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.
z1235: 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? Z.
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?
Z.
"Tough shit" is not very good advice or economic analysis.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
z1235: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?
There's lots of reasons why someone can't move out of their area currently. Someone can't afford a home, what about that?
To do that they have to work a low-quality job, most of which they will be forced to work overtime with no OT pay, holidays with no time and a half, no breaks for lunch and being deducted from the next paycheck for breaks.
I have a friend who has to work at a Car Wash to support herself, she has no other choice. She goes to school, and is forced to work overtime and not get paid for it, and is sometimes late toe class for it. That sounds pretty unfair to me. I wouldn't stand for that shit, if my employer did that to me and was making me late to class, I would say "**** you" and clock and walk out. Oh, but I can't because I'll get fired.
Some employers really don't care if we have kids, family, or lives to attend to.
There isn't anything in a freer economy that will prevent you from feeling like you are being exploited because your productivity is low and you are unwilling to work as hard as everybody else. If your productivity is low and others are willing to work harder, then you will find yourself unemployed. If your envy of those with skills that other people find to be extremely valuable makes you think that you have the right to steal from them, then I don't know what to tell you.
Remember that the conveniences that you take for granted are the result of capital investment over the whole span of history. Two hundred years ago, you would be lucky to have the chance to bathe frequently. Living "the American Way" is a privilege, not a right, and insistence that everyone be paid "enough" is a hole with no bottom. "Enough" is a subjective term that is colored by the fact that you have been raised in the horn of plenty that sprung from one of the freest economies man has ever seen. The accident that you were born in such a place and not, say, in a mud hut in Africa, does not give you any extra rights, and does not entitle you to free loot.
But to get back to your question, the rational basis is this: in a system in which people are free to pursue their own interests, people will do so. Since only I am possessed of the knowledge of what will make me happy, only I can do a good job in making those choices. No central planner can possess the information to make these decisions effectively. Moreover, any and every coercive act necessarily does things that people don't want (otherwise you would not need to coerce). This translates to malinvestment, that is, it results in capital being used for purposes that are less efficient at fulfilling people's wants. Therefore, we seek a freer system not because it provides us with plunder, but because it provides the best overall results, with the additional perk that, as long as I don't threaten violence myself, nobody ever points a gun at my head and tells me, with a straight face, he's right to do so. Depending on your temperament, that can be quite a perk.
Novus Zarathustra:but these are my frustrations with living in a Capitalistic society.
Novus Zarathustra: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.
Please tell me if this accurately boils downs your points: Exploitation is taking place, and it should be reduced or eliminated. All jobs should provide a comfortable, living wage, with benefits, regardless of what the job entails. CEO's of big business are evil (refer to the paragraph #4 of your post), CEO's salaries are ill gotten. Capitalism creates and allows the existence of evil CEO's of big business. Capitalism is the cause of exploitation.
Is this accurate?
"The market is a process." - Ludwig von Mises, as related by Israel Kirzner. "Capital formation is a beautiful thing" - Chloe732.
chloe732: Please tell me if this accurately boils downs your points: Exploitation is taking place, and it should be reduced or eliminated. All jobs should provide a comfortable, living wage, with benefits, regardless of what the job entails. CEO's of big business are evil (refer to the paragraph #4 of your post), CEO's salaries are ill gotten. Capitalism creates and allows the existence of evil CEO's of big business. Capitalism is the cause of exploitation. Is this accurate?
Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. %90 of the non-austrians would agree. This is exactly why most people favor Capitalism with regulation, in other words a Mixed Economy. This way people can still thrive from the benefit of a free economy, but there won't be such a disparity of opportunities. Mises has some very good ideas, and most of austrian economics is brilliant. However, if it were ever implemented what would stop the rich from destroying the poor?
Its funny, because I believe the state shouldn't be involved in anything else, but now I realize that people in power as well as states are equally corrupt.
So your argument for a mixed economy is to point out the undesirable elements of our current mixed economy?
Michael J Green:So your argument for a mixed economy is to point out the undesirable elements of our current mixed economy?
Our economy is a lot less regulated then economies in Scandinavia and Europe. In Sweden its tightly regulated.
Novus Zarathustra:Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. %90 of the non-austrians would agree. This is exactly why most people favor Capitalism with regulation, in other words a Mixed Economy.
What if the CEOs are the regulators?
Novus Zarathustra:Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying.
This is an interesting situation. You have read about AE for about a year, you have participated in the forum for several months, and you are friends with some folks who really know their stuff about economics, freedom, liberty, etc. Yet, you cling to the ideas that I just summarized. Your bio implies you are certainly no socialist. All the suggested readings are right here on this website, so linking to them will not be particularly useful. I will suggest this thread though: What Are the Ten Most Popular Economic Myths?
Novus Zarathustra:This is exactly why most people favor Capitalism with regulation, in other words a Mixed Economy. This way people can still thrive from the benefit of a free economy, but there won't be such a disparity of opportunities.
Don't we have a "mixed economy"? Don't we already have "capitalism with regulation"? Why, then, do we have the problems you describe in your post?
Novus Zarathustra:Our economy is a lot less regulated then economies in Scandinavia and Europe.
Can you foresee a downside to intervention?*
*You call it "regulation", but that's not very precise.
chloe732:This is an interesting situation. You have read about AE for about a year, you have participated in the forum for several months, and you are friends with some folks who really know their stuff about economics, freedom, liberty, etc. Yet, you cling to the ideas that I just summarized. Your bio implies you are certainly no socialist. All the suggested readings are right here on this website, so linking to them will not be particularly useful. I will suggest this thread though: What Are the Ten Most Popular Economic Myths?
I agree with the hate for CEO's and shitty working conditions. My rhetorical question, why should someone have to lower their standards of living, work in poor standards, work for poor wages that are barely paying for their living expenses just so a CEO can get paid more for his "work"? CEO's of big corporations hardly do anything for the company, instead they use part of their massive earnings to hire and pay for a committee to make decisions for him. How much work does Bill Gates actually do for Microsoft other then show up at E3 Conventions and Electronic Consumer Conventions? How much work did Dick Cheney actually do when he was CEO of Halliburton? THat guy in charge of Hali now is kicking back and relaxing while sky high oil prices are fucking entire nations in the ass. Obviously making every nation in the world starve or crumble financially to his feet, isn't something that is on his conscious. He is charging the gallons of oil that high because everyone needs it and the oil companies he supplies can't get it from anywhere else.
Novus Zarathustra:CEO's of big corporations hardly do anything for the company,
They do lobby Congress, though, don't they? And what do they lobby for? Laws and regulations that will increase their competitor's positions? Laws and regulations that will lower barriors to entry, and help the small business you have so much respect for? Have you stopped to consider that industry lobbyists actually write the laws? (This point was already made above, but with fewer words).
Novus Zarathustra:How much work did Dick Cheney actually do when he was CEO of Halliburton?
He had contacts in the "regulatory" world. Why do you think there are prohibitions against drilling in the gulf or on the CA coast? Environmental concerns? Do you think the U.S. industry wants more oil to be drilled?
Let's focus on one question at a time: Can you foresee a downside to government intervention in the economy?
Novus Zarathustra: With all due respect, this is quite a long rant, but these are my frustrations with living in a Capitalistic society. With all due respect, I think plenty of people here have what you later call "crappy jobs." I know I do. And tbh, I am very grateful that I am not homeless right now. Sure I'd like more money, and am frustrated that there are huge obstacles the state [not capitalism] has placed in the way of my getting one. But thanks to this site, I know better than to think some non-capitalist society will solve my problem. I know where the problem came from, and what to do about it, at least in theory. Anything but going to a MORE capitalist society is like being on a sinking ship because of a leak, and trying to save the ship by drilling more holes. If you've been here for a year, you know that you are not living in a Capitalist society, but an interventionist [=fascist] one, where the govt imposes its will on the market. So that any problems that come up in the real world have to be analyzed to figure out "Did this come from capitalism or from Interventionism?" 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. So far so good, then. Though, if someone needs to find a job, they have no choice but to employ themselves at a crappy job You soon say that if they get a BA in Communication then they get a good, noncrappy job. So the real complaint here is "Capitalism is not letting me get a BA in Communication." Have you been here long enough to know this is not true? That the govt interference in education, by giving student loans, is what created this? That before student loans people worked their way through college, AT CRAPPY JOBS during the summer and an hour or so a day during school, and thta was enough to pay their tuition? 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. Can't argue with a definiton, can I? But did any of these perks exist before there were unions? And you have been here long enough to know that unions are an arm of govt, meaning there are laws forcing people to join unions etc. How could an employer get away with doing this to you? Could you not quit and leave him high and dry? I guess the answer is you can't because SOMEONE ELSE will walk right in the door and HAPPILY work under those conditions. In other words, you have that crapppy job because you are easily replacable. Let's put it this way. Say you had to devote your time to study. You hire someone to do the drudge work at your house. Would you offer them overtime, paid breaks, and so on? And if one guy came along and said "I'll do it without the paid breaks," would you say. "No, I'm not a capitalist exploiter, I insist." Of ocurse you wouldn't. You have very little money. You can't afford that kind of expense. People at low-income jobs barely make enough to even be worth all this stress, And yet they don't quit, do they? So it must be worth it, bottom line. 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, What should they be? A right? So someone should have the right to march into your house and say "I'm your new housekeeper. You have to pay me a decent wage." 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. You know that wages are determined by how USEFUL and IRREPLACABLE you are to the employer, right? So are you saying you "should" be more useful and irreplacable? To whom is your complaint directed? 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. Why should they want to cut their own salaries? And of course they pay only what they absolutely have to. Why is this wrong or unfair? It's THEIR money. They did not steal it from you. 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. Do I think the CEOs of big businesses - who, most of the time, are not the inventors, creators, innovators, writers, or other creative minds behind the items they sell - that do things like rape the land, food supply, and health potential of 3rd world nations, pay their employees less ... than a living wage, deprive the real inventors/writers/innovators/etc. of the salaries they deserve, and lay off thousands of workers so they can keep their billion-dollar salaries and pay themselves more than their "work" really deserves, are engaging in robbery? Absolutely. This is like Joseph Stalin's butler griping and saying "My boss is a mass murderer. He starved millions to death, destroyed the economy of a whole continent for decades, tortured and imprisoned millions and millions, put us all in constant fear of our lives." "Yes, that's awful. What should we do about it?" "I want paid overtime." You want these CEO's to give you more money, as opposed to stopping the rape, and returning the robbery. To believe the 500 U.S. billionaires "deserve" to pay themselves more than they could ever use of those ill-gotten gains You think anyone here supports ill gotten gains? while millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes, die of illnesses they can't afford to treat, or flat-out starve You know anyone starving? Why don't you give them some food? through no fault of their own is irresponsible. You are connecting unrelated things. 1. Some rich people are crooks and worse. 2. Many people in the USA have severe problems. OK, I think we can agree on those two. 3. Capitalism is responsible for the above two problems. That part is wrong. Sorry. Capitalism is the solution to 2, as this site proves over and over to those who are interested. As for 1, I don't know the answer. Maybe another poster can help out But to give some semblance of a logical argument to what you are saying, maybe you mean this: 1. Rich people have "too much" money. 2. I have too little. 3. Solution: give me some of theirs. Let us put aside the hypocrisy in yelling that rich people have comitted crimes, and then turning round and saying you want a piece of the action. The flaw with such reasoning, from a purely cold cruel calculating viewpoint, is that you are gonna get screwed if you redistribute wealth. Sure, if they robbed someone, giving it back to the victim is OK, and of course just. But I suspect you are talking about forcing the rich toi pay employees more than they want to. It doesn't work. Ask the Rust Belt. To believe they're risking anything when the average salary isn't enough to live "The American Way" on is ridiculous. To even pretend these people are honorable or that these asswipes who started life rich are to be pitied under any conditions is completely irrational and monopolistic. What does this have to do with anything? I guess you are saying "The rich DESERVE to have their money taken away. Especially those who are just born rich." 1. The rich deserve to be pillaged because they aren't risking anything. What are YOU risking? If the answer is "Nothing", do you therefore deserve to be thrown into the streets, homeless? 2. The rich deserve to be pillaged because the average salary isn't enough to live the "American Way." Does this require a serious response? 3. The rich deserve to be pillaged because they are asswipes. LOL 4. The rich deserve to be pillaged because they started life rich. So a man who has money has no right to give it to his son when the man dies? Why? 5. The rich deserve to be pillaged because they don't deserve pity. Huh? 6. All of the above five points are totally rational. Oh. OK. 7. If you think the rich deserve pity you are monopolistic. I think a dictionary might help here. Honestly, how could anyone disagree with any of this? I thought you'd never ask. And no, thats not my question. Hahaha. OK, sorry. My question is, where the hell is the rationality in any of this? I hope I have shown that there is room to doubt that your argument is exactly rational. or moral. What would prevent this from happening in a market that is more free? In a free market, where anyone can compete non violently for anything, the only way you make money is by making people happy. And the only way you get the best workers is by making them happy. Also, history and common sense shows that when people compete, someone comes up with a new way of pleasing people. He makes soemthing cheaper and better. He then sells it. Thus EVERYONE gets a better mousetrap, TV, food, everything, and cheaper, too. So EVERYONES life style improves as time goes on. C'mon Novus, all this is laid out in great detail and with strong historical and logical proof on this very site. How could you have missed it?
With all due respect, this is quite a long rant, but these are my frustrations with living in a Capitalistic society.
With all due respect, I think plenty of people here have what you later call "crappy jobs." I know I do. And tbh, I am very grateful that I am not homeless right now. Sure I'd like more money, and am frustrated that there are huge obstacles the state [not capitalism] has placed in the way of my getting one. But thanks to this site, I know better than to think some non-capitalist society will solve my problem. I know where the problem came from, and what to do about it, at least in theory.
Anything but going to a MORE capitalist society is like being on a sinking ship because of a leak, and trying to save the ship by drilling more holes.
If you've been here for a year, you know that you are not living in a Capitalist society, but an interventionist [=fascist] one, where the govt imposes its will on the market. So that any problems that come up in the real world have to be analyzed to figure out "Did this come from capitalism or from Interventionism?"
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.
So far so good, then.
Though, if someone needs to find a job, they have no choice but to employ themselves at a crappy job
You soon say that if they get a BA in Communication then they get a good, noncrappy job.
So the real complaint here is "Capitalism is not letting me get a BA in Communication."
Have you been here long enough to know this is not true? That the govt interference in education, by giving student loans, is what created this? That before student loans people worked their way through college, AT CRAPPY JOBS during the summer and an hour or so a day during school, and thta was enough to pay their tuition?
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.
Can't argue with a definiton, can I? But did any of these perks exist before there were unions? And you have been here long enough to know that unions are an arm of govt, meaning there are laws forcing people to join unions etc.
How could an employer get away with doing this to you? Could you not quit and leave him high and dry? I guess the answer is you can't because SOMEONE ELSE will walk right in the door and HAPPILY work under those conditions. In other words, you have that crapppy job because you are easily replacable.
Let's put it this way. Say you had to devote your time to study. You hire someone to do the drudge work at your house. Would you offer them overtime, paid breaks, and so on? And if one guy came along and said "I'll do it without the paid breaks," would you say. "No, I'm not a capitalist exploiter, I insist." Of ocurse you wouldn't. You have very little money. You can't afford that kind of expense.
People at low-income jobs barely make enough to even be worth all this stress,
And yet they don't quit, do they? So it must be worth it, bottom line.
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,
What should they be? A right? So someone should have the right to march into your house and say "I'm your new housekeeper. You have to pay me a decent wage."
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.
You know that wages are determined by how USEFUL and IRREPLACABLE you are to the employer, right? So are you saying you "should" be more useful and irreplacable? To whom is your complaint directed?
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.
Why should they want to cut their own salaries? And of course they pay only what they absolutely have to. Why is this wrong or unfair? It's THEIR money. They did not steal it from you.
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Belligerent and incoherent. This rant has nothing to do with economics or political philosophy. To be honest, you sound like some lunatic from revleft.
Novus Zarathustra:Honestly, how could anyone disagree with any of this?
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Everyone else seems to be addressing most of your points quite well, so I have very little to add; however...
Novus Zarathustra: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.
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.
This is blatantly false. Bill Gates dropped out of college to found Microsoft. He is very much responsible for the creation of his fortune. Every dollar that one makes as an entrepreneur (and Bill Gates was definitely that) is directly tied to one's ability to satisfy consumers.
Life and reality are neither logical nor illogical; they are simply given. But logic is the only tool available to man for the comprehension of both.—Ludwig von Mises
Life and reality are neither logical nor illogical; they are simply given. But logic is the only tool available to man for the comprehension of both.