The Poor Abuse the Rich (not the other way around)

[ben---neb]

SNIP

First of all. yes. Yes to everything you just said. That was good. Second of all no. Some of the things you said are wrong. Let me explain why.

Now fred is your smart individual, he wants his phone to have a new and usefull tool that will help people like fred enjoy their phone, for instance he wants it too be able to send files to his computer wirelessly. But wait thats just fred. The rest of the masses just want a sleeker phone that looks flashy, no one gives a shit about freds good idea, they just want to make the phone sell more. Freds good idea is swept aside by the millions who are happy with nothing inventive, with nothing new and exciting, with the same thing repackaged again to look nicer. Fred would go to anoethr company but guess what? Its the same for all of them. they dont do what fred wants. They do what they need to to make sales, not what would make a rational man like fred happy. Fred lives in a world where the things he wants are in a market in which the majority of the consumers are irational, his rationality is irrelivant. He is part of the top 5% who actually want inginuity. However no one cares about fred, the company sure as hell dont, they would sell fred down the river in a heartbeat to make 3 more customers buy their phone.

Please note that i know freds wish is already true but ignore it, its the reasoning that matters. If you have to nitpick my arguement to the point where you poke holes in my metaphor then you are beneath my arguing terms.

However if you see a hole in my logic feel free to tell me, im all ears.

In response there are three possible combinations:

1. Fred's demand for a niche product is so ill thought out only he could ever think it will work. In which case the free market will not provide it. Fred would have to make it himself.

2. Fred's demand for the product is shared by a minoirty of people in a niche market. In this case then Fred should invent the product himself and sell it. He's spotted a gap in the market and as a rational indivdual should recognise the opportunity to make some profit. Failing that he should encourage other entreprenurs to forefill the gap.

3. Fred's dedand is shared by everybody. In which case he should follow step 2 only with much greater results.

Also everyone regardless of intelligence forefills the economic definition of rationality. That is the ability to make an economic choice.

Oh and thanks for the support.

 

[ben---neb]

So that's my argument against two common capitalist facilies. Do you agree? Am I right? Got a better argument?

Counterpoint: the entire banking industry.

Bankers are rich.
Banks have a fee structure that fucks over poor people. For example: minimum balance requirements, overage fees, overage fees incurred when the bank charges you the first overage fee. Bank accounts are a money sink for anyone living even remotely close to paycheck-to-paycheck.
Other major systems -- the structure of which is controlled by rich people -- tend to require bank accounts. Try renting an apartment without a bank account. Hell, unless you're in a country where it's common to just pay you in cash (e.g. Japan), you need either a bank account or a check-cashing place to actually do anything with your paycheck. So, not using banks also fucks over poor people.

Therefore, banks enable rich people to fuck over poor people.

-- Alex

Hmmm, this is where the lax definition of capitalism doesn't help me. In my opinion the baking industry is not an example of capitalism (by which I mean free markets). Indeed the banking industry has a Central Bank that inteferes with it and seeks to control it. In fact i would say that the banking industry is one of the few remaining examples of a centrally planned industry. The reason for the current economic crisis and the power of the banking sector is due to the government granted special treatment of the industry through central bank institutions.

dude, you need to get real. you can´t come up with a defence of capitalism and then negotiate the side effects just because you want to be right. say fuck i don´t care, like you don´t care about small companies, or defend that too. you constantly dodge questions regarding the giant holes in your argumentation. do you want to discuss your custom-capitalism or how it´s going down?

My apologies, it is true that I don't care, I don't care about a lot of things. The end fate of businesses is hard to care about because if they are going out of business the usual reason is that they were crap. In some cases I'll admit that monopolys push new businesses out of the market. These monopolies can normally do so thanks to government granted monopoly powers. In any event life isn't fair and capitalism isn't perfect but it is by far the least imperfect economic system.

As to my own custom capitalism, I'm afriad you mistake my actions. I sort only to define the capitalism I believe in as being free from government intervention, this is hardly a rare belief. Unfortuantly the term capitalism has on occassion be used to describe socialist systems of government intervention such as the banking sector.

 

[ben---neb]

SNIP

Now, not every industry or business is like this. It's basically the same business model used by J.D, Rockefeller at the end of the 19th century. My point is this: first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the womens. No, wait...that's not right. I think it's more like: capitalism is a good system, it provides a good way to encourage competition and wise use of resources...but it's also totally possible for it to be used for levels of ass-hattery that border on the supervillainous.

I agree with your point about capitalism not being perfect, what is?

However as regards to your milk example, argument against monopolies I stress that most monoploies are such due to government intervention. If US is anything like the UK milk will have been subsidised at some point or even now in the present. At such this benefitted larger businesses more than smaller ones as they made more milk. This, along with other legislation, would lead to the milk monopoly deveolping.

 

[hamster mk 4]

*snip*
However as regards to your milk example, argument against monopolies I stress that most monoploies are such due to government intervention.
*snip*

I thought monopolies were caused by a lack of government intervention. Without government intervention there would be no action a company could take that would be "illegal" no matter how unfair it is.

 

[Sewblon]

I agree. Another thing many people do not understand about Capitalism is fiat currency is just paper and only worth as much as participants in the economy decide that it is worth. It isn't strictly a problem in economics. Many people do not understand that sustainable hierarchies are imposed just as much from the bottom up as they are from the top down, because people love power, but we hate responsibility.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I think hes saying its Capitalisim's fault.
Despite what many people think America =/= Capitalism. Also it can be argued that the existence of third-world nations is partly the fault of capitalism in that exploitative and unsafe factories for large international coorperations are often set up where there are less restrictions on how to treat workers. Third world countries are perfect for that.

Take Nike for instence: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/apr/14/ethicalbusiness.money

Yes, this may be true on some level but it takes two to tango as the old saying goes. If these countries rejected these factories then the abuse would not occur. They need to stand up for themselves and challenge such move by corporations. Letting themselves get screwed is all on them.

The only problem there is that if you don't have factories to employ people you have even less of an economy then if you had allowed them. Often countries don't have the luxury of choosing if their economy will grow (or shrink).

But they can stand up for themselves and regulate the corporations. They are autonomous nations. They are not run by the corporations. If they take the power then eventually the corporations will have to play their form of ball. Corporations are not all powerful. The people have power as well.

This only works if you have unified world government, which we don't.
As such, what happens when a country raises the standards it affords to it's workers?

Companies shift their workforce to a country with less rules.

In other words, corporations exploit the fact that there are multiple countries with lax employment rules.
The countries fear imposing rules, because they know that if they do, most of their business will vanish, and go to another country (which they have no influence over).

Why do you think so much manufacturing went from places like America, the UK, (and Europe generally) in the first place?
If the rules in third world countries were as restrictive as they are in first world nations, the corporations would not have had any incentive to move their production at all...

 

[Alex_P]

This thread is the perfect illustration of why I hate libertarians.

It's not their choice of pet ideology.

It's the way they treat their pet ideology.

Specifically, it's the way they put their pet ideology above the real world.

In the real world, the rich tend to abuse the poor. This is really, really fucking obvious. Everywhere I go, it seems like libertarians would rather talk about their little free-market fantasy-land than the real world. And they make value judgements about the real world (like "the poor abuse the rich!") based on their little free-market fantasy-land.

In summary: jerks!

-- Alex

 

[Akai Shizuku]

Yup, because sitting in your mansion drinking champagne on your king size bed while children starve and die on the other side of the world is damn fine.

Unfortunately, I spent all my money on a king size bed and cheap champagne which I don't even like. So I don't have the funds to travel to the other side of the world and give those starving children a bit of bread.


Yes people are suffering needlessly. But what can I do? I am one man, not a bad guy. I help old ladies across the road, I have a comfortable life, let me enjoy it for Christ's sake. I bloody well earned it.

There are people who work a lot harder than you (there's always someone who works harder regardless of who you are) who earn a lot less.

Everyone can do something. It's not that hard. If we all work together, we can make the world a better place.

Oh I'm sorry, are you on your period?

Reported for trolling. Think before you post, especially if it's right after one of the Red Guard.

 

[Akai Shizuku]

This thread is the perfect illustration of why I hate libertarians.

It's not their choice of pet ideology.

It's the way they treat their pet ideology.

Specifically, it's the way they put their pet ideology above the real world.

In the real world, the rich tend to abuse the poor. This is really, really fucking obvious. Everywhere I go, it seems like libertarians would rather talk about their little free-market fantasy-land than the real world. And they make value judgements about the real world (like "the poor abuse the rich!") based on their little free-market fantasy-land.

In summary: jerks!

-- Alex

Couldn't agree with you more, although I think it would be beneficial to point out that libertarianism is a very broad range of philosophies that center around the maximization of personal freedom. The type of libertarianism you describe is known as individualist anarchism or anarcho-capitalism.

Anyway, I very much like your post there, and I think it's something that very much needed to be said.