does not increase employment? And somehow, in some way, working at these factories is still better than the alternative. As much as something may suck, if it's getting better it's still a positive thing. And of course, I can parry this negative example with a positive one, like the Unilever one, but the only thing that matters is the global net result, which is improving. Your example also stresses the need for something else I advocate: openness and transparency through the means of the internet. A company stands or falls by the grace of the consumer and an informed consumer is more likely to make ethical decisions.

Capitalism is also the direct cause of over 10 BILLION deaths a year in the form of the US animal agriculture industry. The suffering of living creatures now occurs on a level that is impossible to comprehend. Intensive factory farming which raises animals as fast as it can so that they can be slaughtered and sold for profit as quickly as they can means more and more animals are packed into dark, concrete pens or sheds, fed antibiotics to prevent the rampant spread of disease caused by these horrific living conditions and poisons to stimulate appetite (for instance, arsenic in the case of modern chickens), and completely prohibited from exhibiting their species-specific natural beahviors. Their lives are full of fear and distress and torment until they are transported in crowded open air trucks in freezing cold or stiffling heat to the slaughterhouse where they are killed while they are ideally unconscious but are sometimes fully awake unfortunately. Ground beef and chicken in 'washed' with ammonia before it is packaged for sale. The industry preys on its workers as well, blocking formation of unions so that the workers of some of the most dangerous jobs in America can get paid a living wage or get health benefits. The stress on the workers also results in stress on the communities where they live. Cheap housing goes up near the slaughter facility and the workers (who are oftentimes illegals or at least illiterate) move in and are driven to drink or do drugs just to cope with the daily stress. If they get hurt, there is no insurance coverage for them. If they complain, they are fired and another worker is brought in. A huge number of these operations rely on illegal immigrants because they don't hold any cards and the company can control them utterly. The bare minimum one can do is to look up 'Factory Farming' on wikipedia and one will find all one needs to know in terms of the human health impact, the animal health impact, the animal welfare impact, and the environmental impact of meat production. A reasonable person, a compassionate person would look at the evidence documented not only there but in a huge multitude of places across the Web and the world around him and decide that this sort of exploitation of the weak by the strong, this sort of oppression of one group of living creatures over another group of creatures is utterly abhorrent and must be stopped if we are ever to become a more peaceful and compassionate world where everyone can living free of oppression.

I don't see how this is inherent to a free market system. I'd say it's more inherent to a a situation where demand is greater than what can responsibly be produced. And that demand is so great because we are so wealthy.

Capitalism also spells eventual doom for many of the very workers in America who make up the consuming public under this current system due to the corporate trend of outsourcing all manufacturing to these export processing zones all over the world by directly bringing about the destruction of local economies in the US. In the past decade, an estimated 12% of American companies are sending manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. About 4 million direct, manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States with another 4 million to 5 million supporting jobs disappearing with them. One look at the automobile industry in the US will explain how dire the situation is. If these trends persist as they have been allowed to by the wealthy elite, America will become a developing nation, no longer a leader in science and technology. The middle class will cease to exist as a buffer between the rabble and the aristocracy and the situation will degenrate.

Of course manufacturing jobs are disappearing in the US, in favor of service oriented, higher educated jobs.

Yeah, I didn't think you would. Maybe you will now?

No.

I'm sure you can find many more examples of unethical conduct, but again: looking at the big picture, it's overall still improving. I'm not very susceptible to anecdotes, but I am to numbers.

 

[Noodle]

The primitive cultures of which you speak have yet to evolve at the same rate as the rest of the world. Probably due to different access to resources. A small pacific island may not have the minerals to even make it into the bronze age.

When confronted with new age technology and such, they choose not to adapt because they have engulfed themselves within an altruistic cultural model that puts tradition and mysticism of reason and logic. Example: they think that the great bear-God (or whatever) makes people stick to the ground. We learned (another noble pursuit of man is the gathering and application of knowledge) about gravity a while back. Those who follow logic and reason like such are correct in this case.

 

[VictimOfScience]

The primitive cultures of which you speak have yet to evolve at the same rate as the rest of the world.

When confronted with new age technology and such, they choose not to adapt because they have engulfed themselves within an altruistic cultural model that puts tradition and mysticism...

Exactly. And I guess what I am saying is that much of the world would likely be better off this way imho. I personally don't see anything inherently wrong or subhuman with this way of life. I respect it and feel that we could all learn a LOT from it.

The resources are needed and in order to use them, you need to get them from the Earth. The profit made here is quite irrelevant.

I don't think the profits are irrelevant. The resources are "needed" sadly thanks to our ridiculous dependence on fossil fuels, but resources can be obtained in less destructive ways. This way of obtaining them demonstrates that everyone involved cares more about quick profit now than environmental and social consequences later. I see that as a problem.

the profit is invested and paid to shareholders (you know, the people).

I don't think I would go so far as to call the shareholders "the people," or at least not in the way that I am using "the people" to mean the lower classes. I can't imagine that many working class families have stock in any of the companies involved.

It's a silly display of power and grandeur, I'll grant you that. But I don't know if the net result of an Olympics is positive or negative, if it costs money or brings it in. But these are exceptional events and hardly basis for a structural argument.

I think points like this can be useful in making some broad generalizations about how governments behave. The misappropriations of funds for what is essentially a big show. Its a distraction. Loads of money is spent not on the people of the host nation who need it the most, but rather it is spent on advertising, green-washing, security, and environmental destruction to create the most embarrassing Potemkin Village ever made, the Olympic Village, so that the corporations can make a profit from the Games.

Que? Aside from the Wyclef Jean story seemingly having nothing to do with anything, the conclusion that I marked in bold is not one that is logically drawn from the argumentation right above it. Haiti has a hugely corrupt government, of course it's not susceptible to economic growth and foreign investments. Other countries are and have shown massive improvements.

The mention of Wyclef and the benefit was just another example of how people can be duped into investing in a system that does not care about people, but rather about profit. For all of the foreign investment in Haiti, their infrastructure was horrific at best. Its easy to say, "They are a corrupt government, so of course it doesn't count." That's the problem with so many governments around the world, but what lets them behave this way and get away with it? The current economic system that benefits the rich and excludes the poor. Hopefully as things grow more transparent as you say, people will begin to wake up and realize what is being done to them without them even realizing it. Of course, for America, I don't think the Tea Party is it. :rolling:

Are you implying that multinational investment does not increase employment?

No, it can definitely increase employment. It has also been shown to increase profit for a country. The problem is that the money goes to the wrong places. If it is only the upper classes that profit as income disparities widen, the country will end up suffering in the long run.

Your example also stresses the need for something else I advocate: openness and transparency through the means of the internet. A company stands or falls by the grace of the consumer and an informed consumer is more likely to make ethical decisions.

Absolutely. This is what more people need to realize. If you respect hard working Americans in this country, don't shop at Wal-Mart. If you respect workers' rights in other countries, don't shop at Wal-Mart. This sort of thing is VERY powerful, but sadly so is marketing and slave labor prices. Naomi Klein wrote a terrific book that speaks to many of these issues called, No Logo. Part of it talks about how companies like Nike have hijacked revolutionary images to cleanse their public image and make it seem like buying Nike is somehow an act of rebellion in the same way that buying an Anarchy t-shirt at Hot Topic is. These companies will do anything to disguise their mistreatment of their workers and the environment. The green-washing of the Bejing Olympics games is a great example of the lengths to which governments and corporations will go in order to hide the truth from the people that can easily RUIN them.

Of course manufacturing jobs are disappearing in the US, in favor of service oriented, higher educated jobs.

One of the main problems with this is the fact that manufacturing jobs can be quite high-paying, but as they leave our shores they are being replaced with lower paying or minimum wage jobs in many states. Manufacturing jobs also have a pronounced ‘multiplier effect’ in that they create jobs in other sectors of the economy at a rate that is at least twice that of the trickle down from the retail industry. We don't want to lose these entirely. The biggest problem imho with losing our manufacturing jobs is that we become a completely hollow nation that is utterly dependent on foreign powers to produce every bit of the goods we use every day. Clearly, this is not a position in which we would like to find ourselves.

looking at the big picture, it's overall still improving.

I think it is improving, but probably for different reasons than you.