Sweatshops in a realistic light.

[LastBattle]

negatives of a free market.

LOL, I think you are the one who needs reality check dude.

Think again.  What I just described is the end product of a free market.  In a free market, the people with the money make the rules.  The corporations of the world are the people with the money, so they will always make the rules, and their rules include controlling the government.  The end result of unhindered capitalism is the people at the top owning and controlling everything, including governments.


I guess you just can't see that your belief system is one of perpetual blame shifting for its many short comings.  You can simply keep blaming all these short comings on the market not being free enoug.  This is what Friedman did when doing economic consulting for post-coup Chile - he continued telling them to make the market more free until the country was ran right into the ground.  Because a 100% free market (as you define it) will never exist, like Friedman, you'll never have to face the music that your belief system simply doesn't work as you think it does in the real world.

I find it amusing that you tell us to get educated in basic economics and then proceed to fail to understand what a corporation is, something that a person with an understanding of basic economics should have.

A corporation is not, despite what left-statists would have you think, a large company. There are many things that distinguish it from a regular large company, not in the least including limited liability (supplied by the government) and many protections.

And I could fly if I could fly... but I can't fly so I can't fly.  No multi-billion dollar mega-corporation is on a level playing field with Joe Shmoe making $30k/year.

You are right, especially when the GOVERNMENT provides aforementioned corporations with benefits, kickbacks, subsidies and protections. Joe Shmoe is going to have a hard time beating a multi billion dollar corporation that gets HIS money because the government decided it needed a bailout.

And why were the governments fucking the people?  Were they doing it for the lulz?

Because a government lives off of the sweat and blood of its subjects, like a particularly large mosquito or a slave master. If a government is not taking money by force and using it to sustain the individuals within, it has ceased to be a government and has evolved into a private defense organization.

Government is the collective bargaining power of the common man.  The trick is to keep is strong and focused enough that it cannot be controlled by corporations and those with money.  Castrating it or removing it all together is simply removing the only power the common man has, that of organization and unity.

ARISE YE WORKERS THROW OFF YOUR CHAINS

The government represents the common man? I see you are bringing up the rhetoric of such illustrious nations as the Soviet Union, Maoist China, and the various Fascists of the 1930s and 40s.

Government represents those in power. Usually they strongly defend a handful of the elite in the private sector and ensure that those elite remain powerful through market manipulation and coercion against innovative rivals. That would be the standard model in the US and Europe, and it happens to be the Fascist economic system. Some countries cut out the middleman and actually DO try to represent themselves and the people directly and alone. That idea creates hellholes like Red China, the USSR, Cuba, Allende's Chile, and North Korea.

There is a delusional person in this thread, and it isn't the one claiming that letting people make their own decisions without a gun to their head works.

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[AyeYo]

Government represents those in power. Usually they strongly defend a handful of the elite in the private sector and ensure that those elite remain powerful through market manipulation and coercion against innovative rivals. That would be the standard model in the US and Europe, and it happens to be the Fascist economic system. Some countries cut out the middleman and actually DO try to represent themselves and the people directly and alone. That idea creates hellholes like Red China, the USSR, Cuba, Allende's Chile, and North Korea.

There is a delusional person in this thread, and it isn't the one claiming that letting people make their own decisions without a gun to their head works.

That's pretty sweet.  The government is just a hollow shell agent of the rich and powerful... but when that agent does bad stuff, the agent is the root cause of the problem, not the people controlling the agent and making it do bad stuff.

Damn, you guys bring non-stop lulz.  How's the weather over in that alternate reality?



Oh, and as for the corporation semantics.  I know exactly what a corporation is, as I've standed repeatedly.  I don't give two shits about the legal definition of a corporation because corporation = big business = rich and powerful.  Everyone without their head up their ass understands exactly what's being referred to, but feel free to to deflecting to semantics games because you can't address the actual arguments.

[Perof]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

[Anonymous]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in Sweatshops want to or enjoy doing so

has never work a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working want to or enjoy doing so

has never work a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

[kylesaisgone]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

You're totally right. We should dismantle any and all sweatshops and send those poor third-worlders back to working in rice paddies, knee-high in mosquito infested water, and they'll likely die malaria, melanoma, or exhaustion.

Anyway you slice it, working in a factory sewing a thousand seams on a thousand dresses a day, for comparatively great pay, is far better than subsistence farming for virtually 0 profit.

[LastBattle]

That's pretty sweet.  The government is just a hollow shell agent of the rich and powerful... but when that agent does bad stuff, the agent is the root cause of the problem, not the people controlling the agent and making it do bad stuff.

Damn, you guys bring non-stop lulz.  How's the weather over in that alternate reality?

Actually, to all intents and purposes the government IS the rich and powerful. The individuals within it (again, government is not a mysterious, godlike entity that exists outside of human comprehension, it is an organization formed up of self important individuals who are willing to kill to force their power on others) are often the exact same people that receive government handouts and inversely the people that receive handouts are often recruited from the government. Stop dodging.

Oh, and as for the corporation semantics.  I know exactly what a corporation is, as I've standed repeatedly.  I don't give two shits about the legal definition of a corporation because corporation = big business = rich and powerful.  Everyone without their head up their ass understands exactly what's being referred to, but feel free to to deflecting to semantics games because you can't address the actual arguments.

----

You say: corporations are evulz and hurt people, etc

We say: Corporations are powerful because of powers granted to them by the government, which are SPECIFICALLY not given to regular companies operating in a free market.

You say: STOP PLAEIN SEMANTICS BRO

Look, we already handled this. Playing semantics to avoid a point is one thing, showing a definition that covers our own argument ahead of time is another. It wouldn't be semantics if we demonstrated that your attempts to equivocate a machine gun to a parrot were stupid, either.

----

You say: A government is a tool and therefore can do no evil, whereas corporations with their sticky fingers in it are responsible instead.

We say: A government is NOT a tool, it is a group of individuals with a monopoly on force

You say: So like I was saying, corporations are bad because they use government as a tool

Are you going to ignore this all day? A gun cannot fire itself, nor can it decide to take hostages on its own volition.

----

You say: ANSWER MY ISSUES U GUISE

We say: We already did.

We have already covered our bases, it is just that you seem to be wearing blinkers and aren't paying attention. Protip: a short answer to a long rant is not less legitimate as a response compared to another long rant. The only reason I am even bothering is because it seems like you skip over short replies like a rock over calm water.

[AyeYo]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

You're totally right. We should dismantle any and all sweatshops and send those poor third-worlders back to working in rice paddies, knee-high in mosquito infested water, and they'll likely die malaria, melanoma, or exhaustion.

Anyway you slice it, working in a factory sewing a thousand seams on a thousand dresses a day, for comparatively great pay, is far better than subsistence farming for virtually 0 profit.

Ignoring the fact that farming isn't even an option.  It's sweatshop or starve to death.


That's cool though.  We set people up with a predetermined choice between death and hell, and then say, "omg, look, hell is sooo much better than dying!! We're doing them a favor!!!"

[AyeYo]

We have already covered our bases, it is just that you seem to be wearing blinkers and aren't paying attention. Protip: a short answer to a long rant is not less legitimate as a response compared to another long rant. The only reason I am even bothering is because it seems like you skip over short replies like a rock over calm water.

I think what you're failing to get is that I'm blasting out quick responses for the lulz.  There's SO much wrong with what you're saying I'm like a kid in a candy store.  I don't even know where to begin, nor am I going to put in the effort to write you a book that you'll simply ignore.  So instead I'm just shooting holes in the illogic and laughable arguments that I find to be the most ridiculous and/or contradictory.


Your bottom line: the government is ALWAYS at fault, the government is the root of all evil...

But then you acknowledge that the government is controlled by the rich and powerful.


My bottom line: If the government is controlled by the rich and powerful, and the government does bad stuff... that doesn't mean the government is the root of all evil, it means THE RICH AND POWERFUL ARE GREEDY BASTARDS THAT WILL DO ANYTHING AND EXPLOIT ANYONE FOR MORE MONEY.  If they control the government and make it do bad stuff THEY ARE THE PROBLEM, the government is just the tool used to do the deeds. Corrupt government is only a SYMPTOM OF THE PROBLEM.  If you take away the government, THE RICH AND POWERFUL ARE STILL GREEDY BASTARDS THAT WILL DO ANYTHING AND EXPLOIT ANYONE FOR MORE MONEY.  THEY WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY.  Getting rid of government or castrating it isn't the answer, because government isn't the root of the problem.

[Anonymous]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

[Anonymous]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

You're totally right. We should dismantle any and all sweatshops and send those poor third-worlders back to working in rice paddies, knee-high in mosquito infested water, and they'll likely die malaria, melanoma, or exhaustion.

Anyway you slice it, working in a factory sewing a thousand seams on a thousand dresses a day, for comparatively great pay, is far better than subsistence farming for virtually 0 profit.

Ignoring the fact that farming isn't even an option.  It's sweatshop or starve to death.


That's cool though.  We set people up with a predetermined choice between death and hell, and then say, "omg, look, hell is sooo much better than dying!! We're doing them a favor!!!"

The only group that is 'setting things' is the government.

[kylesaisgone]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

You're totally right. We should dismantle any and all sweatshops and send those poor third-worlders back to working in rice paddies, knee-high in mosquito infested water, and they'll likely die malaria, melanoma, or exhaustion.

Anyway you slice it, working in a factory sewing a thousand seams on a thousand dresses a day, for comparatively great pay, is far better than subsistence farming for virtually 0 profit.

Ignoring the fact that farming isn't even an option.  It's sweatshop or starve to death.


That's cool though.  We set people up with a predetermined choice between death and hell, and then say, "omg, look, hell is sooo much better than dying!! We're doing them a favor!!!"

In third world countries, people don't farm for profit, they farm to feed themselves. It's called subsistence farming. I mentioned it in my post, but you were too hasty in your zeal to apparently even read my post. Next time, you should try reading something before attempting to rebut it.

Subsistence farming is not an alternative to working in a sweatshop, it is several levels below it. It is slave labor for the capacity to simply SUSTAIN yourself, it doesn't provide a livable wage, because there isn't a wage to be had. You eat the food you farm, so you and your family can get up the next day to farm rice in a rice paddy, knee-high in mosquito infested water, with the sun beating down on your back.

Getting rid of sweatshops would damn hundreds of millions of third world pilgrims back to subsistence farming. For all the bad press sweatshops get, even Marxist Dalai Lama says Capitalism has brought millions (billions between China + India since the 90's) out of abject poverty.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/7747371/Marxist-Dalai-Lama-criticises-capitalism.html

[DATA COMMANDER]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

Such as private property?

[Anonymous]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

Such as private property?

Eliminate a man's right to his life and you eliminate his reason to live.

[hugolp]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

Such as private property?

Without private property people are still greedy.

For example, if you choose to decide everything in an assembly, apart from being poverty exploitation because its so inefficient you are condenming everybody to be poor, the more rethorical and politcally skilled will do better than the rest. Its political darwinism. So you will still have greed.

PS: Btw, a system of assemblies still needs to have property divissions for the different assemblies, unles you are decided to condemn all humanity to starve to death by having a unique world assembly.

[bittersweet]

The first day they would eliminate private property, people would start hiding material goods and offer them on a black market.
Communism is against the human nature.

[AyeYo]

Anyone who can be bothered to say that people working in sweatshops would like to be doin so or enjoy it, has never worked a fucking day in their entire life. that is all

You're totally right. We should dismantle any and all sweatshops and send those poor third-worlders back to working in rice paddies, knee-high in mosquito infested water, and they'll likely die malaria, melanoma, or exhaustion.

Anyway you slice it, working in a factory sewing a thousand seams on a thousand dresses a day, for comparatively great pay, is far better than subsistence farming for virtually 0 profit.

Ignoring the fact that farming isn't even an option.  It's sweatshop or starve to death.


That's cool though.  We set people up with a predetermined choice between death and hell, and then say, "omg, look, hell is sooo much better than dying!! We're doing them a favor!!!"

In third world countries, people don't farm for profit, they farm to feed themselves. It's called subsistence farming. I mentioned it in my post, but you were too hasty in your zeal to apparently even read my post. Next time, you should try reading something before attempting to rebut it.

Subsistence farming is not an alternative to working in a sweatshop, it is several levels below it.

I'll say again: farming is NOT an option.

People in third world countries OWN NO LAND.

Can you hear me now?

[AyeYo]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

And since they control 99% of the world's wealth, they'll simply find power a new way.  The elite will have power with or without goverments.  Eliminating government only elimintes YOUR ability to put yourself on a level playing field with the elite.

[AyeYo]

Here are some relevant quotes:

The term 'free market' is really a euphemism. What the far right actually means by this term is 'lawless market.' In a lawless market, entrepreneurs can get away with privatizing the benefits of the market (profits), while socializing its costs (like pollution). Uncomfortable with the concept of a lawless market? The far right will try to reassure you with claims that the market can produce its own laws, either as a commodity bought and sold on the market, or through natural market mechanisms like the "invisible hand" or the Coase theorem. But it is interesting to note that even if the entrepreneurs don't take the more likely shortcut of creating their own state, this type of law removes the creation of law from democratic legislatures and gives it to authoritarian business owners and landlords. And since you get what you pay for, "purchased law" will primarily benefit its purchasers. Society might as well return to aristocracy directly.
Steve Kangas

The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is built on a contradictory view of liberty. Right-wing libertarians understand that state control of all economic activity is tyrannical: that the power to determine if and how people make a living is the power to enforce conformity. But they don't see that the huge transnational corporations that own and control most of the world's wealth exercise a parallel tyranny: not only do these behemoths unilaterally determine qualifications, wages, hours, and working conditions for millions of workers, who (if they're lucky) may "choose" from a highly restricted menu of jobs or "choose" to stop eating; they make production, investment and lending decisions that profoundly affect the economic, social, and political landscape of communities and indeed entire countries -- decisions in which the great majority of people affected have little or no voice. Murray defines economic freedom as "the right to engage in voluntary and informed exchanges of goods and services without restriction." Fine -- but if an economic transaction is to be truly voluntary and informed, all parties must have equal power to accept, reject, or influence its terms, as well as equal access to information. Can anyone claim that corporate employers and employees have equal power to negotiate their exchange? Or that consumers have full access to information about the products they buy? And if we're really interested in freedom, the right to voluntary and informed engagement in economic transactions has to be extended beyond their principals to others affected -- whether by plants that reduce air quality or rent increases that chase out shoe repair shops in favor of coffee bars. The inconsistency of the belief that economic domination by the state destroys freedom, while economic domination by capital somehow enhances it, is often rationalized by attributing the self-interested decisions of the corporate elite to objective, immutable principles like "the invisible hand" or "supply and demand" -- just as state tyranny has claimed to embody the laws of God or History. But the real animating principle of a free society is democracy -- which should include a democratic economy based on enterprises owned and controlled by their workers.
Ellen Willis

[Anonymous]

You can't get rid of greedy people. You can eliminate their structures of power.

And since they control 99% of the world's wealth, they'll simply find power a new way.  The elite will have power with or without goverments.  Eliminating government only elimintes YOUR ability to put yourself on a level playing field with the elite.

The elite, also know as the central bankers, are being destroyed as we speak. Otherwise, wealth has no reason to sit stagnant in the hands of the few.

[Anonymous]

The term 'free market' is really a euphemism. What the far right actually means by this term is 'lawless market.' In a lawless market, entrepreneurs can get away with privatizing the benefits of the market (profits), while socializing its costs (like pollution). Uncomfortable with the concept of a lawless market? The far right will try to reassure you with claims that the market can produce its own laws, either as a commodity bought and sold on the market, or through natural market mechanisms like the "invisible hand" or the Coase theorem. But it is interesting to note that even if the entrepreneurs don't take the more likely shortcut of creating their own state, this type of law removes the creation of law from democratic legislatures and gives it to authoritarian business owners and landlords. And since you get what you pay for, "purchased law" will primarily benefit its purchasers. Society might as well return to aristocracy directly.
Steve Kangas

The argument for laissez-faire capitalism is built on a contradictory view of liberty. Right-wing libertarians understand that state control of all economic activity is tyrannical: that the power to determine if and how people make a living is the power to enforce conformity. But they don't see that the huge transnational corporations that own and control most of the world's wealth exercise a parallel tyranny: not only do these behemoths unilaterally determine qualifications, wages, hours, and working conditions for millions of workers, who (if they're lucky) may "choose" from a highly restricted menu of jobs or "choose" to stop eating; they make production, investment and lending decisions that profoundly affect the economic, social, and political landscape of communities and indeed entire countries -- decisions in which the great majority of people affected have little or no voice. Murray defines economic freedom as "the right to engage in voluntary and informed exchanges of goods and services without restriction." Fine -- but if an economic transaction is to be truly voluntary and informed, all parties must have equal power to accept, reject, or influence its terms, as well as equal access to information. Can anyone claim that corporate employers and employees have equal power to negotiate their exchange? Or that consumers have full access to information about the products they buy? And if we're really interested in freedom, the right to voluntary and informed engagement in economic transactions has to be extended beyond their principals to others affected -- whether by plants that reduce air quality or rent increases that chase out shoe repair shops in favor of coffee bars. The inconsistency of the belief that economic domination by the state destroys freedom, while economic domination by capital somehow enhances it, is often rationalized by attributing the self-interested decisions of the corporate elite to objective, immutable principles like "the invisible hand" or "supply and demand" -- just as state tyranny has claimed to embody the laws of God or History. But the real animating principle of a free society is democracy -- which should include a democratic economy based on enterprises owned and controlled by their workers.
Ellen Willis

Of course corporations have power. It's because the power to generate and manipulate wealth is centralized and the puppet governments come with power-hungry businesses and have a huge orgy. It has nothing to do with letting man being able to voluntarily trade his labor. That privilege was taken away by the governments and powerful entities in the first place. Things are more 'lawless' than they ever have been but the law only applies to the small.