Capitalism is not perfect; but it's by far the best system we've got (short of a post-materialistic society, eg the Culture). The problem is crony capitalism, which picks winners and losers not by merit by by connections.

"is not perfect; but it's by far the best system we've got"

Remagen, the same argument as yours could have been made during feudalistic Europe. After all, nice landholding warlords are better than irresponsible pillaging ones, right? :)

Defenders of capitalism should realize that this is not a good argument by itself.

Just saying. :)

@FS, you wrote "The capitalist may choose to abuse, eliminate, or otherwise harm the worker with few negative consequences."

"abuse" implies some form of criminal violence on the person
"eliminate" seems to be an 'evil genius' euphemism for murder
"otherwise harm the worker" seems to imply the same as "abuse"

It is not anti-capitalist to have laws against murder, nor particularly capitalist to commit it.

Anyway, poor treatment of workers is impossible to keep up for so very long. It puts you at a huge competitive disadvantage to have workers who hate you to the extent that "abuse" would suggest.

The idea that somehow capitalism makes committing violent crime possible to get away with is rather laughable... but then again you may consider 'poor working conditions' or the like to be abuse... I hope not?

"Remagen, the same argument as yours could have been made during feudalistic Europe. After all, nice landholding warlords are better than irresponsible pillaging ones, right? :)

Defenders of capitalism should realize that this is not a good argument by itself.

Just saying. :)"

Massive straw man here. feudalist economics was hardly a recognised field. I am of the belief that capitalism is a profoundly moral system in essence, as well as practically successful.

Anyway, that discussion is beside the point of the thread.

abuse - schedule at poor times, push around, lower pay, demote, force to work long hours with no extra pay
eliminate - fire, let go of, relieve of duty

@Tantris - Capitalism, as it is implemented in the US, does not allow for your "abuses" beyond the potential scheduling conflicts and the "pushing around". Lowering pay and demotions must be backed with legally sound reasoning or the person can sue for the lost wages. No one can be forced to work long hours unless they knew the job required those hours going into it and signed an agreement accepting that condition of employment (like firemen, policemen, hospital workers, etc) and it is rare that these people complain ro consider themsleves abused because they chose these professions. Employees at your local Walmart who bitch about a double shift usually do so because they A) didn't understand that they can say no without fear of reprisal and no redress should the reprisal come about or B) wanted the extra pay afforded by the long hours, but just like to bitch about it instead of getting off their asses and finding a better job.

Your "eliminate" definition also requires the employer to meet certain legal standards or face reprisal themselves through legal redress.

Scheduling conflicts happen, but most employeers try to make up for it to their employees as they want a reasonably stable and satisfied work force. As far as being "pushed around"... An employee at the bottom of the ladder needs to take orders and do them with due dilligence just as the lowliest private does from his squad leader or platoon leader or any one of dozens of people above him. It's the nature of the pecking order. Don't like it? Find a new job or work hard and work your way up the corporate ladder to team leader where you can pass some of that bossing back down to your employees.

@Draugnar:
Yes, but the free market people want to eliminate those protections, and let the free market reign! And they say that the employer doesn't have power over the employee.

Then say completely free market, not capitalism in general as a market with government oversite is still cpaitalism, it just isn't completely free trade.

"abuse - schedule at poor times, push around, lower pay, demote, force to work long hours with no extra pay"

"push around" does that mean, "tell what work to do" plus "be obnoxious". The former is to be expected, the later is fairly trivial, and also puts the employer at a competitive disadvantage.

"lower pay" are you suggesting that pay shouldn't ever be allowed to go down?

"demote" should every employee be in a position where he can never be demoted, then?

"force to work long hours with no extra pay"- something that employers frequently have to do, too. If the employee doesn't want it, he can say that he isn't going to. But then he wouldn't be worth employing.

"fire, let go of, relieve of duty" So? See "demote"


Work can be hard... but that isn't abuse, or an argument against capitalism.

Ultimately, the only power the employer has over the employee is the ability to stop paying him, and it's his money that he'd stop paying him with.

What about black balling? You don't think taking away someones livlihood is enough?

Haha, obiwan's posts made me laugh.

"What about black balling?"

Elaborate?

"You don't think taking away someones livlihood is enough?"

When someone is being employed, it should not be considered something that they "own". Employment must be continually justified, and if it ceases to be a sensible use of the person's time, then it is only right that the employment should end.

Just a couple of things, I think there is an inherent bias in our view of employer-employee relationships because the majority of us, by dint of probability, are employees and not employers and can much more easily empathize with the plight of the employee, but not so much with the employer. I would think that starting your own business, or even being self employed might give you an entirely different perspective on the employer-employee relationship.

I see a lot of distinctions being drawn between merit and skill vs. connections. I would argue that creating and maintaing good connections is definitely a skill. As someone who personally has an abominable memory for names and faces, I find myself at quite a disadvantage in this domain. Besides, there is no system of economy that will ever do away with connections since it stems from our very nature to make friends with people around us and our propensity to give preferential treatment to our friends.

@Draugnar: I meant that unions would have no need to form in my system. There's no restriction against them, I just do not see the need.

@TGM:
Black balling is what it is called when a group of people or businesses get together and deny someone access/employment. So, the boss says...if you don't work overtime with no extra pay or you leave, I will make sure you never get another job. Now, depending on the size of the group, that could be a very real threat. At least for a town, this isn't actually out of the known now.

I am all for a regulated free market. There needs to be a check on business abuses. Collusion, cartels, monopolies(put off my counter post on the only government thing for now, till I have more time), and that isn't the problems between employees and employers, which I think are the lesser ones. Not for unions either, because that kind of allows of employee abuses. We have been doing too little regulation, in my opinion.

Consider:
A group of manufacturers make a deal to artificially inflate the price of a widget. Now, a new company wants to come in and make widgets, and all the current group make a deal to sell them for a period of time below cost, then when the new one goes away(maybe bought by one of them), they charge above what they previously charged and threaten anyone thinking of entering with the history. It is even better if those companies have other means of support. These types of things are illegal under current law. Because it works.

Price fixing is illegal yet Big Oil and Big Dairy do it all the time. Why do we the people allow this? Seriously, why?

@Draugnar:
And, what the heck is with the farm subsidies, and sugar tariffs, ugh.

TGM - what is it that is better than capitalism?

@Thucy:
TGM is a big communist guy...he hates unregulated governments especially.
(ok, kind of the opposite. he was just being tricky with the beginning of the thread.)

@pastoralan:

Not at all. My argument is not predicated upon the idea our success or capacity for success is innate; on the contrary, I am staunchly set against the idea.

As I said, we BEGIN EQUAL and END DIFFERENTLY.

It is not innate, success and ability and all that is valuable, but rather AQUIRED, and through hard work.

@Jamiet99uk:

I did not mean we are all born SOCIALLY equal, for, as you said, we have undeniable and inescapable differences in our starting positions there. But we are born and created equal when it comes to our being base and human; you as a newborn are no more talented, no more worthy, no better than I or anyone else. Your genes may contribute to success, but they still require the correct happenstances for this to occur; Mozart born in 5000 B.C., even if his success was largely inherent (and that is debatable in and of itself, but suppose it to be true just for this) would not be the great musician he was and is now immortalized as, in an age when his “gifts” are not of any use. Your family status may give you a social leg up, but you must capitalize on this to go anywhere with it; a prince may be richer and have a greater start than a pauper, but if he lazes about and does nothing, and that pauper applies himself and thinks and becomes a Socrates, while the prince grows physically fat and yet mentally frail and withers away under the scrutiny of time, while Socrates remains strong for millennia on, then we see that the starting point is not the all-deciding point.
We are BORN equal, and DIE unequal…due to the actions we take and knowledge and abilities we acquire and the impact we have in our life.

And laugh if you will, Chrispminis--but while you do, try it yourself, why don't you, to think and to try.

Easy to laugh and criticize, harder to actually DO...there is something to be praised even in a batter's swinging and missing to strikeout, but no such praise for the over-fat fans who heckle...and have never even swung a bat themselves.

I'm not daying don't criticize, I welcome it.

But if you're going to laugh at my swing, please--demonstrate YOUR prowess with the bat as well, otherwise...

"Remagen, the same argument as yours could have been made during feudalistic Europe. After all, nice landholding warlords are better than irresponsible pillaging ones, right? :)"

Actually feudalism had its place in it's day. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like Togo back in time and try to introduce our modern concepts if democracy. I suspect it would fail.

@strategos: I agree that capitalism works best, when the capitalist society includes some provisions to make sure that large portions of the population can get access to the opportunities that make capitalism work. That's the model followed by most capitalist countries. In the US, however, we've been moving toward a model that denies most people access to the tools they need to achieve success--things like security and education. As a result, we're falling behind other capitalist countries that American right-wingers like to call socialist.

Capitalism can never be a perfect system because in the end someone HAS to be screwed over. It is how it works. For someone to make money someone has to loose money. Screw money, we have the ability to feed and house the world. But there are four types of people. Rich people who benefit from capitalism. The not so rich fools who support it, the liberal secularists against it, and Christians.

@The Prussian: I'm a combination Christian and Liberal secularist.

"Capitalism can never be a perfect system because in the end someone HAS to be screwed over. It is how it works. For someone to make money someone has to loose money. Screw money, we have the ability to feed and house the world. But there are four types of people. Rich people who benefit from capitalism. The not so rich fools who support it, the liberal secularists against it, and Christians."


Yes, when I repair a bike for someone, and they pay me for it (say), I've really screwed them over.

This is the oldest economic fallacy in the book.

“Black balling is what it is called when a group of people or businesses get together and deny someone access/employment. So, the boss says...if you don't work overtime with no extra pay or you leave, I will make sure you never get another job. Now, depending on the size of the group, that could be a very real threat. At least for a town, this isn't actually out of the known now.

I am all for a regulated free market. There needs to be a check on business abuses. Collusion, cartels, monopolies(put off my counter post on the only government thing for now, till I have more time), and that isn't the problems between employees and employers, which I think are the lesser ones. Not for unions either, because that kind of allows of employee abuses. We have been doing too little regulation, in my opinion.

Consider:
A group of manufacturers make a deal to artificially inflate the price of a widget. Now, a new company wants to come in and make widgets, and all the current group make a deal to sell them for a period of time below cost, then when the new one goes away(maybe bought by one of them), they charge above what they previously charged and threaten anyone thinking of entering with the history. It is even better if those companies have other means of support. These types of things are illegal under current law. Because it works.”

Okay, all of that is basically talking about cartels and monopolies. Sure, they are market failures, but your analysis failed to consider that most important aspect: government failure, as a comparison point. Sure, there is this issue with the market, but there are even greater issues with government action, because everyone is just as selfish in government.

Companies do far better at driving out competition by lobbying for laws that place huge costs at the door of the start-up company than by lowering prices in the face of any competition. Think about it- if that worked, surely every new product would see a stable monopoly form, since it is even easier to do what you describe as done by cartels.

Furthermore, cartels are inherently unstable. If anyone makes an innovation in their product, they will surely not share it with the rest of the cartel, but rather release it and out-compete their rivals. If the companies engage in marketing campaigns, that is a form of competition, etc. etc. etc. Cartels, when they occur, tend to be short-lived.

Finally, I would just point out that almost every monopoly, and many cartels are directly supported by government. The very worst cartel in the world is OPEC, and that is by governments, not businessmen. I repeat my challenge for you to list 5 monopolies that were not supported by a government

"And laugh if you will, Chrispminis--but while you do, try it yourself, why don't you, to think and to try."

You've really attacked the wrong person here. I'm willing to guess that Chrispminis found your accepting my post on face value as amusing.

And your angry response totally disregards the fact that Chrispminis has more than adequately proved that he can think to a very high level:

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/profile.php?detail=replies&userID=256

"And laugh if you will, Chrispminis--but while you do, try it yourself, why don't you, to think and to try."

LOL! I was laughing at the fact that you didn't catch the tone of the OP and took it literally, not at the actual content of your posts. Not a criticism, just hilarious. =P

Thanks for the support TGM. =D