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> Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough clothes to last years. And this is where we come to the fact that poverty has been, to some e

> Clothing is very cheap - for a day's wages you could buy enough clothes to last years. And this is where we come to the fact that poverty has been, to some extent, exported beyond the borders of your country. In the modern world you can't just stop the economic analysis at your border, millions (if not billions) of people around the world take part in your economy and many of them are starving or malnurished and probably don't have access to health care or a decent education. If their cheap labour weren't present, you wouldn't be able to buy a year's supply of clothing for a day's wages.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
I'm not sure clothing isn't mostly automated by now. If not, it will be. The larger problem is, Nobody is needed for hand labor any more (or soon that will be the case). What do we do with the uneducated masses then? Educate them? We absolutely don't need a billion more engineers. Then what? I have no answer.
- vidarh 13y ago
  The core of Marxism basically boils down to the problem you set out above. One could summarise the core of Marxism like this: Capitalism is exceptionally good at improving production, to the point where it will eventually put people out of work, and throw a growing number people back into poverty, and that is when a society is ready for a socialist revolution: When all basic wants can be met, but no longer are solely for the reason of distribution rather than production. In The German Ideology (1845), Marx warned that an attempt at a socialist revolution in a society that is not sufficiently advanced was doomed to failure as it would just make want common, and class differences would re-assert themselves. No points for recognising the long string of examples where this actually happened. Every other part of Marxist theory pretty much serves to underpin or expand on that core.
- Kliment 13y ago
  Unfortunately, garment processing is one field where automation is way, way behind other fields due to fundamental technical problems. There has been little to no progress in the past few decades compared to other related fields, notably fabric production (which is almost entirely automated now).

JoeAltmaier 13y ago

I'm not sure clothing isn't mostly automated by now. If not, it will be. The larger problem is, Nobody is needed for hand labor any more (or soon that will be the case). What do we do with the uneducated masses then? Educate them? We absolutely don't need a billion more engineers. Then what? I have no answer.

vidarh 13y ago
The core of Marxism basically boils down to the problem you set out above. One could summarise the core of Marxism like this: Capitalism is exceptionally good at improving production, to the point where it will eventually put people out of work, and throw a growing number people back into poverty, and that is when a society is ready for a socialist revolution: When all basic wants can be met, but no longer are solely for the reason of distribution rather than production. In The German Ideology (1845), Marx warned that an attempt at a socialist revolution in a society that is not sufficiently advanced was doomed to failure as it would just make want common, and class differences would re-assert themselves. No points for recognising the long string of examples where this actually happened. Every other part of Marxist theory pretty much serves to underpin or expand on that core.
Kliment 13y ago
Unfortunately, garment processing is one field where automation is way, way behind other fields due to fundamental technical problems. There has been little to no progress in the past few decades compared to other related fields, notably fabric production (which is almost entirely automated now).