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Wow this comment thread is depressing. Anyone who can't see the exploitation in this has their head in the sand. If you are paying/treating people less (in va

by Volpe 15y ago

Wow this comment thread is depressing. Anyone who can't see the exploitation in this has their head in the sand. If you are paying/treating people less (in value) than what they contribute (in value) back to you, you are exploiting them. Simple as that. Apple have taken to boasting how great their profit margins are, another way to look at that, is to say they are boasting at how well they can exploit others (suppliers and consumers). Seriously, stop rationalising that your iDevice/Android is a moral device, it isn't in a utilitarian, or deontological sense, by any stretch. Only some weak relativistic point of view can justify it. But that's what helps people sleep at night, so we all just hover around there.

Dylan16807 15y ago
That is a terrible definition of exploitation. You're saying that even a single dollar of profit qualifies. How are you even defining value? What if I like bananas more than shirts and you the opposite? Do we somehow exploit each other when we trade?
- Volpe 15y ago
  how do you justify profit not qualifying? bananas and shirts have an intrinsic value, it isn't subjective, they cost X to produce/ship, that's their value. The rest is exploitation. Of course, a pro-capitalist isn't going to like this line of thinking, as it is explicitly anti-capitalism.
  - drumdance 15y ago
    "Intrinsic value?" What if I invent a new banana plant that can grow in cold weather. It's so successful that there is a banana glut. All the banana republics face bankruptcy because it costs more to ship the darn things than for me to go out back and pick a fresh bunch off my own personal banana tree? This may seem like a silly example, but think of how the invention of the tractor affected the draft horse industry. There is no such thing as intrinsic value. There is only the value the marketplace assigns to it. The Soviets spent decades trying to quantify it -- that is, to figure out how much to pay the janitor compared to the factory manager -- but ultimately gave up.
    - Volpe 15y ago
      Oh I see what you did there... so because the soviets tried and failed (with stalinism that is). We should just assume that "free markets" are the best solution despite the obvious exploitation that occur due to the 'profit motive'? You wouldn't accept a political system that gave more votes to a select minority, so why so keen on an economic system that does that? (substitute votes, for money)
      - Dylan16807 15y ago
        Selected how? The house/senate split in the us gives more vote to people in less populated areas and it's generally considered an okay idea.
        Volpe 15y ago
        my point exactly, yet in a free market economy the rich have a lot more money to 'vote' than the poor. Wealth is inherited (for no valid reason). Poor families stay poor, rich stay rich. In our political metaphor, it is the same as totalitarianism, the powerful stay powerful through use of force, and weak stay weak. Why do the same people advocate polar opposites regarding politics and economy?
      - drumdance 15y ago
        Free markets are the least bad option so far. You tried to make the same point about intrinsic value the Marx, Engels and their followers have been making for the last 150 years. Rhetoric only gets you so far. It's easy to seize the moral high ground when you don't have to actually implement. It's like me saying "there needs to be a better search engine than Google" and getting mad if someone suggests I build one. And as another commenter posted earlier, the US Senate prioritizes votes from low-population states. And "money" is just a store of value. Ultimately it has to be backed by a marketplace that accepts its value.
  - Dylan16807 15y ago
    Cost to produce is along the lines of what I expected you to answer, but I don't understand. Am I not to collect a wage as the runner of the business even if I'm not doing production work? Or is that in fact included in the 'cost to produce' and then you have to figure out a wage with no logical reference frame? And how is a business going to get the capital to start if it can't take in money to pay interest? If that would be allowed you're dangerously close to capitalism. Also I disagree that your idea is in fact anti-capitalist. Paying people based on the value they provide in exchange would favor giving successful wall-street fund managers hundreds of millions of dollars which seems supremely capitalist. (the business itself being exploitative to externals doesn't really matter here)
    - Volpe 15y ago
      runner of a business? what is that? Does that mean you are living off the surplus value of your workers? or are you a worker yourself? Your "wage" is decided by your work isn't it? i.e if banana is worth x and you pick 5 of them, then you earned 5x no? I don't understand your capital/interest point. except in a world of no-profit companies... wall street fund managers wouldn't exist.
      - Dylan16807 15y ago
        I'm talking about the guy in the back that tracks all the bananas and schedules the deliveries and orders the equipment and all the other logistics on this banana team. Does he not get paid? Or does this job not exist somehow? Creating a banana farm takes money. Who is going to do it? If there are no profits then nobody that focuses on money will bother, and nobody that focuses on rewarding labor can get a loan either. And fine, if you won't ignore the nonexistence of fund managers long enough to answer a question about principles I'll try a different tack. If I invent a banana picker that saves ten million dollars am I entitled to ten million dollars? Value in, value out.
        Volpe 15y ago
        sorry to rankle you. I'm not meaning to. More playing out a thought experiment. So this hypothetical (socialist) banana farm, in order not to disadvantage anyone, would have to be owned by the local community (and ultimately the nation), given private ownership wouldn't exist. People aren't focused on money, or profit, they are focused on bananas, because they enjoy contributing to society. > If I invent a banana picker that saves ten million dollars am I entitled to ten million dollars. You are phrasing the question from a capitalist centric point of view. If you invent a banana picker, that is super efficient (and in a capitalist workforce would allow you to cut costs but firing your ten million dollar workforce) then you could just let your workers work less, given there is no profit, and you are already servicing the needs of your community with bananas. So perhaps the workers can think of improvements to other parts of the process, like shipping, or perhaps you just want to give them more time to their family. It's actually very difficult to think about, given we have an innate capitalist view of things. Hypotheticals aside, Is it really a controversial point to say that "profit" and "free markets" (while providing an efficient way to price things) motivates a whole lot of behaviours not in the "public good". Should we not explore other alternatives?

by Volpe 15y ago

Dylan16807 15y ago

That is a terrible definition of exploitation. You're saying that even a single dollar of profit qualifies. How are you even defining value? What if I like bananas more than shirts and you the opposite? Do we somehow exploit each other when we trade?

Volpe 15y ago
how do you justify profit not qualifying? bananas and shirts have an intrinsic value, it isn't subjective, they cost X to produce/ship, that's their value. The rest is exploitation. Of course, a pro-capitalist isn't going to like this line of thinking, as it is explicitly anti-capitalism.
- drumdance 15y ago
  "Intrinsic value?" What if I invent a new banana plant that can grow in cold weather. It's so successful that there is a banana glut. All the banana republics face bankruptcy because it costs more to ship the darn things than for me to go out back and pick a fresh bunch off my own personal banana tree? This may seem like a silly example, but think of how the invention of the tractor affected the draft horse industry. There is no such thing as intrinsic value. There is only the value the marketplace assigns to it. The Soviets spent decades trying to quantify it -- that is, to figure out how much to pay the janitor compared to the factory manager -- but ultimately gave up.
  - Volpe 15y ago
    Oh I see what you did there... so because the soviets tried and failed (with stalinism that is). We should just assume that "free markets" are the best solution despite the obvious exploitation that occur due to the 'profit motive'? You wouldn't accept a political system that gave more votes to a select minority, so why so keen on an economic system that does that? (substitute votes, for money)
    - Dylan16807 15y ago
      Selected how? The house/senate split in the us gives more vote to people in less populated areas and it's generally considered an okay idea.
      - Volpe 15y ago
        my point exactly, yet in a free market economy the rich have a lot more money to 'vote' than the poor. Wealth is inherited (for no valid reason). Poor families stay poor, rich stay rich. In our political metaphor, it is the same as totalitarianism, the powerful stay powerful through use of force, and weak stay weak. Why do the same people advocate polar opposites regarding politics and economy?
    - drumdance 15y ago
      Free markets are the least bad option so far. You tried to make the same point about intrinsic value the Marx, Engels and their followers have been making for the last 150 years. Rhetoric only gets you so far. It's easy to seize the moral high ground when you don't have to actually implement. It's like me saying "there needs to be a better search engine than Google" and getting mad if someone suggests I build one. And as another commenter posted earlier, the US Senate prioritizes votes from low-population states. And "money" is just a store of value. Ultimately it has to be backed by a marketplace that accepts its value.
- Dylan16807 15y ago
  Cost to produce is along the lines of what I expected you to answer, but I don't understand. Am I not to collect a wage as the runner of the business even if I'm not doing production work? Or is that in fact included in the 'cost to produce' and then you have to figure out a wage with no logical reference frame? And how is a business going to get the capital to start if it can't take in money to pay interest? If that would be allowed you're dangerously close to capitalism. Also I disagree that your idea is in fact anti-capitalist. Paying people based on the value they provide in exchange would favor giving successful wall-street fund managers hundreds of millions of dollars which seems supremely capitalist. (the business itself being exploitative to externals doesn't really matter here)
  - Volpe 15y ago
    runner of a business? what is that? Does that mean you are living off the surplus value of your workers? or are you a worker yourself? Your "wage" is decided by your work isn't it? i.e if banana is worth x and you pick 5 of them, then you earned 5x no? I don't understand your capital/interest point. except in a world of no-profit companies... wall street fund managers wouldn't exist.
    - Dylan16807 15y ago
      I'm talking about the guy in the back that tracks all the bananas and schedules the deliveries and orders the equipment and all the other logistics on this banana team. Does he not get paid? Or does this job not exist somehow? Creating a banana farm takes money. Who is going to do it? If there are no profits then nobody that focuses on money will bother, and nobody that focuses on rewarding labor can get a loan either. And fine, if you won't ignore the nonexistence of fund managers long enough to answer a question about principles I'll try a different tack. If I invent a banana picker that saves ten million dollars am I entitled to ten million dollars? Value in, value out.
      - Volpe 15y ago
        sorry to rankle you. I'm not meaning to. More playing out a thought experiment. So this hypothetical (socialist) banana farm, in order not to disadvantage anyone, would have to be owned by the local community (and ultimately the nation), given private ownership wouldn't exist. People aren't focused on money, or profit, they are focused on bananas, because they enjoy contributing to society. > If I invent a banana picker that saves ten million dollars am I entitled to ten million dollars. You are phrasing the question from a capitalist centric point of view. If you invent a banana picker, that is super efficient (and in a capitalist workforce would allow you to cut costs but firing your ten million dollar workforce) then you could just let your workers work less, given there is no profit, and you are already servicing the needs of your community with bananas. So perhaps the workers can think of improvements to other parts of the process, like shipping, or perhaps you just want to give them more time to their family. It's actually very difficult to think about, given we have an innate capitalist view of things. Hypotheticals aside, Is it really a controversial point to say that "profit" and "free markets" (while providing an efficient way to price things) motivates a whole lot of behaviours not in the "public good". Should we not explore other alternatives?