When did you grow weary of Capitalists?

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Ok, we've had the 'weary of liberals' and 'weary of conservatives thread'.

However if we're being honest, anyone outside the bubble of manifest destiny knows that both these cretins operate within precisely the same treehouse.

How did you acquire a cynicism surrounding the grand fraud of class collaboration and trickledown economics?

I never grew weary of genuine capitalists who have brought new products, new technologies to our society and who create millions of jobs. It is that corrupt imitation, the Crony-Capitalist that I loathe.

ruveyn

We really shouldn't be relying on the approval of this elite minority to create jobs, and if this is the only way to organize industrial civilization (which it isn't), then we should be really angry.

When American industry started outsourcing more and more jobs, leaving the American dream beyond the reach of more and more of our countrymen, while the few become super rich. And to make matters worse, supporters of such immoral capitalism started blaming the very people they had left high and dry for their own poverty, calling them lazy, and denigrating any outcry against the growing inequality as Un-American. That last being tragically funny, as it's the business elites who have demonstrated how they have absolutely no sense of loyalty to their country, and hold the acquisition of the almighty dollar above all else.

I share your sentiments but with respect to the UK. I used to work in the head office of a major textile supplier (as a software developer and IT manager) and watched over the years as Marks & Spencer demanded goods be manufactured cheaper and cheaper (presumably so they could compete with goods sold by other shops that were made in Asia). As a result (my) company opened factories in Morocco and closed several factories in the UK. In the end the cloth was cut in the UK then shipped to Morocco where it was made into garments then shipped back to the UK where our factories would stitch in the "Made in England" labels required by Marks and Spencers (their customers expected the goods to be made in Britain. ) Eventually even this approach didn't satiate M&S's need for ever cheaper clothes, so (my) company closed its UK factories and thousands of jobs were lost. Nowadays most clothes are made in Asia, particularly India and China where the labour costs are dirt cheap compared to the UK. People in China are prepared to work ridiculously long hours with scant regard for working conditions or safety for little more than the price of a bowl of rice a day.

Capitalism is by its nature competitive and a natural consequence of that is that goods are manufactured using the cheapest labour available and that typically means third world countries. People used to argue that loss of manufacturing in the west wouldn't be a problem as we have lots of service industries... they too have been outsourced. Software is now developed in India. Phone your local bank (which is a couple of miles away) and you will likely be speaking to someone thousands of miles away in Bangalore. In the mean time, the west has record levels of unemployment and the disparity between rich and poor grows ever wider, leaving those at the bottom of the pile in poverty with little hope of securing employment.

That's just heart breaking.
What capitalists don't seem to grasp is, when they surrender any loyalty they might have had for their countrymen and outsource jobs for the sake of the almighty dollar, the rest of us have absolutely no reason to have any more confidence in the free market system.

The capitalist system itself is broken, certainly from the perspective of the "richer" west. If companies remain loyal to their countrymen then the goods they manufacture at home (in the west) will be more expensive than those of their competitors produced abroad in Asian sweatshops; consequently they will lose market share and eventually get pushed out of business. The only way for companies to survive under the capitalist system is to outsource faster and more completely than their competitors. The losers are the local (western) employees who find themselves redundant and the winners are the shareholders in the outsourced companies and the Asian countries that have secured the manufacturing.

It used to be argued that goods manufactured in Asia were of inferior quality to those manufactured at home (in the West) and that certainly used to be true; but much less so nowadays. So companies have nothing to gain by keeping their production at home. The consequences of capitalism are inevitable.

Capitalism may not be perfect, but capitalism and centrism are the only systems proven to work. Not employing capitalism was why the USSR failed, despite countless natural resources.

The problem with capitalism (from the west's perspective) is that it is increasingly making a level playing field at an international level. Goods are manufactured where the labour is the cheapest, forcing unemployment in the "richer" countries. Capitalism is a race to the bottom to find the labour force that can make the goods or provide the services for the least pay in the most basic (and often dangerous) of working conditions with the least support or care for the employees. When my former employer opened factories in Morocco, they really were sweatshops - the heat was stifling and they literally stank. Compared to people in the UK the working conditions in the Moroccan factories were terrible as was the rate of pay and the working hours were long. However, by Moroccan standards the people who worked there were very well paid and consequently there were always several people waiting outside the factory gates every day, waiting like vultures for someone to fall sick (they would lose their job). No protected employment, no unions, no rights.

Even these poor working conditions were too good from a capitalist point of view and these factories eventually closed and now most clothing is made in Asia where the labour costs are even lower. Poor sanitation, child labour, long working hours, very poor pay, dangerous working conditions with unsafe electrical equipment, machines with no protective guards, no protection from breathing dangerous dust particles, excessive noise damaging hearing, exposure to dangerous chemicals. If an employee doesn't like it, falls sick or has a work related accident, there are ten more waiting to take his/her job. Capitalism is a race to the bottom and the west is rapidly heading that way while China and India rise to the top.

In the late 1890's, the very same thing was done to American workers, and to top it of, there were no such thing as antitrust laws. Take Henry C. Frick, for instance.

Unemployment in the richer countries, are mainly in the most menial factory jobs. Due to cultural differences, it's difficult to assign a 3 world programmer to a task, and for obvious reasons, you can't simply hire a teacher, a plumber, an electrician, or a lawyer in another country.



I don't think workers in government owned businesses are any better of. Moreover, many of these countries are not capitalist themselves. The more capitalist 3. world countries (eg. Botswana) seem to cover at least a minimum of labour rights.



Both China and India are highly dependent on the US and the EU to actually grow. Sooner or later, they're also going to have to make more market reforms to keep up their growth spurt.

Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's responsible for the fact that former 3. world countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea can now enjoy a standard of living on par with Europe. Israel owes most of it's achievements to Intel. Rapid privatization has also made Iraq the fastest growing country in the world.

Working conditions vary. Many international corporations pay for AIDS treatment for their employees in South Africa and Botswana, for instance. On the other hand, a highly centralized economy and limited trade with the outside world, means that Zimbabwe is worse of than ever before.

@Kurgan I'm not totally against capitalism and I'm no fan of communism either. Socialism seems to have some of the benefits of capitalism with increased rights and welfare for the people; though socialism has its own unique problems too (take France for example which is drowning in bureaucracy and many people are employed by the state passing pointless paperwork from one useless organisation to another). The problem is with pure monetary driven capitalism where there is no social responsibility and only responsibility towards the companies share holders.

Maybe eventually the entire world (or most of it) will end up in the "level international playing field" where people in each nation have a similar standard of living to one another where exports/imports balance; rather than the situation at the moment where China and India are major exporters and the west have become major importers... this isn't sustainable in the long term as the wealth necessary to buy the imports gradually dwindles and moves to the exporting nation.

The big question of course if the world becomes "level" is how high is the level? Will western working safety standards and employee protection be adopted by Asian countries or will the west eventually lose its workers' protections?

This is why it's important to find a balance (similar to the Scandinavian countries, for instance). Pure capitalism will lead to a form of Social Darwinism where only the lucky ones are rewarded.



I don't think this will happen unless the democracy itself falls. The biggest threat to worker's rights a few years ago was employment agencies, but laws are finally restricting these.

Here we go again about how the only options are capitalism or state ownership.

The powerful seem to have done a pretty good job at limiting the spectrum of debate. We don't need to go far to find alternative ways of organizing industry. Take a look at worker cooperatives. In a worker cooperative every member has an equal say in decisions that effect everyone involved. If people had a say in the decisions that affect them, do you think they would vote to send their own job overseas? Am I the only person who is disgusted by the idea of a boss or president?

We can do better than this. We were egalitarian creatures in the past. We have no justification to continue organizing the way we do today.

Workers cooperatives sound good in theory but legislation would be required at national level to favour the cooperatives products/services over those of cheap imports. The general public will buy the cheapest product (if quality is the same) irrespective of whether it was made at home or abroad. So for example if cooperatives produce products X, Y and Z then the government would need to either block imports of those products or put heavy import taxes on them to make them as expensive or more expensive than those made at home. Without government protection in this manner, the cooperative would not be able to sell its products and consequently would go out of business anyway.

Well I don't see production for market exchange as an end, or believe worker control shouldn't spread past the first world. I'm just saying it's entirely possible to manage industry on democratic principles, and that we have real world examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9eRrSfNzng&t=17m38s