An Open Letter to Staunch Conservative, Capitalist Thinking

[Ugly Bastard]

When you turn wood into a table, the difference in value between the two is equal to the invested labor. Ideas are also labor, like thinking of a quicker way to make tables or a way to make them more durable. What is wealth if it isn't labor?

[vaga1220 *]

I think we're talking about pie, not tables.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

When you turn wood into a table, the difference in value between the two is equal to the invested labor. Ideas are also labor, like thinking of a quicker way to make tables or a way to make them more durable. What is wealth if it isn't labor?

Investors are the ones who decided we needed a table and not wooden shoes. So the value they add, through decisions, is massive.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Didn't the consumers decide that we wanted wooden tables? The investors supplied them because it was profitable.

Investors don't always make decisions that have the most overall benefit for everyone. If they can sell glue at the same price whether it's harvested from gum trees or if they make it more cheaply from endangered whale stomachs, they will choose the whales even though whales are the Indian's main source of food. And the Indians don't buy glue. The investor will always choose to supply whatever has the highest profit margin. This is because all people attracted to finance or investing are inherently evil, greedy people.

We should do away with money and model our economy from The Star Trek Universe imo.

[thekremlin]

I know some ferengis* that would take exception to that.





*jews

[Mr. Blonde]

The Ferengi's are clearly socially and emotionally unevolved compared to the other races. They cover that in season 1.

[thekremlin]

Go back to your hitler youth meeting mr blonde, or should i call you mr aryan?

[Ugly Bastard]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

Investors are the ones who decided we needed a table and not wooden shoes. So the value they add, through decisions, is massive.

Which is labor. So you agree that wealth is labor?

[DJ FC]

Not in the traditional sense, but for your argument, yes. The application of wealth is labor.

The world has been built into a wonderful place not because of people working harder, but because of people working smarter.

[angry pancake]

Slave labor should be a spoil of war like in the old times. I need an Iraqi kid mowing my lawn and tending to my garden. While I sip classified growth Bordeaux on the veranda.

[Ugly Bastard]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

Not in the traditional sense, but for your argument, yes. The application of wealth is labor.

The world has been built into a wonderful place not because of people working harder, but because of people working smarter.

Having accepted that wealth is labor, I guess the question now is, does a company create more wealth if it is run for the benefit of its workers or for the benefit of its owners?

Also, the world is not a wonderful place. The west is a wonderful place because we can buy labor from other countries and only have to pay them fractions of a penny on the dollar.

[DJ FC]

Originally Posted by Ugly Bastard

Also, the world is not a wonderful place. The west is a wonderful place because we can buy labor from other countries and only have to pay them fractions of a penny on the dollar.

You're very wrong here, friend.

[angry pancake]

Exactly. I think Mexico is a very good example of capitalism gone haywire and a better example of the picture UB is painting.

[Ugly Bastard]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

You're very wrong here, friend.

Are you sure? Perhaps you should go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and conduct a survey? Or Niger, or Chad, or Mozambique, or Zimbabwe.

Perhaps you could detour via Uzbekistan and canvas the opinions of the children picking cotton for our clothes. Or El Salvador to visit with the children planting, spraying and harvesting sugar cane for our lifestyle drinks. Or India, where bonded child labor is prevailant in the diamond, tobacco and silk industries.

There are more than 2.5 million children in prostitution worldwide, 100000 of them in the United States. 800,000 people are illegally trafficked across international borders each year, half of them children and 80% of them female, almost all of which are bound for the sex trade. The human trafficking "industry" is worth more than $30bil per year. One in 3 women in the world have been raped.

There are 250 million children in the world aged 5-14 forced to work, not including domestic labor. Child labor accounts for 22% of the work force in Asia, 32% in Africa and 17% in Latin America.

We live in a world where more than 20% of the world's population lives on less than $1 per day. A world where 18% of people over the age of 15 can't read and write, where one in 8 children can't attend school because they have to work to support themselves or their families.

A world where 1.8 million children under the age of 5 die from vaccine-preventable disease every year, where 38% of the entire world's population lacks adequate sanitation facilities and 13% don't even have access to clean drinking water.

Sorry, I think I interrupted you. You were about to explain why the world is a wonderful place?

(Sources are predominately the CIA world factbook, UNICEF, WHO and the world bank if you need me to cite them).

[Ironic Mustache]

Originally Posted by DJ FC

You're very wrong here, friend.

I REEEALLLLLLLLLYYYY hope you have other experiences aside from your time in Indiana and Europe, to back this statement up. You're sounding a bit DHish here.

[Repugnant Abomination]

But do you really hope he does?

[Ironic Mustache]

No not really.

[DJ FC]

Conditions in all the places you just mentioned are better today than they were in 1775.

To be honest, I just don't care enough to continue this conversation. If I concede that capitalism is exploitation of poor people and unsustainable will you please stop baiting me?

[thekremlin]

I am pretending to hope that.

[Saint DH]

It's clearly not a perfect system, but it's the best we've got and it's the best there has ever been. Show me a better one or stfu with your socialist-sympathizing rhetoric.

[SinisterKid]

Thinking Clearly about Economic Inequality | Will Wilkinson | Cato Institute: Policy Analysis

Download the pdf attachment; it addresses why income inequality is more propaganda than pertinent social issue.

Let the disagreeing begin.....