Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[seven-deuce]

The biggest problem I have with capitalism is its value structure. Subordinating people and the environment and everything else for that matter to the pursuit of profit seems bananas to me. The idea of pure unfettered capitalism is crazy. Why shouldn't there be price controls on essential products like bread and milk etc? Why should people who have been born into poverty starve because they can't afford a loaf of bread? Why should the poorest in society die of preventable and treatable diseases because they can't afford to pay for treatment? Why should borders be open to foreign multinationals? Why shouldn't the state own sectors of the economy and why shouldn't there be regulation? Look at what a mess a deregulated financial sector has left us in.

What do you think is better for the people of Bangladesh?

A) A predatory multinational exploiting the vulnerable to work for fuck all, for long hours, and in shitty conditions that are only there for cheap labour so they can maximise profits and if they were forced to pay a decent wage they would move somewhere else. So not a real investment in the country at all. Also the large profits being made will be redistributed among shareholders and bonuses to CEO's etc all the money will be making its way to the US or UK except whatever tax is paid to the government. The money/profit being generated will not be spent in Bangladesh so it's not really helping them at all.

B) The Bangladeshi state owning the manufacturing of clothing and investing a decent percentage of profits into the improvement/development of the country.

I think option B would be better for the people of Bangladesh helping them to generate wealth and a strong economy at home while decreasing dependency on quasi foreign investment.

[Renton]

seven-deuce, I could spend days replying to that post so I'll try to have restraint where possible. I'll go point by point where the answer doesn't have to be a 3.5 essay.

The idea of pure unfettered capitalism is crazy. Why shouldn't there be price controls on essential products like bread and milk etc?

If there were price controls on bread and milk, there would be less bread and milk and even more people would starve. How is this not obvious? If people are forced to sell bread and milk for a lower than market price, there would be no incentive to produce it at all. The result is that there would be empty shelves with the low price tag. Now maybe your answer to that is that governments should produce all the bread and milk we consume, but then you're price-controlled price will eventually be too high because there isn't the fierce competition to drive innovation in milk/bread production. The free market is going to find cheaper and cheaper, better and better ways of producing milk and bread. The milk and bread is gonna taste better and better, and last longer and longer. Government milk is gonna taste like a dogs asshole and you know it, because why wouldn't it?

Why should the poorest in society die of preventable and treatable diseases because they can't afford to pay for treatment?

Because medical treatment often costs a huge amount of resources. Would you prefer a random lottery?

Look at what a mess a deregulated financial sector has left us in.

This is such a tired red herring at this point. The crash didn't happen because of deregulation, it happened because banks have a tremendous amount of influence on the government and are able to take greater risks because they are effectively insured against bankruptcy. This is a criticism of big-government, not of small-government.

The money/profit being generated will not be spent in Bangladesh so it's not really helping them at all.

The workers who are "exploited" by the multinational corporation voluntarily choose to work there. It is more profitable than their alternatives. In macro terms, more people in Bangladesh are receiving a higher wage than they would otherwise. This increases Bangladesh's gdp and the wealth of its society.

B) The Bangladeshi state owning the manufacturing of clothing and investing a decent percentage of profits into the improvement/development of the country.

I think option B would be better for the people of Bangladesh helping them to generate wealth and a strong economy at home while decreasing dependency on quasi foreign investment.

A cursory study of the plight of controlled economies of the past would indicate that option B) is absurd. Let's just break down how ridiculous the Bangladesh National Clothing Company is as an idea for a moment. First of all the whole reason why multinational apparel corporations outsource to Bangladesh is to minimize their costs so that they can compete with the other big players in the industry. If the B. (I'm tired of typing Bangladesh) government decided to tell Lacoste to go fuck themselves or pay the workers a living wage, Lacoste would not set foot in B. They would move elsewhere.

So, IDK i guess you are suggesting that they should form a national clothing company that attempts to compete with the private sector, WHILE not "exploiting" the workers with a low wage and/or investing profits into infrastructure. Let's assume for a moment that they could have the smallest hope of doing so. In order for that to even be possible, the Bangladeshi government has to have expertise. Expertise on the level of multinational mega-successful private corporations. Expertise that honestly cannot exist except through the distillation of millions and millions of people participating in the market. That's the thing, really, its not that governments are dumb and can't do anything right. It just that they are incapable of having expertise on the level of what emerges naturally from participants in a large, often global market. A couple hundred politicians with uncertain loyalty and motivations can't hope to achieve that. Honestly, a couple hundred Benjamin Franklins couldn't do it.

[seven-deuce]

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Here's what I think. Everyone deserves a certain standard of living. Why should the billionaire businessman and the penniless homeless man be treated differently when it comes to the standard of healthcare they receive? Does the homeless man not have a right to live because he has no money? A certain standard of healthcare should be provided for everyone, if the billionaire wants to pay for better healthcare over and above the standard given to all that's fine.

I don't think you would be preaching free market doctrine with such gusto if you were the one in desperate need of food or medicine. Would you be telling your starving friends and family to "stop whining, aren't you aware the earth has scarce resources? We have no money to pay for food so we don't deserve to live. How is this not obvious?" I doubt it.

I think that pure capitalism breeds inequality and corruption. Not furiously competitive markets and scrupulous businessmen. The greed and constant drive for ever increasing profit makes businesses ignore externalities one of the most important being the environment, that's not my opinion, it's scientific fact. Big fossil fuel companies pump out propaganda trying to influence public opinion and cast off claims from the scientific community that climate change is a real and imminent problem so as to protect their profits. This cannot be justified, the continuation of the species and health of the planet is more important than a companies profits/share price.

Another thing I have a problem with is treating economics like a science. Some of the underlying principles of economics are demonstrably false. One of the most obvious being "rational consumers" and others "homogeneous products" and "perfect information". Assuming something that you know in reality to be false as true so your diagrams work out nicely and you can pretend that you know what you're talking about doesn't seem very "scientific" to me. Any conclusion drawn from a false premise is inherently false, an inconvenient fact for economists.


You can't just create an imaginary "rational consumer" that never deviates from the rules you assign it and develop a framework around this "rational consumer" then apply it to irrational consumers. This is ludicrous and illogical.

It's like saying I know in reality this player has a nutted range on the river but I'm going to assume he's got a weak range to justify my all-in bluff. Or in economics, I know in reality consumers aren't rational but I'm going to assume they are so my "law" works. Also if there were actual economic laws there wouldn't be different theories of economics nor any debate about it at all there would be a unanimous consensus by all professional economists as to the best configuration and means of proceeding from here.

Finally this might come across as snarky but it's not intended to be, my view is just as valid as yours regardless of how much you think you know.

Here's a link to a study that was performed regarding rational consumers you have to sign up to read it. It's from the peer reviewed Economic Journal: http://econpapers.repec.org/article/..._3a1431-44.htm

[BorisTheSpider]

Here's what I think. Everyone deserves a certain standard of living.

Nonsense. This is like saying that every chimp in the forest deserves a certain number of bananas. Try to rationally explain this property of "deserving" in relation to a chimp who has no bananas.

Why should the billionaire businessman and the penniless homeless man be treated differently when it comes to the standard of healthcare they receive? Does the homeless man not have a right to live because he has no money? A certain standard of healthcare should be provided for everyone, if the billionaire wants to pay for better healthcare over and above the standard given to all that's fine.

Why should the chimp that can climb best and lives in an area rich with bananas have more bananas than the chimp who lives on an island utterly devoid of bananas and never learned to climb trees? Does the second chimp not have a right to have as many bananas as he "needs"? A certain number of bananas should be provided for every chimp, if the first chimp wants to have more bananas, that's fine.

Healthcare is expensive - it takes a lot of labour and capital to produce, the people who produce it need food to eat and houses to live in, that means they have to earn a living or make a profit. If the homeless man can't pay, someone else has to - that takes food off of their table and clothes off their childrens backs to put that money effectively in the hands of the homeless man, that is good and decent all the time it's voluntary.

I don't think you would be preaching free market doctrine with such gusto if you were the one in desperate need of food or medicine.

Without a market in which people could make a living producing food or medicine, there wouldn't be any food or medicine.

Here's the nub of it - if it's so important to you that our hypothetical homesless man has food and medicine, no-one is stopping _YOU_ from paying for it. That's the great thing about a free market system - you are free to give away as much of your money as you like.

[Renton]

Here's what I think. Everyone deserves a certain standard of living. Why should the billionaire businessman and the penniless homeless man be treated differently when it comes to the standard of healthcare they receive? Does the homeless man not have a right to live because he has no money? A certain standard of healthcare should be provided for everyone, if the billionaire wants to pay for better healthcare over and above the standard given to all that's fine.


I don't think you would be preaching free market doctrine with such gusto if you were the one in desperate need of food or medicine. Would you be telling your starving friends and family to "stop whining, aren't you aware the earth has scarce resources? We have no money to pay for food so we don't deserve to live. How is this not obvious?" I doubt it.

If I were poor I'd obviously be in favor of anything that would make me not be poor. But that doesn't make it a good argument. That resources are scarce is a fact. That scarcity will express itself one way or another. When a state has a heavy hand in distributing resources, massive amounts of resources invariably get wasted. That's not an opinion, but another fact. States attempt to blunt poverty by deciding what prices of essential goods and services ought to be with a woefully insufficient amount of expertise on such matters, or by taking money from the some people to give to others. This tends to result in more poverty, not less. Capitalism naturally addresses poverty by distributing resources in a highly efficient way which results in increased standard of living for all, including and especially the poor.

I think that pure capitalism breeds inequality and corruption. Not furiously competitive markets and scrupulous businessmen. The greed and constant drive for ever increasing profit makes businesses ignore externalities one of the most important being the environment, that's not my opinion, it's scientific fact. Big fossil fuel companies pump out propaganda trying to influence public opinion and cast off claims from the scientific community that climate change is a real and imminent problem so as to protect their profits. This cannot be justified, the continuation of the species and health of the planet is more important than a companies profits/share price.

We've already addressed in this thread and in others that states have done no better a job of internalizing costs or protecting the environment. The environment will get wrecked regardless of how free the market is, until people start to attach a value to clean air. However, in a completely private society that gives greater property rights to individuals, a building that pollutes the air of surrounding properties would be liable for the damage that pollution causes to those properties. This is unlike the current scenario in America, where pollution must be addressed at the state level and a tragedy of the commons scenario is very tough to avoid.

Finally this might come across as snarky but it's not intended to be, my view is just as valid as yours regardless of how much you think you know.

You actually weren't snarky at all until that sentence. I attempt to be civil in these discussions, but I will apologize for my blunt dismissal of your Bangladesh clothing company. I just thought the idea of state takeover of an entire country's clothing industry was demonstrably absurd.