Poverty

[nemafakei]

Economists who work for the good of everyone else, including non-economists.

[Caid Ivik]

Still economists...

[Andrew]

What's wrong with ecomomists? ???

[nemafakei]

Nothing in of themselves, Edric's point was that those 'economists' working for corporations get paid depending on the profit they make for the corporation, not the good they do for society: they plan for the advantage of the corporation, even if it's to the detriment of society at large.

I assume, Caid, that you were responding to Edric's first sentence...

[Andrew]

Oh, well yes, Corporations look out only for themselves, they don't care about society as long as they will prosper.

That is why sometimes I wish a corporation would take over the governments place, as corporations are more efficient than governments, but governments must take care of everyone, and can't just say screw you there is no profit there.

So maybe a mix of corporations and governments. :P

But sometimes economists are a good thing. I forget, been a couple months since taken economics course.

[Edric O]

That is why sometimes I wish a corporation would take over the governments place...

[...]

So maybe a mix of corporations and governments. :P

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

- Benito Mussolini

Let's not go there again, shall we?

...as corporations are more efficient than governments...

Says who?

If anything, history proves the exact contrary. Governments built great monuments and carried out essential public works, governments eliminated famine and the worst forms of poverty in the First World, governments eradicated some of the most deadly diseases known to man, governments practically eliminated illiterracy and raised the level of education for all (again, in the First World, because this is where most welfare states are), governments put the first sattelite in orbit, the first man in space and the first man on the Moon.

And what exactly did corporations do? Well, they, ummmm... they gave us Coca Cola...

Hell, even the internet began as a computer network run by the American government!

The myth that corporations are somehow more "efficient" than governments has no basis in reality. And even if it did, why couldn't governments just do the same thing that corporations do to give themselves "magical efficiency"?

[Andrew]

Well, I know that if I go work for the government right now, I will get payed lots of money for doing little work. If I went to go work for a corporation/business, I know I will probably get payed less or similiar to the gov job (If it were the same type of job), yet I would be working a hell of a lot more than the government job. Everyone I know that has a government job at the tax center say it is a slack job. Every person that has worked at a gov job said it was a slack job. (at least my peers that worked at it say so.)

The government put a covlert+dirt (thing for water to go through under driveway) in my friend's new house. It took around 8 people, 2 dump trucks, 2 1/2ton trucks and a backhoe. Took them about 5 hours to put it in.

Then the person who is building the house decides that it should be in another spot. He has his backhoe with him and moves the colvert+dirt/shale in an hour. With only 1 or 2 people.

Whenever you see the government workers working on roads they are on a break. We like to say they are always on break.

Some Governments are innefficent, others are not. Some corporations are innefficent others are not.

[Edric O]

Some Governments are innefficent, others are not. Some corporations are innefficent others are not.

My point exactly! There is no universal law of efficiency regarding corporations and governments. Some corporations are more efficient than some governments; some governments are more efficient than some corporations. It all depends on which government and which corporation you're talking about.

Also, keep in mind that both governments and corporations are very large organizations, with plenty of sub-departments. Some of those departments may be efficient while others are not.

Every person that has worked at a gov job said it was a slack job. (at least my peers that worked at it say so.)

A slack job based on what standards? Those of the corporations? How do you know that it's not the corporations who are working you too hard, rather than the government working you too little?

Most of our jobs would look like "slack jobs" to a recently released slave... So just bear in mind that your evaluation is a relative one.

If I went to go work for a corporation/business, I know I will probably get payed less or similiar to the gov job (If it were the same type of job), yet I would be working a hell of a lot more than the government job.

So let me get this straight: Corporations make you work harder for less money... and that's a GOOD thing?

[Andrew]

So let me get this straight: Corporations make you work harder for less money... and that's a GOOD thing?

It is better than the government wasting our money on useless jobs. ;D

Maybe your right about the slack job part, a CEO may have a "slack" job. (But still gets paid lots for doing nothing.)

If only I had taken the Economics course with the teacher who in the first class went on ranting about how governments are inefficient. Darn.

Hey I'm taking the same course with the same teacher in 6 months! Maybe he will enlighten me in these ways.

But I want to take International Monetary Policy, but I don't have the pre-requisite, and the time screws with another course.

[Dunenewt]

Someone in another forum i visit posted this:

Working hard is the centerpiece of capitalism. You cannot succeed in a free market environment without putting in good effort for your employer or for those who you employ. It just doesn't work that way.

Does anyone agree?

[nemafakei]

"Working hard is the centerpiece of capitalism. You cannot succeed in a free market environment without putting in good effort for your employer or for those who you employ. It just doesn't work that way."

Yes and no.

To succeed in capitalism, you've got to be prepared to do a certain amount of work to get to the upper echelons of the wage scale. But once there, it doesn't necessarily hold true - especially when you get to the point of setting your own payscale (or your mates').

An exception is if you already own millions and can live off the interest from your parents' or grandparents' successes, and do very little.

However, this statement avoids the fact that you can quite easily work your fingers to the bone doing very useful work for society and get paid little more than others.

And indeed, the people with the toughest, nastiest jobs are rarely the ones getting the best paycheques at the end of the month.

The argument you post is mostly accurate in that if you're totally lazy, chances are you won't succeed. But the problem is that even if you work hard, there's no guarantee whatsoever it'll get you anywhere.

[Edric O]

Working hard is the centerpiece of capitalism. You cannot succeed in a free market environment without putting in good effort for your employer or for those who you employ. It just doesn't work that way.

Oh yes it does. In fact, I've already explained exactly how the "free market environment" works and how the rich get rich by exploiting their workers. See this topic:

We've been talking a lot about capitalist exploitation lately, in several topics (particularly in "what is socialism"), but it occured to me that many of our newer members don't understand the concept because they never read the old topics where we discussed it, and/or because there never was a dedicated topic for talking about this matter. So I decided to make this topic specifically to explain how capitalist exploitation works.

First of all, the source of the problem is the fact that the means of production are private property. Capitalist society is divided in two social classes: the bourgeoisie (the owners/employers - those who own means of production) and the proletariat (the workers/employees - those who do not own means of production). The bourgeoisie (which is a tiny minority compared to the proletariat) is the ruling class, since it effectively owns and controls the entire economy. It has overwhelming wealth and power compared to the proletariat. But the bourgeois do not acquire their wealth through their own work. They acquire it by exploiting the work of others - by extracting a profit from their employees. Allow me to explain:

Every employee works using means of production which are the property of his employer. The product of his work also becomes the property of his employer. In exchange for this, the employee receives a salary. But this salary has no connection with the actual value of the product that the employee produces, or the amount of work that went into it. That product - the fruit of the employee's labour - becomes the property of the employer.

Wages are only influenced by the labour market. In capitalism, labour acts like any other commodity which can be bought and sold. The employee sells his labour, and the price he gets in return is his wage. And like any other price, it is regulated by supply and demand. Thus, an employee's wage depends only on how many people there are who are willing to take his job, and how much money they are willing to work for. So, as I mentioned above, the wage has nothing to do whatsoever with the value of the product he produces, or the amount of work he puts into it.

As a matter of fact, in order to make a profit, the employer must always pay his employees LESS than the actual value of the products they make. This is how capitalism exploits the worker.

Capitalists might argue that you are free to quit your job and go work for another employer. But ALL employers must exploit their workers in order to make a profit, so your only "choice" is whether you will be exploited by one employer or by the other employer across the street (and the skilled middle-class employees in rich western nations might not feel exploited, but that doesn't change the fact that they are exploited as much as any other workers). Capitalists might also argue that employees are free to start their own business and become employers themselves. But this argument doesn't even stand up to common sense: How exactly can you have more employers than employees? How can you have more bosses than workers? The fact is that in any capitalist society, the employers (the bourgeoisie) will always be a minority and the employees (the proletariat) will always be the majority. Some proletarians might have the opportunity to move up into the bourgeoisie, but they are very few compared to the proletarians who don't have that opportunity. Success stories are the exceptions, not the rule.

But in addition to that explanation, I'll go over your statement again:

A "good effort for your employer"? How many of the world's millionaires and billionaires are someone else's employees? In other words, how many of them have an employer? I'll tell you how many: None. You can look all you want, but you'll never find any who are not employers themselves. All the richest people are big business owners.

Obviously, "putting in a good effort for your employer" never gets you very far. It doesn't matter how hard you work. You can only get rich if you're an employer yourself.

As for putting in a good effort for your employees, that's not what capitalist employers do. The goal of the boss is to gain a large profit, not to make his workers happy. And while it's true that many rich capitalists do work, the problem is that they get hundreds (if not thousands) of times more money than their work is worth. The rich don't get rich by working; the money they actually earned is only a tiny part of their wealth. The rest comes from exploiting their workers.

You're right about one thing, though: Working hard certainly is the centerpiece of capitalism. Some people work hard, others get the money.

[Wolf]

Actually, in the book entitled The Millionaire Next Door, it talks about how a lot of new, up-and-coming millionaries are actually janitors or real estate agents -- people with employers. They can achieve a high net worth because their jobs do not depand a high-consumption life-style, as the usual "millionaire jobs," executive positions, medicine, banking, and law demand.

[Edric O]

Millionaire janitors??

I'll have to see that with my own eyes before I believe it. ;) Honestly, who pays his janitor enough to make him a millionaire?

[Wolf]

Oh, it's a fascinating book. And yes, janitors have decent potential to become millionaires in their lives. Basically, even though janitors receive a low income, they live a low-consumption lifestyle. Because of this, if they save and/or invest conservatively, they are capable of reaching a net worth of well above $1,000,000 within ten to fifteen years. The problems I had with this book is that a million dollars isn't really a lot of money anymore, and it takes a long time for a janitor to accumulate this sort of wealth. Though, I personally believe it. In my town, you can get a summer job as a janitor in the school or government buildings which pays $13 an hour. That's double the minimum wage. And that's a summer job. Just for starting out.

[Edric O]

Well, now it makes sense. But as you can probably imagine, the people who can make a million dollars in 15 years by living a spartan lifestyle are not exactly the kind of "millionaires" I was talking about...

[Wolf]

Ja. Definately.