davywavy | Nike Mayfly

The 'poor people only earning a dollar' statistic is also completely useless and should never be used a justification. It tells you absolutly nothing about their state of employment, starvation or wellbeing. All it tells you is they couldn't buy much if they lived in the US, which they don't.
What you actually need to know is what standard of living $1 gives them comparative to the living cost in their own country. Without that there is no way to tell that $1 dollar isn't actually pays all their rent, bills and food with a bit left over for DVD's.
Now as it happens the standards of living in Vietnam and great and Nike is very likely to not actually be paying enough but that $1 dollar doesn't actually tell you that.

NOTE - friend of friend browsing - I am actually a nice person really when not ranting about pet wind ups ;-)

I'm as guilty as anyone of getting their facts wrong, so I'll put my hand up to it when I do. Here, I made the mistake of quoting the person in the newspaper correspondence (the $100/$1 disparity) without sourcing my quote or even the fact that the were hopelessly wrong. That's my error, and I apologise. you can read a more accurate assessment of the situation here and a breif summation of the effects of the vietnamese economy here if you're actually interested in the true economics of the case.

Sorry, I meant here.

That's okay, i've seen the costings for Vietnam before anyway. I did used to have the url for a wonderful site with comparative costs but I seem to have lost it. I just despair when something like that is used and all the Nike economists have to do to take the wind out of the whole opposition argument is point out how silly that one (not really a) statistic is.

Ah, I see you're a chum of Inskauldrak; he & I often have cheery debates on political economy & realities, and I think he hopes one day to win one :)

Poor

inskuldrak, I'm beginning to think it may be necessary to set one up for him to win ;-)

He's lovely, but I can't help but remember the look on his face when he told me he'd shaken hands with Blair and I congratulated him for meeting ^& greeting a true Thatcherite...

It was the champagne that did it, anything else and it might have been less conservative ;-)
Decent Bitter maybe.

How about a spelling competition ; P

this has been noted... comrade ; )

I'll win a spelling competition, just not necessarily a typing competition... ;-)

this has been noted... comrade ; )

(Phase One of plan in place..)

I've always been ambivalent about how ethical it is to put sanctions on a country - it seems to me that it would only ever harm the actual people of the country rather than persuade a corrupt government to change its ways.

Perfectly true; I didn't notice Saddam & his buddies getting any thinner during the 10-year long iraqi sanctions.

During my travels in Burma in 2000 - I saw the wretched and gripping poverty that sanctions had inflicted on the people of Burma broadly. In particular, there was a desperate commerce in Rangoon (profit was second to survival).

Yet, at the same time, given the longevity of these sanctions, the regime really was hurting, and the complete reliance on the military (esp. the line soldier) to subjugate the people and maintain control was weaking, on at least two fronts:

1. AIDS - the policy of the junta is to discharge any soldier found to have AIDS. Theoretically this is a deterrent, but in reality this is producing a break in staffing - as well as spreading infection back in the rural villages when these soldiers return.

2. The line soldiers are paid in kyats, which they have little faith in - exemplifed by a run on the dollar in the black market while I was there - largely from soldiers exchanging their worthless kyats for seen-to-be-valuable dollars.

Granted, this has had little impact on the officers or the ruling elite directly, but the very structure of their power is crumbling, badly. The result: the regime's days are numbered, and their too stupid to realise it.

I also have to acknowledge some noticable regional difference, and the crucial role of Burma's neighbours in this affair. ASEAN has been a major boon for the survival of the junta, especially through pipeline construction to Thailand (UNOCAL). Also through the growth of traditional jewelry links to points beyond - such as the newly constructed Mandalay international airport with direct flights to Hong Kong. Likewise, the junta has received considerable support from the PRC, with entire factories rebuilt in northern Burma, and a massive 12-lane border station for a 2-4 lane road to Yunnan province.

Lastly, there's a strong suspicion of opium money making its way into junta coffers. Well illustrated by the incredible number of international banks with offices in Mandalay.

So, the economic sanctions on Burma are incomplete, but they are far from useless.

I think in the long term evidence has been seen that sanctions can have an effect on the ruling body of a country. My question is more whether it is the best way of handling a situation and over the period of time it takes for an effect to be seen, whether the cost is really worth it.
The cost in human suffering and deaths is really quite noticeable and a weaker population is a side-effect which will be seen much faster than any effect on the hold of the ruling regime.

Another problem is also the incompleteness of the sanctions. Even if in the long term incomplete sanctions destabilise a regime they also set up black market powers and mafia (for want of a better term) which make it very difficult for a country to recover after regime change and the lifting of sanctions.

whether the cost is really worth it.

Fair point. The wider public will always suffer first and longest before the military does - that has *always* been true.

Still, in an age when there is a general reluctance to invade one's neighbours, especially on universalist principles rather than realpolitik - what other option is there? Externally-supported Coup d'etats are messy, and may only serve to introduce a cycle of instability (Iran, for example).

This perception still rules, even after the US's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - and could well be reinforced by those as-yet-unfinished experiences.

As for your black markets and mafia comments - that is less certain a problem post-political change. Most regimes are highly dependent on corruption, and in Burma's case, corruption has certainly infused itself everywhere. Not unlike the Soviet Union in that regard. Still, with that political change, the black marketeers became capitalists, some became oligarchs, and now - under public pressure, the might of the oligarchs is being limited. The challenge is whether the black marketeers can be legitimized, brought back into the clear market business, and then limit their political influence to that of any other business. A messy proposition to be sure, and there are countless examples of corrupt tinpot dictatorships leading to corrupt degenerate economies after 'liberation' ... but the healing can work.

You know, in a lot of ways, black markets are excellent vehicles for recovery...there are existing distribution networks, pricing communications, and perhaps even an alternate trusted currency. They are often the only genuine markets around. The challenge is to leash them as vehicles of recovery, rather than engines of further degeneration, as we're seeing with the scavenging and looting in Iraq.

The crucial question is whether '$1' is a fair exchange for services rendered in manufacture, especially in light of the much higher markup paid by the end consumer ... and with little to none of the traditional 'middle man' excuse.

Where there is a communist/socialist dimension is how this interacts with global labour, and how '$1' labour undercuts and damages labour in the consuming market. It may be old hat, but it is fundamentally in every labourer's best interest to have an international accord on labour pricing. Globalised manufacturing and markets needs globalised labour rules. Precisely one of the points made my some of the unions that participated in the so-called 'anti-globalisation' movement.

Also, incidentally, from an environmental point of view - even with recycling, the energy cost of such a recycling regime (collection, transit, reprocessing, etc.) - especially for such a crap shoe, is massive. Moreover, I wonder (mainly out of ignorance, I admit) whether Nike is using Vietnam for an environmental shelter, as much as a labour cost shelter.

A high performance shoe for a niche market of high-end athletes is one thing, mass marketing another.

'Worth' is a highly debatable term; something is 'worth' according to the value an individual puts upon it (i.e. I wouldn't put a value of '$100' on a shoe that'll fall to bits in a week no matter how good it is, but others would). The value of fully free marketeering in this sort of situation is that labour transfers to the places where it has the lowest perceived worth on the part of the labourer - i.e. those places where the money is needed most.
If it were not for plainly unreasonable protectionism of markets to support local economies (the US steel industry is a Prime exemplar) we'd see a greater spread of wealth to the places that need it most; diffusion would be a good analogy.
This is slowly coming, I think. Roll on free markets.

"... and I think he hopes one day to win one :)"

interesting comrade Wade, very interesting...

still, I think Mr Applez makes some good points. Indeed your points are also valid - I may "hope to win one" but even I know to take account of exchange rates etc.

Also, globalised free trade is actually something that fairly well fits into the marxist framework as a necessary precondition to world revolution, as opposed to the Marxist-Leninist and Stalinist views on Socialism In One Country

The quality of the 'worth' placed on labour or product is highly dependent on information. As the current coffee pricing crisis has illustrated, the Vietnamese are probably some of the most ignorant marketers around.

That is why measures such as labour accords, environmental rules, and manufacturing standards act as important educational instruments for those who want to participate in the market - assuming there is a universal valuation of the public good.

The funny thing about globalisation is that cooperative competition is now required, not mere individualist competition. Too many interests are at stake, and are well too interwoven.

Vietnam entered the global coffee market in a BIG way, with serious volume and decent quality. Meanwhile, the global demand for coffee has been more or less flat (that's averaging out the Starbucks spike with lost mom & pops, and problems getting new populations to adopt coffee habits). At the same time, coffee is a crucial commodity for all manner of LDCs for hard cash infusions.

The result of Vietnam's entrance into coffee has been a bottoming out of prices, they are the lowest they've ever been. The lowest quality beans are barely marketable as pig feed, and the highest quality beans are very very low priced. Again, this is in direct opposition to the high-priced retailed coffee in the likes of Starbucks.

Since a lot of the global producers of coffee do not have a cashcrop alternative, they have either stuck on, accepting the fewer hard currency infusions they can get for their product, or selling out and moving to the city ... which has been underway in much of Latin America, for example. (I suspect places like Kenya are in a similar boat).

Overall, whilst this might give Vietnam a greater market share initially, since there is little growth in the market overall, there's little to gain from it - especially as some global competitors will remain large figures in the market, irrespective of Vietnam's production. That's why I call them ignorant to have gone into coffee in such a big way.

Some of the efforts underway to fix parts of this: the niche 'organic shade grown fair trade' coffees - which has been an education for some producers, and a crucial lifeline.

Also, the likes of Starbucks trying very hard to expand coffee habits globally, beyond the visiting tourist who wants their familiar 'frapuccino.'

A very difficult situation.

I'm not sure whether you should be available through the NHS (for services to physical fitness; the amount you get people jumping up & down in impotent frustration must easily be as good as a 5 mile run), or whether you should come with health warnings (due to the increases in blood pressure you cause) :p

Lets' face it; the way I get 'em hopping up & down it's probably the only exercise most people get of a day.
Strikes me that socialism is just a dandy excuse not to have a work ethic (Statement: "I choose not to engage in the capitalist system"/ subtext: "I'm lazy and I want other people to do the work and give me stuff for free")

Oi!

I'm working as part of the slave-machine as we speak. Yes, I believe that everyone should contribute to their community, just as their community should contribute to them. I also don't think that the only way to contribute is through the (largely artificial) roles created by the capital-driven labour market.

My latest read is "Globalisation and it's discontents" by Joseph Stiglitz. It's quite interesting, tho you can tell he has an ax to grind...

So, if $1 is so great, surely something like US minimum wage would be EVEN BETTER.

G

Note the edit at the bottom; it wasn't me citing $1, it was the moron who wrote the letter doing so in full ignorance of the actual amounts.

Read the mail before commenting next time, whuh?

Sorry, the point remains valid.

They're paid a pittance in our terms for the work and it will still only get them a very basic standard of living.

How much better if they were paid what we consider a reasonable wage?

See?

G

Well, that's where the debate lies.

There are considerable costs involved in relocating any manufacturing industry from a high-product-demand area to a low-product-demand area. These costs entail things like setup, essential staff transfer, logistical operations in shifting components to factory and comlete product back to market and so on, and these costs are offset by the savings in labour costs.
So, Nike, as the current example, loses out by shipping its product from point of production in Vietnam to the markets in the USA and the EU, but maintains economies in labour costs in relative terms.

Now, if they were required to pay US minimum wage, there would be no benefit to relocation; there's plenty of willing wetback labour in Southern California and Texas, and so it would become cheaper to retain monufacture close to market as the saving in this case would be in logistics and shipping and not in staffing.

Like it or not, they're businesses, and their business is making money. If you insist on them paying US wages in the third world, then there is no reason for them to set up shop there as this would result in it becoming more profitable to retain the manufacturing base in the EU and US.

This would be a bad thing; it would contribute to the continued economic isolation of the West from the devloping world. As has been demonstrated in the past in places like Taiwan & South Korea, an influx of foreign investment capital has lead to a richer, better educated, freer society within two generations of the investment starting to arrive. This process is now shifting, as investment capital is moving to ASEAN and India (e.g. British call centres).

Making it uneconomic to move to places of lowered production costs would stop this process and result in investment being focussed inward rather than outward.

I dunno about you, but were I a Vietnamese peasant, I'd rather the fancy foreigners paid me five times the annual average national wage and improved my children's education and prospects as a result than your proposed alternative, which is the fancy foreigners kept all that money to themselves as politically correct posturing prevented them from aiding in the long-term economic development of my country.

Of course, on top of all of this, there is a strong argument that paying disproportionately weighted wages results in rapid inflation; this in turn leads to misery (see Argentina, Zimbabwe as current examples). However, I don't think that your grasp of relevant economics is sufficiently developed to make it worth my while explaining that one to you.

There's a strong historical precedent for external investment in cheap labour resulting in rapid economic growth, developments in education and more progressive government (look at what is currently going on in Shanghai). I look forward to the Vietnamese communists progressively loosening their grasp over the coming two decades as their people realise the benefits of economic freedom.
That is; if they're allowed to, and investment isn't cut off at source to satisfy some plump, well-fed western consciences.

I think the controversy over NIKE Vietnam came from this report (http://www.saigon.com/~nike/reports/report1.html) in 1997 which highlighted abuse of workers. I don't have any info on what measures may have been taken to improve the situation - though NIKE's response (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/259426.stm) of 1999 suggests they weren't prepared to admit there was a problem in the first place.

Of course, $1 a shoe (or whatever) neatly ignores their working conditions in favour of monetary rewards.

A schoolboy capitalist error. $1 a shoe's all very well, but if women are being forced to work until they're about to give birth and are sacked for taking the day off to drop the damn sprog then you have to question exactly how much compensation $1 a shoe is -- being unable to take any time off work to receive healthcare for injuries sustained at work also seems rather inhumane.

Wouldn't catch a proper Commie state letting that happen. And I don't two-face my arguments -- there are no proper Communist governments in existence and I don't believe there ever really has been.

I refer you to my answer to Grim, above, regarding the economic realities of the case.

And the old 'no real communist state' argument is old hat, and unconvincing. Communist states have opften been tried with all good intentions and quickly degenerated into forceing people to change their behaviour at the point of a gun. My argument is that this is because Communist forms of government are inimicable to humanity and the only way they will work is through force. And, until you show me an example that demonstrates the untruth of this, I shall continue to believe it.

My argument against your anti-Communism stance is this: Communism as originally conceived arrived following a period of capitalism and a period of socialism. There's varying degrees of belief about the necessity of a revolution, whether with or without organic intellectuals. As none of the governments you're referring to have, as far as I am aware, undergone this "maturation" process, it's like telling a toddler Einstein to shut up about this relativity nonsense.

Or, in capitalist terms, "Schtop! This revolution isn't ready yet!"

As for your reply to Grim, I see once again the basic premises of our beliefs differing, and thus both our arguments remain valid but incompatible; your concern seems to be, from what you say, the welfare of businesses. You believe they drive the economy (despite this surely being an aggregation of literally billions of examples of human interaction every day) and are therefore worthwhile. You think that what people want or need is to work for their living.

I, however, put the welfare of people before that of business -- I'm not convinced that destroying tribal ways of life in favour of shoe-making, intensive farming or whatever is a) progress or b) desirable. I think that (please don't laugh too hard) money is a meaningless middle-man restricting freedom and is an arbitrary concept to which we all pay far too much attention. I think that the Unholy Trinity (World Trade Organisation, International Monetary Fund and World Bank) exist not as a means of improving conditions in the Third World, but rather as a self-aggrandising and self-perpetuating means of producing profit and benefits for US-based corporation

(continued)

...US-based corporations.

Where there is profit, there has to be loss, yes? For someone to gain, someone else has to lose. While I respect the intellects that so weighted the dice in their countries' favour, I think it's despicable and unjustifiable. Extraterritoriality is an increasing reality within globalisation, so patriotic excuses don't wash. Maybe it was personal profit? I'm sure you can guess how much I respect that excuse.

The fact is this: the West is responsible for huge amounts of exploitation, pollution and other ecological damage, all in the pursuit of that arbitrary notion I was talking about earlier (money, of course). Given that it's not real it seems a bit daft to be shooting ourselves in the foot about it. While, yes, in the long run we are all dead, that's no excuse for stupidity. Our genes want the species to survive, even if we don't, so maybe we should think about that.

By being so heartless and single-minded in our pursuit of profit, we've done huge damage to the world in which we live and the ways of life of countless other people, largely thanks to our arrogance in thinking we know best. We don't.

Eventually, we'll've raped and pillaged the Third World beyond repair, and the West will end up eating itself like some messed-up toxic oroboros or lame-ass White Wolf supervillain. Barring the incursion of aliens or merfolk, capitalism is a sure route to complete destruction of itself.

Which is good. On with the socialism, and thence with communism. Funny old world, isn't it?

*grin*

I disgaree with your assessment of my motivations, so I'll break them down in case I haven't outlined them properly in the past:

1) I'm anti-Communist/Socialist as a social form because it doesn't work. The historical record has demonstrated that every single time it's been tried it has collapsed as an economic form. This has sometimes been peaceful (Sweden) but most of the time people have to spend years at gunpoint having the fruits of the labour taken from them by a system that claims it will not do just that before it collapses into anarchy. It doesn't work, and it isn't gong to magically start working now because you want it to.
This is a shame. The socialist ideal is a fabulous one, and if I thought it could work I would support it. However, it won't. So I don't.

2) The only historically demonstrated way of improving the net lot of humanity is through economic growth which leads to greater wealth in the hands of the individual. It has been demonstrated time and again that the state is completely inept at administrating wealth and only individuals can best spend their wealth to benefit themselves. As such, I believe in putting as much wealth as possible in the hands of the individual. Not just rich individuals, but *everyone*, as that will improve their lot and life.

3) You appear to be saying that people don't want to work. I disagree; I think they do. The psychological literature is rammed full of studies that demonstrate the benefit to the individual of meaningful and challenging work. If someone is paid for this work as well, so much the better.

4) My motivation is not necessarily the benefit of business, my motivation is the benefit of individuals. However, the only way that has yet been found by humanity to improve the lot of individuals (economic growth) is also good for business.

5) I'm not advocating the destruction of tribal ways of life, if the people in those tribes don't want to see them destroyed. However, the Mongols invading China are a fine exemplar of what happens when tribalism hits civilisation; tribal peoples see all the neat benefits of civilisation - running water, healthcare, security and so forth, and decide they want those things. Will you deny them those things if they want them? I want them to have as much oppportunity to have them as I have.
Oddly, the only way to acheive this that we've yet found, once again, is through economic growth.
If tribal cultures *don't* want the trappings of civilisation, good for them. I fully support their right to live in the woods without healthcare. I won't understand them, but hey, it should be their decision, not the moral posturing of a plump westerner halfway round the world deciding what they can and can't have.

6) You argue that where there is profit, there must be a commensurate loss. Not true, and demonstrably so; if this were the case the global economy would never have expanded at all and we'd all still be living in mud huts as produce would move from place to place without net accumilation. It is perfectly possible to create profit without net loss to anyone - I refer you to the introduction to the book "Tom Jones" in which Henry Fielding thanks his patron as a good example of such a case.
I think that you are confusing 'loss' and 'cost', which are two entirely different things. If you don't want to support the cost of something, then don't buy. It's not difficult.

7) I never said we know best; what I say and will keep saying is that I want everyone - *everyone* - to have the same opportunities as me. It's a utopian dream, and it's been demonstrated repeatedly that socialism cannot give people this. Frankly, Capitalism won't either.
But it'll do it for a hell of a lot more people than your method, and that's something to strive for.

I'd like to return your attention to the rest of my arguments, rather than simply concentrating on my assessment of your beliefs. My original second half had a disclaimer about this, saying that I realise that you're not some brain-dead consumerist monomaniac, but LJ ate it and I forgot to include it in the rewrite. I apologise.

Anyway:

1. We aren't going to agree on this. There is no historical evidence that socialism or communism by the book wouldn't work, because it's never been tried. And I also happen to be more of an anarchist (in the "don't need laws because everyone has a healthy measure of mutual respect and people stop being cockjockeys as a result" style, rather than "fuck it all") than a communist. Any form of rule mediated by violence is weak and doomed to failure.

2. You and I are quite similar, in that we both seem to have quite high estimations of our own abilities. I think a state made up of talented and motivated individuals could well administer money better than any individual, especially if the aggregate desires of the nation were explicitly served.

3. I don't believe that people don't want to work, but I also don't believe that all work is meaningful and challenging. Take my job, for example. Modern life is crammed full of examples of tertiary and quaternary jobs that mean nothing and it is these roles that lead to alienation, despair and insanity.

4. We're not going to agree on this. I must state, for the record, however, that I do not support abolishing the many advances that have been made simply on principle, but am concerned that I think people are probably less happy nowadays than in the past. Fam

(continued)

Family values in the West are eroding, as are social ties due to antisocial working schedules. This is not good for individual benefit as we are a social species reliant on one another for normalising contact.

5. Often, however, the developers misrepresent the benefits to be had from adopting the consumerist lifestyle, and the tribesmen (in what I'll grudgingly call their naievety) believe them. They don't necessarily realise before it's too late that they are less happy and worse off.

6. But the world economy has been able to expand because the world itself has "expanded" -- in previous centuries, it was the discovery of new lands, now it's governments being forced to grant the existence of Temporary Autonomous Zones so new territories "appear." The space in which the economy exists has expanded as new people add to this aggregation of human interactions.
I'd also contend that our choice and opportunity is bound and restricted. Also, that many tribes have huge, effective healthcare systems that don't involve hospitals or "scientific medicine."

And which one of us is plumper, huh? *grin*

Also, in financial terms, the money has to come from somewhere, no? So someone's gain is someone else's loss.

7. I wouldn't wish the opportunity to be exploited by some heartless multinational on anyone. Education, healthcare, social support, communication -- yes. Definitely. But we shouldn't give it because it profits us. We should give it because we believe that all humans are born equal and deserve equal treatment.

I'd like to return your attention to the rest of my arguments, rather than simply concentrating on my assessment of your beliefs. My original second half had a disclaimer about this, saying that I realise that you're not some brain-dead consumerist monomaniac, but LJ ate it and I forgot to include it in the rewrite. I apologise.

As it happens, I am a consumerist monomaniac, but that’s quite all right.

Anyway:

1. We aren't going to agree on this. There is no historical evidence that socialism or communism by the book wouldn't work, because it's never been tried. And I also happen to be more of an anarchist (in the "don't need laws because everyone has a healthy measure of mutual respect and people stop being cockjockeys as a result" style, rather than "fuck it all") than a communist. Any form of rule mediated by violence is weak and doomed to failure.

I disagree; it has been tried, and it’s failed in such short order that I reckon is demonstrable that it’s so unstable as to be unworkable. You might say that Communism has a half-life of about 30 minutes.

2. You and I are quite similar, in that we both seem to have quite high estimations of our own abilities. I think a state made up of talented and motivated individuals could well administer money better than any individual, especially if the aggregate desires of the nation were explicitly served.

Ha! No, no, and thrice no. That’s the curse of socialism, and the thing I hate most passionately about it. Who decides who is talented and motivated? What talents and motivations? It is the refuge of bien-pensant intellectuals that they think they know better than the little people who things should be done and how their money should be spent. Who cares if the little people disagree, we’ve got the army on our side, right? Naturally I’m flattered that you include me in your grouping of clever motivated people who would help run society. That’s good of y’all. However, I’d rather opt out and keep my property, thanks. Presumably this wouldn’t be allowed under your free and open society, however.
Give me an electoral system so the little people can decide. If that doesn’t return a socialist government, then I say that means the people don’t want one, and darn right they are too.
Does that mean, if you want the aggregate desires of the nation served, you advocate a return to the death penalty as polls consistently show 75%+ in favour? Or is that aggregate desires so long as they match your personal beliefs?

3. I don't believe that people don't want to work, but I also don't believe that all work is meaningful and challenging. Take my job, for example. Modern life is crammed full of examples of tertiary and quaternary jobs that mean nothing and it is these roles that lead to alienation, despair and insanity.

Work is very much the attitude you bring to it. By the sounds of it you’re saying that if someone doesn’t really feel like working to the net good of society then they won’t have to. That’s all dandy and so on, but who, precisely, is going to do the work to support the people who just don’t feel that their job is rewarding enough?
Can I stop working now? Can I? Huh? Will you pay for my food, Joe? Go on, it’s the socialist thing to do?

4. We're not going to agree on this. I must state, for the record, however, that I do not support abolishing the many advances that have been made simply on principle, but am concerned that I think people are probably less happy nowadays than in the past. Family values in the West are eroding, as are social ties due to antisocial working schedules. This is not good for individual benefit as we are a social species reliant on one another for normalising contact.

Isn’t it amazing how much we disagree on stuff? I was surprised by your statement that the internet was the greatest innovation of the 20th century, as I consistently argue that it was actually reliable female contraception, and the social revolution that created.
As for people being happier in the past, I can think of a certain 50% of the population who aren’t tied to the home for their entire lives producing children, and who can now get out and have lives. And good on them too, I say. If you think that people were happier in the good olde days, ask any of your female friends if they’re rather be alive now or in the days before the pill and social equality and see what answer you get.

5. Often, however, the developers misrepresent the benefits to be had from adopting the consumerist lifestyle, and the tribesmen (in what I'll grudgingly call their naievety) believe them. They don't necessarily realise before it's too late that they are less happy and worse off.

That’s a question of human honesty, rather than a fault of the economic system. Next you’ll try and tell me that people will suddenly become lots more honest in the Communist world of milk & honey…
Sadly, they won’t. You’re attempting to socially engineer human nature, and it won’t work. I’m sorry, it’d be nice if it would. But it won’t. It’s been tried before, in many places, and once the failure begins, out come the guns to force people to act in this ‘ideal’ way…and it’s downhill from there.

6. But the world economy has been able to expand because the world itself has "expanded" -- in previous centuries, it was the discovery of new lands, now it's governments being forced to grant the existence of Temporary Autonomous Zones so new territories "appear." The space in which the economy exists has expanded as new people add to this aggregation of human interactions.
I'd also contend that our choice and opportunity is bound and restricted. Also, that many tribes have huge, effective healthcare systems that don't involve hospitals or "scientific medicine."

I read an interesting economic study that indicates that, if you had all the money in the world, you could buy everything in the world and have some money left over, indicating that money has now superceded property to an extent (this is in fact the strongest argument I’ve ever heard for the worthlessness of money as a system).
In what way is our choice & opportunity restricted? Please expand upon this.
As for tribalism & healthcare, you can say they’re effective, but they’re not, by any measure of comparison, anything like as effective. However, if people want to do without, let them. I’ve no problem with that, as previously noted.
I’m curious at this point, however – how much have you traveled? How much have you actually seen and how much of this is speculation?

And which one of us is plumper, huh? *grin*

And your argument is? I’m not the one advocating removal of opportunity from the disenfranchised on the grounds of a moral position that is only sustainable from a position of comparative wealth.

Also, in financial terms, the money has to come from somewhere, no? So someone's gain is someone else's loss.

No, as noted above, money is now coming from nowhere. It’s become a self-perpetuating system.
You continue to confuse ‘loss’ with ‘cost’; If I find a really nice suit at a knock-down price, I don’t consider myself at ‘loss’ when I buy it, as the transfer has been one of physical goods + perceived value / cash. As such, I see a good trade, and don’t feel myself to have lost.

7. I wouldn't wish the opportunity to be exploited by some heartless multinational on anyone. Education, healthcare, social support, communication -- yes. Definitely. But we shouldn't give it because it profits us. We should give it because we believe that all humans are born equal and deserve equal treatment.

At least heartless multinationals realise that paying their workers is a good investment. In a market system where the workers cease being of value (i.e. a socialist one) this motivation vanishes.
To some extent I agree with you and in others disagree. I would rather give people the opportunity to build for themselves, because from there true self-reliance and self-respect comes. Simply giving people things leads to nothing more than a victim culture, such as we are seeing in this country.

I think it's probably quite easy to come to a satisfactory (if general) definition of talent and motivation; I must confess I've never sat down and formulated an exact one, but problem-solving ability, honesty, and concern for others' well-being would seem to be important qualities that most people could agree as being important.

My belief in socialism/communism/anarchism isn't about me thinking I know better than everyone else; it's about my belief that a way can be found that benefits the majority of people -- maybe all the people -- and that the army isn't needed either. If you need force to convince someone else of your ideas then I think your ideas need reworking.

You seem to keep making the mistake of viewing me as if I'm some cliché 70s student anarchist, like Rich from the Young Ones or something. I don't believe property is theft. I don't believe that might makes right.

I also think that a decent electoral system, one as free from spin and bias as humanly possible, would be a good tool for ensuring social justice. I don't believe we have such a thing anywhere in the world at this time. FPP systems, as shown most clearly by the Bush-election fiasco and the incorrect removal of over 90,000 names from the electoral register in Florida for felonies that did not exist show how much FPP-style systems exaggerate flaws and mistakes.

The lack of choice in current politics is what really bugs me. Votes become increasingly meaningless when the status quo is not validly challenged; when questions and accusations are not answered directly but instead with flowery words and bullshit. Using an innate ability to lie well or distort the truth to gain political or other advantage is something which leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It's not about feeling like working for the net good of society. It's about not working for money, but instead for the good of society -- something I do not believe to be the same.

And I wouldn't pay for your food if you stopped working, but a socialist government funded by taxes might. However, a sensible socialist government might include a (fairer and more motivating) version of New Deal/Jobseekers Allowance-type thing. People should work, but installing them in jobs just for the sake of it seems daft.

As for the "greatest invention of the 20th century" issue, this may well be the short-sightedness of youth; female contraception has existed, as far as I'm aware, all my life, and beforehand too. It's never not been a factor, and (having neither experience nor knowledge of what came before) the change in conditions isn't really something I was aware of. However, the effect the Internet's had and is having on resistance and co-ordination is something which is really within my lifespan and experience.

And, yes, I agree that sexism (and other discrimination) was a definite detractor from people's quality of life (and still is now, perhaps lessened) but I also think that the first-wave feminists made a horrendous mistake in pushing for men and women to be considered as the same, rather than as of equal value. I'm still formulating a livejournal post in my head about this, but I suspect that (kinda firm-wired) gender roles play a part in human happiness, and ignoring them may be another part of modern-day alienation and stress. But I'm also very much against sexism, so it's a topic I'm still fuzzy on.

As the economy is aggregated from human interaction, a fault in human nature becomes a compound fault in the economy. I'm more saying that a Communist world of milk and honey won't exist until humans are a lot more honest.

We're told that capitalism leads to greater choice of products etc., but I don't believe this to be true. The choice of Coke/Pepsi/supermarket own brand (expand this to a sensible range -- basically what's offered on the shelves) is all most people get, and that's not free; it's bounded by commercial decisions and other people's choices.

While I haven't travelled particularly much at all, I have studied at medical school for a while and was told by a few tutors that "complimentary medicines" (a euphemism for a variety of traditional remedies and folk cures) can in several cases be as successful (if not moreso) than conventional Western medicine. I'm also aware that that introduction of new products, foodstuffs and cosmetics can affect enzyme balances, local ecosystems and even prove fatal to people. And who can forget the Nestlé baby-milk debacle in the 70s, that's still earning them boycotts nowadays? I've also read books and papers with more information, but I'm buggered if I can source them right now.

I agree that money's a self-perpetuating system (I believe I originally said that and then moved my argument toward the ground where you seemed to be pitching a battle). If money effectively has begun to exist for itself and come from nowhere, why are people so obsessed with it? Media manipulation and clever misrepresentation by those who stand to gain. Reinforcement of the dominance hierarchy by those at the top.

And when you say that heartless multinationals realise that paying their workers is a good investment, I find it funny that they don't then act on this information by providing a minimum wage which is actually enough to live reasonably and support oneself and a family on, or job security if one doesn't fidn oneself able to work dehumanising hours and conform mindlessly to every bureaucratic piece of minutiae.

I sent you a reply to all of this to your LJ email account a week or so ago. Did it not show up?

I got it, I just need to find the time to sit down and reply. Fear not, it's not ignored.

How many workers does it take to make a shoe? A statement like "The company gets $100 per shoe, but the workers only get $1 per shoe" (or whatever the actual figures are) doesn't mean much if you don't know how many workers there are (and what other expenses that $100 has to cover).

Very much my point; the argument being posited against the payments being made took no notice of things like costs & business - and, I you read a lot of the comments I got on this post, it appears that most people dont' even consider that businesses even *have* costs :)

Nike Mayfly

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Sanctions can work

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Some coffee market background for those who don't know...

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Self defeating point.

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