The hidden ugliness of Capitalism

Let's see let's break down your whining.

And why is that, because it's become so expensive to manufacture in the US that it's cheaper to produce it overseas and ship it. And why is it so expensive, red tape, taxes, high cost of living, and labor unions.

Yup, the beginning of the problem, workers weren't "guaranteed the right to a living wage and decent working conditions." The were allowed to legally blackmail businesses with the backing of the government.

Yup, what did you expect the consequence of making it so hard to employ and manufacture in the US would be?

We exported blue collar jobs, and bought dependence on other nations and a trade deficit.

McDonalds, well yeah, that's the result of making employees so expensive, why deal with teenagers when for the same money you can hire adults.

Minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage.

Sure there is, government and it's cousin unions.

I think your confused, ruling class, you mean politicians?

Don't think your getting paid enough, quit, you're not a slave.

And they are BOOMING like we did back then.

OK I'll play and replace it with _____________________________?

BTW nobody makes you live in a "capitalist" country, your more then welcome to leave.

 

That's like saying evolution is "on extremely shaky ground as a theory" just cause it's always explained and worked in the past.

"More wealth to be concentrated in the hands of the fewer and fewer" are you purposefully dense? Yeah it's not like there were ever emperors or kings, back then it was so much better.

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They've been given many entire countries, you're welcome to go see how that's working out.

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'Democracy' isn't in the Constitution either.

 

OK I'll take the United States(America is a continent not a country) and you take Venezuela. I'll enjoy capitalism and toilet paper, you can enjoy your communism and well your hand I guess.

 

No it's not, true capitalism is laissez faire and does just fine on it's own without government. Crony capitalism is an abomination, a cancer caused by government that must be cut away.

 

Here I actually agree, communism as defined by Marx and Engels has never truly been tried, that is until now. The US today is what Marx and Engels strived for. A democratic capitalist country that peacefully transitions to communism. All previous forms have been more of a fascist violent communism.

 

True, without capitalism the US wouldn't be worth traveling to.

LOL, wow you know those four numbers on your phone that say 2015 right now? That is the year, the lower the number the earlier it happened. So something that happened in 1775 like the American Revolution happened before something that happened in 1789 like the French Revolution.

 

I feel like you didn't actually understand my post, because this is exactly what I pointed out. However, I pointed out that the basic rights of workers should still be protected, and my overall point was that these protections are meaningless unless capitalism is destroyed entirely.

Blackmail is far kinder than those bourgeois scum could have gotten.

You do realize you're restating the main idea of my post, right?

Employees ought to be expensive. The bourgeoisie have no right to profit off of other people's labour.

When minimum wage was first established, it was supposed to be enough for a single working father to provide for a family.

The bourgeois state is the tool of the bourgeois class.

No, I don't. I mean the bourgeoisie.

Right, my bills are just going to pay themselves if I lift myself up by enough bootstraps and have enough gumption and determination.

I'm sure that the chinese workers killing themselves by throwing themselves from the rooftops of their workplaces are greatly comforted by that knowledge.

I'm a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, take a guess.

My options are the revisionist capitalist restorationist PRC or Cuba, which is slowly falling to revisionism. Neither is terribly appealing. I'd rather work towards changing things here.

We need to build a new socialism for a new century.

 

I hear that a lot but I don't buy it, that hasn't been the history of tariffs. Most are reasonable and just added to the cost of trade. I think an import tariff would be good for us. Something small and fair not nit picking countries or products, one small rate just enough to keep importing a little more expensive to make keeping manufacturing local cost effective. IMO the only country we should have completely free trade with is Canada.

 

WOW, just WOW, reading that I'm having flashbacks to the 70s. I can almost smell the pot and see you lecturing to anyone who will listen while handing out pamphlets on the sidewalk. I think you turned on, tuned in, dropped out, and never came back.

 

Now THAT is a come back, I'm completely surprised that that came out of such a clearly burnt out mind.

 

So then are you typing your replies from Cuba?

 

If I could afford pot and pamphlets, my saturday evening would be a lot more interesting.

Also, there's this

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Are you going through every post I've made on this thread and trying to come up with a snarky remark for each one?

That's nice.

 

Well, except it was nearly impossible for anyone to obtain a castle and a grant of land from the King. While it is relatively easy for anyone to gain ownership in the means of production.

 

??? There is no contradiction between welfare and capitalism. AND even if there was no minimum wage, no company could survive around here without paying close to the same amount or more.

 

The only capitalism that has ever existed is crony. People have always used the gov't to get them special breaks.
There is no such thing as the text book capitalism. Greedy people will find a way to game it to themselves.

 

If it is so easy to gain ownership of land then why is 95% of privately owned land in the U.S. owned by just 3% of the population?

Sounds suspiciously like feudalism to me.

 

Who cares about the minimum wage. If you raise the minimum wage so that the poor can earn more money, then the landlords will just see that their tenants have more money and will just increase their rent demands. The more money we give the poor, or the more that the poor earn through hard productive work, the richer the landlords become … that is capitalism in a nutshell. Go anywhere in the country and you will see that anywhere the poor earn more money their landlords just demand more rent.

 

Uhm no.

So you milk your cow and sell me some milk, is that not pure capitalism?

 

OMG, really?

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried, hmmm, maybe you did!

 

I haven't bought milk from you, so no, it is not.
Most buy milk from a supermarket. Milk prices are highly regulated.
And in the dairy state, Wisconsin, it is illegal for a farmer to sell milk directly to a customer. Go figure.

 

But those are complaints about government not capitalism.

 

The point I am making is gov't will always be involved. Tax breaks, incentives, regulations.
Most of the time at the asking of someone in an industry. Many times to keep the little guy competition at bay.
There can never be true capitalism when humans run the show. Someone is always looking for an advantage.

 

But your answer is more government?

 

I said ownership in the means of production. In Feudal times land was the only means of production. In the modern world the means of production take many forms. And so few own so much land because nobody wants to farm anymore.

 

"Tax breaks, incentives, regulations" don't contradict capitalism.