Greedy Capitalism is in the past.

[new_trader]

I'm an ex-offender in the sense that I did once have a factory in a third-worldy type of place and employed a hundred odd locals, of whom I'd say 90 were outright poor. Capitalism allowed me to make quite a lot of money whilst my employees merely subsisted. Mea Culpa.

Ex- offender of what? Employing people? What sytem allowed you to accumulate enough wealth to own the factory in the first place? People don't get rich simply by employing poor people to work in factories.

To say "Capitalism likes poor people" makes no sense. Capitalism is simply a system where the means of production is in the hands of the private sector.

 

[cantagril]

Were those outright poor workers worse than outright poor before they started work in your factory?

Nope. Outright poor was the norm for circa 80% of the population. Very small middle class, say 10% with the remaining tranche being wealthy in a fairly obscene way.

 

[new_trader]

Capitalism succeeds when it makes more profit. The richer people are, the more stuff they want, the more they spend, the richer the producers and retailers and shippers and miners and truckers and builders and road builders.

Not entirely correct. Businesses go bankrupt under Capitalism and that is part of the reason why Capitalism is the best system. It ruthlessly reallocates societies scarce resources to those who make the most efficient use of them.

 

[cantagril]

Ex- offender of what? Employing people? What sytem allowed you to accumulate enough wealth to own the factory in the first place? People don't get rich simply by employing poor people to work in factories.
Ex-offender in knowingly exploiting the precarity of the workers to my personal gain without thought to their future. I would genuinely do things differently if I were to have my time again. And the system was of course Capitalism, as no other would have allowed me to behave as I did.
To say "Capitalism likes poor people" makes no sense. Capitalism is simply a system where the means of production is in the hands of the private sector.
Absolutely true. One can make money, or rather, MORE money, if one has only low wages to pay. It would not have been possible to run a similar operation in Europe and unthinkable in the UK.

The system is not in doubt. I am not a "believer" in Capitalism as such but it is the only system which is actually workable and culturally acceptable for the greater part of humanity. When the rich and powerful become too rich for the tastes of the poor then eventually something has to give. As I don't believe that the world is ever going to turn communist nor will there be a revolution in the classic sense then the only remaining options are regulation and taxation.

 

[tomorton]

Not entirely correct. Businesses go bankrupt under Capitalism and that is part of the reason why Capitalism is the best system. It ruthlessly reallocates societies scarce resources to those who make the most efficient use of them.

That's absolutely right too. And very important.

 

[new_trader]

@catagril: If you harbour some deep feelings of guilt or regret because of what you did in the past thats fine. But don't use Capitalism as a scapegoat. You employed people who, I guess, VOLUNTARILY(?) worked in your factory because it was obviously better than the alternative.

 

[tomorton]

I'm sure he was being ironic. Surely? Surely?

 

[new_trader]

Surely maybe...ok

 

[cantagril]

@catagril: If you harbour some deep feelings of guilt or regret because of what you did in the past thats fine. But don't use Capitalism as a scapegoat. You employed people who, I guess, VOLUNTARILY(?) worked in your factory because it was obviously better than the alternative.

Weeell, "deep" would be a definite exaggeration and no, I was not using Capitalism as a scapegoat but merely pointing out that the degree of exploitation that was possible for me to enjoy would not have existed under another system - nor, of course, in all likelihood would the factory.

As to the local workers finding that employment in my factory was better than the alternative i.e foreign owned against locally owned - again, absolutely true. Foreign owned factories tended to pay a little more ( and I really do mean a little) but such was the degree of poverty that those few percent guaranteed a steady stream of hopefuls at the gate. To put things in perspective, at that time, local pay rates were approximately 15 to 20% percent of UK and as Salary Mass (sorry, don't know the correct English expression) is by far the biggest expense in that kind of industry it made the difference between a profit and a loss. All the raw materials were sourced abroad, as was the all the equipment and the only local input was labour.

 

[cantagril]

I'm sure he was being ironic. Surely? Surely?

Irony, moi?

 

[tomorton]

Irony, moi?

Well there you are you see, irony just doesn't work on the internet.

Unless President Trump's doing it..........

 

[Signalcalc]

Weeell, "deep" would be a definite exaggeration and no, I was not using Capitalism as a scapegoat but merely pointing out that the degree of exploitation that was possible for me to enjoy would not have existed under another system - nor, of course, in all likelihood would the factory.

As to the local workers finding that employment in my factory was better than the alternative i.e foreign owned against locally owned - again, absolutely true. Foreign owned factories tended to pay a little more ( and I really do mean a little) but such was the degree of poverty that those few percent guaranteed a steady stream of hopefuls at the gate. To put things in perspective, at that time, local pay rates were approximately 15 to 20% percent of UK and as Salary Mass (sorry, don't know the correct English expression) is by far the biggest expense in that kind of industry it made the difference between a profit and a loss. All the raw materials were sourced abroad, as was the all the equipment and the only local input was labour.

B2B exploitation is always easier than B2W.

 

[J Livermore]

As to the local workers finding that employment in my factory was better than the alternative i.e foreign owned against locally owned - again, absolutely true. Foreign owned factories tended to pay a little more ( and I really do mean a little) but such was the degree of poverty that those few percent guaranteed a steady stream of hopefuls at the gate. To put things in perspective, at that time, local pay rates were approximately 15 to 20% percent of UK and as Salary Mass (sorry, don't know the correct English expression) is by far the biggest expense in that kind of industry it made the difference between a profit and a loss. All the raw materials were sourced abroad, as was the all the equipment and the only local input was labour.

cantagril,

I’m curious, what happened to the workers when you decided to leave their country? Did you sell the business to someone else or was it closed down?

Hope you don’t mind my asking.

 

[cantagril]

cantagril,

I’m curious, what happened to the workers when you decided to leave their country? Did you sell the business to someone else or was it closed down?

Hope you don’t mind my asking.

I did indeed sell the business. This was some 20 years ago so ancient history but AFAIK, the buyer (a local) had no idea how to deal with the UK customer base and went from direct export,to contracting for exporters, to sub-contracting, to closing down. I assume that one of the first things he tried to do was get more money out of the customers and pay even less money to the workers - for that was the culture in those parts. The end result was fairly predictable: he didn't make the millions he was expecting and the workforce didn't get paid for the last six months or so.

 

[new_trader]

Weeell, "deep" would be a definite exaggeration and no, I was not using Capitalism as a scapegoat but merely pointing out that the degree of exploitation that was possible for me to enjoy would not have existed under another system - nor, of course, in all likelihood would the factory.

As to the local workers finding that employment in my factory was better than the alternative i.e foreign owned against locally owned - again, absolutely true. Foreign owned factories tended to pay a little more ( and I really do mean a little) but such was the degree of poverty that those few percent guaranteed a steady stream of hopefuls at the gate. To put things in perspective, at that time, local pay rates were approximately 15 to 20% percent of UK and as Salary Mass (sorry, don't know the correct English expression) is by far the biggest expense in that kind of industry it made the difference between a profit and a loss. All the raw materials were sourced abroad, as was the all the equipment and the only local input was labour.

Yes, you have perfectly described a situation where the anti-capitalists contradict themselves!

The solution to the problem of low wages and exploitation is…yes, you guessed it - AUTOMATION.

The free market (Capitalism) solves the problem of labour cost with automation. This is the only way consumers of a product (who outnumber workers involved in that product) get to enjoy the product at an affordable price.

However the ant-capitalists don’t like machines replacing humans working in factories, but they also don’t like humans working in factories for low wages. These very same anti-capitalists ignore how the productivity of machines raises the standard of living for everyone. They would rather see 500 people working on a farm than to have a single combine harvester producing enough food to feed many people at a very low cost.

Consider all the people employed in the manufacture and delivery of a physical letter. But I’m sure the anti-capitalists would still rather send an e-mail from the comfort of their home than writing a letter, putting it in an envelope, stamping it, then going out in the cold and rain to post it. Hypocrites much?

N.B: This reply may or may not have been ironic.

 

[Pat494]

When AI really gets going in a few years time and unemployment is about 30% we may well get a resurgence of Luddism. Capitalism doesn't recognise the suffering of the many just the usual few that are hogging most of the wealth. The result is violent revolution as in France and Russia. Socialism at least pretends to care. The downside of Socialism is that resources are wasted so much the whole country's economy collapses. Therefore the answer would it seems to me to lie in the middle somewhere as in Western Democracies.

 

[Pat494]

The reasons the Soviet Empire collapsed was in my view the hate they had for others. They never had real Socialism BUT tried to compete in weapons and cold war hate politics. Their flagrant use of death camps called gulags were the product of vile politicians like Stalin who had absolute power etc. inside Russia.

 

[tomorton]

The reasons the Soviet Empire collapsed was in my view the hate they had for others. They never had real Socialism BUT tried to compete in weapons and cold war hate politics. Their flagrant use of death camps called gulags were the product of vile politicians like Stalin who had absolute power etc. inside Russia.

The usual leftist apologism - it wasn't true socialism, and it was just a few greedy politicians pretending to be socialists, and if they'd had a real socialist at the top everything would have been alright. And next time it will be different and it will be better. And Stalin's dead so it could never happen again. And anyway it couldn't happen here. And on and on........

 

[Pat494]

The question is - Can a modern country have true Socialism without wrecking the country's economy. If Corbyn gets in we may have fewer rotten landlords etc. but at what cost ?
However when machines take over, true capitalism will no doubt dispose of surplus humans.

 

[cantagril]

Yes, you have perfectly described a situation where the anti-capitalists contradict themselves!

The solution to the problem of low wages and exploitation is…yes, you guessed it - AUTOMATION.

The free market (Capitalism) solves the problem of labour cost with automation. This is the only way consumers of a product (who outnumber workers involved in that product) get to enjoy the product at an affordable price.

However the ant-capitalists don’t like machines replacing humans working in factories, but they also don’t like humans working in factories for low wages. These very same anti-capitalists ignore how the productivity of machines raises the standard of living for everyone. They would rather see 500 people working on a farm than to have a single combine harvester producing enough food to feed many people at a very low cost.

Consider all the people employed in the manufacture and delivery of a physical letter. But I’m sure the anti-capitalists would still rather send an e-mail from the comfort of their home than writing a letter, putting it in an envelope, stamping it, then going out in the cold and rain to post it. Hypocrites much?

N.B: This reply may or may not have been ironic.

I think that I detect a hint of sarcasm in your irony

In the interests of disclosure, before I exploited the poor of North Africa I tried doing similar things in the UK. Unfortunately, the UK poor wanted to get paid more and work less, so my solution was ( fairly naturally) to optimise production systems and eliminate the need for wretched employees wherever possible. Though I say it myself, I was quite good at that and therefore it was quite ironic that a few years later I found myself in an industry where the norm was the exact opposite....btw, am not being sarcastic.

Whilst I completely follow your logic, ultimately (or at least at some time in the not too distant future) there will be a need to achieve a more or less satisfactory balance between a possible Capitalistic world where the few are vastly privileged and the many are grindingly poor without hope of improving their condition (by earning a living, for example) and a Socialist society where nobody has to work but still gets paid because most things are done by machines and the populace controlled to suit .....as somebody we all know and love said just a few posts ago.

Society is already facing at least three really difficult problems - the first is simply over-population, with the second and third respectively being the dwindling of resources and the decreasing opportunities for employment/income. Actually, it's not that the problems are difficult but I'm certain that the solutions will be...and because I've forgotten to needle Sig this morning, we mustn't leave out Climate Change.