Time to invest in gold.
Posted: May 20th, 2005, 8:14 pm
Hi Hester,
Good article, really gets ya thinking.
I just posted something in regards to a discussion on pharmacies. And one thing I find co-relating to this topic of yours is that its odd a society will put legal caps on how much a corporation or individual can make from services such as health care because it feels as a whole, not doing so is detrimental to society. We even make such important things like police and fire proctection, State run and not-for-profit. However, we pretty much let corporations legally do as they please and set their own caps based on some silly notion that the market will always fix itself and companies will always act in the best interest of the people because the people are their customers and to do otherwise will only hurt themselves. However, we know this to not really be true. Monopolies and oligopolies, manipulation and market control and so on occur and are heavily present in our society. This in fact hurts society so why is there no safety cap on them? It is irresponsible to base personal economic survival on things both great and small obtained through the production of raw materials, while at the same time, allow the distribution of raw materials to be controlled by a small group of private interest serving people. So in fact there really is no economic fairness right from the source. He who controls the river, controls the wine. Not like the carpenter's paying the price of wood based upon how many trees there are (though that is sometimes a factor), but more likely what he is paying for wood is based upon the decision of a private individuals or corporations....hence Home Depot paying less for more and the individual paying more for less.
So with that all said, when we know letting corporations set their own pricing, profit margins and salaries is often harmful to society, why do we allow this to continue? Some pyschologist say its because we all have this tiny glimmer of hope inside us all that says we all have a shot at becoming millionaires....But realistically, since we need ditch diggers and dish washers -- not everyone can be a CEO. And since the market is controlled by the people who benefit from it the most, not to mention there is a finite amount of financial wealth on the planet at any given time, everyone be a millionaire, at least not in a capitalistic society. I mean if you base an economy upon profit, then right from the start you are allowing an unfair exchange...the whole point of profit is to obtain an unequal amount of wealth for a product or service from those you are providing it to. Every time you purchase something, you are not paying what it is actually costs. Furthermore, because of this, the wage you are paid by a business to make or provide a service, is never equal to what the item is worth. So in my opinion profit really means "shortfall" for the majority. Shortfall in the sense the customer will always get unequal value, and the workers will always get unequal wages. Or you could look at it like, a worker will never profit from their work because they are never paid more than what it costs to manufacture something, and a customer never profits from a purchase because they will always pay more for something than its worth....of course this generally speaking...there are certain rare times, such as bankruptcy liquidations where you can actually pay less for something than it costs etc.....and of course the owners, CEO's and board members of some businesses and corporations actually do make more than what it costs to make a product because that is in fact the only people who the idea of profit really benefits. So in my opinion, capitalism really only benefits a small percentage of people....so I guess I'm wondering why we try to maintain a society based on a system that really does not provide balance to society? I guess some people can argue capitalism fuels invention and progression in areas such as science, medicine and technology...but then again, are these things making life more easy for the general population if the end result of invention is profit? Or is the strain far exceeding the benefits? I mean what good is inventing such things as proper health care if only a few priviledged people can afford it? Why are we in such a rush to make better TV sets? Shit, shouldn't they first put something decent on the airwaves to watch?...And one thing, among many, that always cracks me up are these new toilet scrubber inventions...I think this is the funniest thing...like really, was life so hard before a curve was put on a scrub brush? But this is the way of capitalism, it has to constantly reinvent itself to keep going even if its not really providing anything better and in some cases, anything at all. Profit is a greed based concept because it is always about taking out more than you put in.
The worst case scenario of capitalism I ever heard about was regarding the control of water. I think it was in Peru, but I'm not a hundred percent sure of it...anyways, I believe it was because of the world bank's "influence" that an outside corporation took brief control over Lima's water service. Not only did the corporation have the legal right to charge as much as 25% of the average workers wage, but also it became illegal for citizens to even collect rain water....Not only did the corporation own all the water above and below the earth, but even the water that fell randomly from the sky. Can you imagine that, you aren't even legally allowed to fill a cup with falling rain water to have a drink!!! Ka-raaaze-eee!!! Of course they protested and the military was called in to do its duty and errrr, hmmm, protect the people by shooting, tear gassing and beating them for their own good?? But eventually after much unfortunate violence, control of the water supply returned to the people.
Anyways, I've really babbled on, my apologies....but thanks again for posting that interesting article.