Originally posted by return_to_hades
I believe in my post I pointed out the flaws and limitations of communism and concluded that it is a failed system. Monopolies and oligarchies result in laissez faire capitalism. The minute you introduce regulation you are introducing a 'socialist' concept. The extent of socialism is what varies. Most economies are mixed. I think that most economies still lean too much towards the laissez faire end and that we need more regulation.
You can not equate rules and regulation related to fair trade practices to being socialistic. That's stretching the reality a bit too far.
India started prospering when it opened her markets and moved away from Socialism. As long as she stayed socialist, we saw oligopolies such as state and national banks. Moving from socialism to capitalism created more job opportunities for the masses. Capitalism by itself is not bad as communism and socialism are. What's bad is people finding loop holes in the system and using them to create unfair advantage - something that is prevalent under socialism and communism too.
For example free markets typically do not have minimum and maximum markup laws. Not unfairly undercutting a fair trader or not overcharging because you are the only seller is a parity concept. There was a time when predatory pricing in most US states was legal, in many it still is. Minimum wage, benefits, vacation etc are actually 'socialistic' concepts that promote equity and parity.
We never opposed the reasonable floor set on wages. We are against the ceiling that you guys are busy forcing down our throats. We are against raising the min wage to an artificial height. and reducing max to close the gap. Where is the motivation for someone to work towards an education if they can make nearly the same amount flipping burgers?
The telephone services and communications enjoyed in United States is completely because of a very socialistic stance of breaking up Bell Corporation into seven competing sub companies.
Capitalist U.S. does a pretty good job of keeping monopolies and oligopolies under check as far as future M&As or price fixing is concerned. We can't say the same about socialist India - telephone owners in India increased million folds after the telecom industry was privatised as opposed to being a governmental unit under socialist India. I am glad the socialist days are almost over for India.
Now in the Nike sweat shop example in the free market Nike finds a country with cheap labor and goes there. Fair game. But this country does not have minimum wages and work condition laws that Nike must comply with. Over population, unemployment, economic desperation make these markets work far below fair wages and benefits. There is an ethics to fair employment and what is wrong in pushing Nike to pay these people more so that these people can uplift themselves above poverty and actually get better education and lifestyle. Especially because Nike can afford to.
You very conveniently failed to realize that it's mostly communist China that is allowing her work force to be abused this way. This is precisely why I am against the schemes you and K churn out. You both tilt towards giving government a lot of power over the people - something that has failed in many parts of the world already. You are also forgetting that if it was not for Nike, most of the pwoplw working in these sweat shops will be sitting idle at home. If Nike has to pay them the min-wage equal to what it pays to american workers then where is the incentive for Nike to outsource their production? What you are asking is akin to what Unions demanding for american laborers - end result, as I pointed out twice before, operations getting outsourced to turn the losses into profits.
Additionally, Nike is passing on the savings to the consumers. If they feel only Nike is at fault here then they can very well boycott Nike's products. You have to redirect your anger at the main root cause here - the Govts allowing these sweatshops in their countries. And you'll also have to take into account that if they don't then what will happen to their already sky high poverty rate.
Based on a purely fair trade aspect slavery and bonded labor would be perfectly kosher if overpopulation and economic hardship create a market where labor is available for full time sale and there are buyers. People illegally buy west Africans as slaves all the time. Many agree to be 'bought and sold' to escape their country, rape and a chance at the 'American Dream' Why not legalize it as fair trade of domestic labor? There is a buyer - there is a willing seller.
Now, this is what I call reductio ad abusrdum at its best!
I am dead against reservation and certain principles of affirmative action that provide unfair opportunities to undeserving people simply because they belong to some minority. I have never opposed that education, employment and compensation should be fair and based on due merit.
Chalo, I am glad you see where I am coming from here at least.
However, taking education in India. We have a very limited education system. Education is not reaching the lower classes and rural parts of the country. We all realize that education is a critical aspect in personal and career development. There are children out there who are gifted intellectually and have the perseverance to succeed. Perhaps more so that children who are sailing through school. It is just that they either don't have access to education or are limited to cheap and low quality public education. It is not a child's fault that they were born into a family and a social background that holds them down. We do need to work on finding some system that provides parity and fairness to all students.
I suggested reservation on a rolling basis very early in this thread. That point was shot down by your side. I am not against providing equal opportunities but I am against coddling the losers under the disguise of providing equality. I am against keep providing unfair opportunities to wealthy and below average sc/st kids. I am against providing unfair job opportunities to wealthy sc/st kids. I am against blaming the system when it's the people who fail to take advantage - talking about poor people in cities like Delhi, Mumbai etc. Many slum dwellers do not bother about sending their children to government schools that are in the vicinity in these cities. I am against blaming the system when it's the corruption that ie eating the resources set aside for opening schools in rural India. The system is very much there but it's not functioning well. Your side never attempted to address how to fix the maladies eating into a system that is based on sound ideology.
In the United States yes, public education is free. The government even provides several grants and loans so that people can have an education. Yet we have many high school drop outs and entire societies where education is not a priority. Again the problem is not always the child who is less capable or stupid, or that the child had no potential at all. History has created beaten down backward societies where even capable children are held behind, and their intellect beaten down and held back by abusive parenting and crime. We need to work on finding some system that ends this cycle.
Again, the system is there and it is functioning too in the US. The lapses are mainly the people's choices than system failing. Like I said before - you can only take a horse to wather. You can not force it to drink. If US givt. starts using force against such people then it will be infringing on their human rights. Idhar kuan udher khai. If you have a way to bridge the kuan and khai then let us know. But tell your side to not assume that the system is NOT there to begin with.
For this the CEO does not have to earn less, but every person in society reinvests a small percentage of their income into improving the quality of labor in society. And I consider it a reinvestment, not a loss or giving up of money. Of course government schemes and certain policies have failed. At the same time many private institutions and charities have had success stories in impoverished neighborhoods. Maybe that is the way to go in the education aspect.
Sarina, we did talk about the CEOs and the celebrities giving back to the community, to the world via charities. Your side mocked that gestures too. Corporations around the world do invest in their communities. Those who are driven do take advantage of these opportunities. What you are saying here is NOT something new.
Let us not be hasty to conclude that all of Europe has fallen. There are still several 'stable' European economies. The Euro is also rapidly gaining again after that one crash. In terms of long term economics it will be at least another 10 years before we can draw legitimate economic conclusions on Europe.
Let's start a debate on Europe and it's economy only in a week's time. I would love to see how you defend east europe's downfall. I like to specifically address the fall of communism in Europe and the currently failing socialism there. I don't need 10 years to see how East Germany fell and USSR fell.
I have never proposed discouraging entrepreneurship nor have I ever said that demand/supply or free market are not the right systems. I have always encouraged meritocracy - people succeeding on merit. However, I find current systems failing in the aspect of fairness and not giving enough chance to let people prove their merit.
Again blaming the system **sigh** I can see system failing some of the time but most of the time it's the people who fail a sound system. Just look at majority of the families on welfare checks and you'll know what I am talking about.
And yes Unions are the other extreme. If its dangerous for corporates to have too much power, it is dangerous for workers to have too much power too. And social equity puts checks in place to prevent unions from being runaway. Here recently we had the GM plant close down in Janesville, leaving many unemployed. We had a couple apply at jobs at our place. We laughed at their resumes and applications. A lot of people were high school drop outs, who only knew to drive forklifts from point A to point B and expected $25+ an hour wages + benefits for that.
A functional social equity system would prevent idiotic unions from negotiating over the moon wages for dumb ***** and bringing down potentially successful companies.
Similarly unemployment is another abused system. We have some legitimate unemployed people who are skilled and qualified but lost jobs because of runaway unions and/or poor company management. At the same time we have people abusing the system. We received a couple of applications where people said in the phone interview that they applied only to meet their weekly job application quota.
I feel corporates/high earning CEO should pay higher taxes so that unemployment offices do not just give out money like that. People go to the offices. Attend workshops and acquire real job skills. They sit down in workshops, look for and apply for jobs they are qualified for. These offices also give displaced workers training so that they are not just dumb ***** and can do something. I know corporate taxes sounds unfair and people doubt that the government can do it right. However, I find this more fair that people just siphoning money.
Other ideas - encouraging collective entrepreneurship, - employee owned LLC's so that the profits and losses are equitably distributed - making people to have higher stakes in their own success and forcing them to be more competitive. Fair trade guilds and trading coops - like we farmers do. We have checks and balances in place so that one years or one farms crop failure is not the end all and there is a safety net for the local industry or that farm to bounce back into fair competition.
Sarina, most professionals do not want majority of their compensation tied directly to firm's performance. People always focus on the bottom line - the base pay. Still, most corporations do keep a part of their employees' compensation package based on company performance. That is here STI kick in for non-executive work force. Executives have an STI and an LTI components to their compensation packages. I don't know why you are beating down on what is already in place!
As far as higher taxes for CEOs - 80% of taces come from 20% of the population. How much higher you want it now!
Maybe someday if we meet, we can argue in length in person so you don't have to read or type as much.
I see you are agreeing with me on most of the points I raised. I wish you had agreed before when I made those points for the first time and your side was busy twisting them. We never said we are against affirmative action or quotas. We always said that this not something that is not already in place and that we are against increasing the already existing quotas.
I don't see the need for any further debating with you. And I am tired of some people's selective perception and tunnel vision when it comes to what Souro and I are talking about. I am out of this thread now.
