With all due respect, this is quite a long rant, but these are my frustrations with living in a Capitalistic society. Oh, and I have been on here for a little more then a year now, so I know pretty well of the ideas that is passed around Mises readings.
Now, I understand that CEO's are responsible for a company's profits, and that the entrepreneur is someone who sacrifices a stable job lifestyle for risking his personal savings. However, while this is true with small business', I have no problem with CEO's of small business. Though, if someone needs to find a job, they have no choice but to employ themselves at a crappy job where they will be exploited. My definition of exploited meaning no pay for overtime, keeping you overtime, no vacation, and taking money off of your paycheck for breaks. You can't control when an employer decides to keep you overtime to get more work done, but its ****ing bullshit when you have school and a life to maintain as well. People at low-income jobs barely make enough to even be worth all this stress, where someone with a BA in even Communication gets to work for an above average salary and sit in the comfort of his cubicle on a computer. Jobs shouldn't be a privilege, and if someone has to work for low income, they shouldn't be slaving a lot more then someone with an education earning a median-above average salary. This is exploitation. You know, the only reason someone working at McDonalds is getting ****ed in the ass is because CEO's don't want to cut their erroneous salary so that they can continue golfing on their private island, while hiring less people so that they themselves, who don't even do much with the Corporation they are the head of, can get higher salaries.
Do I think the honest ones, i.e. small businessmen, do so? No. In fact those types of CEO's live it like its a lifestyle, not just a job, they DO work their asses off.
Novus Zarathustra:Because I was never able to live my life the way I wanted do, I end up at the age of 40, with kids and having to spend his entire life working at a place Wal-Mart or Target if I get lucky enough to even get the job there and be paid decently. ALl the money I'm earning will go toward paying for my bills and feeding my kids because I was never able to go to school, never able to try to make it as an artist since I couldn't afford my tools so I could be making a better salary. Instead I work my ass of, am miserable, and will never be an artist. gg.
Only in a rich, formerly free country could one, in the midst of a horrific depression, think that working in a large store, earning just enough to pay bills and feed kids, is a bad thing. Try explaining to a resident of Tanzania that you are upset that you will stand in a building full of things and earn enough to eat for pressing buttons on a computer.
The Tanzanian works harder than you do, much harder. He spends all day carrying heavy things, and he just watched two of his children starve. So he won't stand for your whining. If you want to be consistent, at least complain on his behalf, not your own.
But it's not about work, it's about what you produce. You might think it is harder to press buttons than to do what a CEO does. But anyone can do your job, and you produce very little. You're only necessary at all because we have division of labor and such massive production that we can have stores. The CEO is an organizer. Without him, your labor would produce even less, because you would not have in front of you a computer to press buttons on. What you're doing is only valuable because of a huge supply chain and the related actions of thousands of people - and the people who bring it all together.
The Tanzanian doesn't have this kind of organization. He has no capital structure, and so has to produce directly from the earth. That is hard.
Now, I agree with a lot of your points, believe it or not. I would like to see more equity, I'd be happy with a lower standard of living with less organization, smaller organizations - and in addition, I think, with Kevin Carson, that in a free society organizations would be smaller with higher production anyway, so its a moot point. But those are my preferences, and I have no right to inflict them on you - to decide for you that production should be smaller and lower so that I can have more free time, or shop at smaller stores, or whatever. I have to find a like-minded group of people and build what I want. If you want a commune, build one. That's a task as hard as what a CEO does, for less pay - but it's building the world you'd like. Just don't demand that people who don't want what you want build it for you.
CEOs are not capitalists. They are not owners of capital.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stranger: CEOs are not capitalists. They are not owners of capital.
Not my point, I'm talking about Capitalism in general.
Do I blame the state for making capitalism harsher than it normally would be? Yes.
/thread
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
So, you're jealous that some guy was lucky/smart enough to start a business that earned him billions, because his product was in wide demand, while you're working minimum wage jobs? And, because of this, you think that capitalism has failed? Do you prefer that everybody be equally as poor?
He seems to have a penchant for this sort of whining.
Novus Zarathustra: Stranger: CEOs are not capitalists. They are not owners of capital. Not my point, I'm talking about Capitalism in general.
No you're not, you keep saying CEO over and over.
Jonathan M. F. Catalán: So, you're jealous that some guy was lucky/smart enough to start a business that earned him billions, because his product was in wide demand, while you're working minimum wage jobs? And, because of this, you think that capitalism has failed? Do you prefer that everybody be equally as poor?
Did I not just state that most CEO's of big business' aren't the owners or inventors of the things they produce? Thats true with small business, but in this case the company was passed down to him, from being born into a rich family. Bill Gates was not the founder of Microsoft, he received the company after dropping out of College.
I didn't say that Capitalism has failed, I just don't understand why people should get kicked in the balls by the elite.
Novus Zarathustra: I didn't say that Capitalism has failed, I just don't understand why people should get kicked in the balls by the elite.
Freedom doesn't mean that you never get kicked in the balls, it means that you kick the elite in the balls back.
Stranger: Novus Zarathustra: I didn't say that Capitalism has failed, I just don't understand why people should get kicked in the balls by the elite. Freedom doesn't mean that you never get kicked in the balls, it means that you kick the elite in the balls back.
What exactly is a low-income worker trying to work hard to pay off bills and for food going to have to kick a CEO who has billions of dollars to hire a lawyer and a bodyguard?
Novus Zarathustra: What exactly is a low-income worker trying to work hard to pay off bills and for food going to have to kick a CEO who has billions of dollars to hire a lawyer and a bodyguard?
Yes, that is a problem with a state-based society, only the state can intervene in this conflict.
Novus Zarathustra:Honestly, how could anyone disagree with any of this? And no, thats not my question. My question is, where the hell is the rationality in any of this? What would prevent this from happening in a market that is more free?
How about you start each day by worrying less about what others have and thinking more about how you can get what you want by offering something for which others are willing to pay?
Z.
z1235: Novus Zarathustra:Honestly, how could anyone disagree with any of this? And no, thats not my question. My question is, where the hell is the rationality in any of this? What would prevent this from happening in a market that is more free? How about you start each day by worrying less about what others have and thinking more about how you can get what you want by offering something for which others are willing to pay? Z.
I haven't seen this solve the problem, I live in a small town where everything except for Target, Subway and Stop n Shop are local stores. Some of the local stores don't have a lot, are not open late, are selective with their staff, or are family business'.
Novus Zarathustra: Good answer. Too bad, if I try starting a business, I'll end up losing out to a big corporate store like Target, or not be allowed to do it because of legislation and I can't afford to pay my workers $9.00/ho. Which is the Min. Wage here in CT.
Good answer. Too bad, if I try starting a business, I'll end up losing out to a big corporate store like Target, or not be allowed to do it because of legislation and I can't afford to pay my workers $9.00/ho. Which is the Min. Wage here in CT.
This is not a problem with capitalism.
Novus Zarathustra:I haven't seen this solve the problem, I live in a small town where everything except for Target, Subway and Stop n Shop are local stores. Some of the local stores don't have a lot, are not open late, are selective with their staff, or are family business'.
Think harder then. Has someone chained you to this place that is so devoid of opportunity? How much does a bus ticket cost? How much does a ticket to Eastern Europe cost? To China? How long to save up on minimum wage for a ticket to anywhere on this planet? A year, tops? Who do you expect to do the thinking for you?