If Mort Divine ruled the world

[Einherjar86]

How?

Capitalism gravitates toward optimum efficiency. Workers' rights interfere with optimum efficiency.

 

[CiG]

Capitalism gravitates toward optimum efficiency. Workers' rights interfere with optimum efficiency.

Oh, agreed. That doesn't mean we can't have a capitalistic society that is operated intelligently. Capitalism unrestrained is like anything else, this is why I would probably call myself a social liberal in terms of policy preference. We can have workers' rights, capitalism and social programs while trying to curb the negative aspects and excesses of all 3 things.

Indonesia's problem isn't capitalism.

 

[Dak]

Capitalism gravitates towards efficiency of achieving profits. Efficiency alone means nothing without means and ends.

 

[EternalMetal]

The real problem isn't that they work in sweatshops for nothing wages in dogshit conditions, and yes without the sweatshops they'd instead just starve, have to migrate or work somewhere else that sucks even more than the sweatshops, the biggest problem is that those companies stamp down on any kind of labour movement that might help to balance the conditions and wages out.

In that documentary they interview a man who has been trying to organize a workers' rights movement for years around that cluster of sweatshops and he's dealt with threats and physical violence. It's not Nike's fault that the management in Indonesia act like warlords and thugs, even if they should probably levy some influence over the situation or at least address it.

How is it not Nike's fault then? They choose to actively do business with people who treat their employees like shit, know about it, and act like it never happened.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Serena Williams losing to Naomi Osaka is apparently a result of the patriarchy and white supremacy.

 

[CiG]

How is it not Nike's fault then? They choose to actively do business with people who treat their employees like shit, know about it, and act like it never happened.

Because Nike didn't create the situation Indonesia is in, they just exploited it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

White Europeans didn't create slavery in Africa, they just exploited it.

 

[EternalMetal]

Because Nike didn't create the situation Indonesia is in, they just exploited it.

Yes, and choose to support it. The point is that I don't think they should support such business practices even if it results in a higher profit. These are the types of choices the high-paid execs are responsible for making, but of course padding their pockets is more important than providing humane working conditions. Nike is culpable because they perpetuate the situation.

 

[CiG]

White Europeans didn't create slavery in Africa, they just exploited it.

I mean, that is true and furthermore is it Europe's fault that Nigerians were enslavement-happy?

Yes, and choose to support it. The point is that I don't think they should support such business practices even if it results in a higher profit. These are the types of choices the high-paid execs are responsible for making, but of course padding their pockets is more important than providing humane working conditions. Nike is culpable because they perpetuate the situation.

Sure, they're culpable and they should actually address such practices. I'm not sure whether they should pull out of those markets though because what else do those workers have in terms of choices?

IMO what needs to happen is they need a labour movement.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I mean, that is true and furthermore is it Europe's fault that Nigerians were enslavement-happy?

It's Europe's fault for buying slaves, continuing to hold slaves, and enslaving their slaves' children.

fwiw I'm not saying that using sweatshop labor is necessarily a bad thing. Use of cheap Chinese labor by wealthy Western corporations has certainly helped to enrich China. Free, open markets are some of the best ways of redistributing wealth and empowering the poor. But they still are morally culpable in any abuses that may happen if they are either aware of them, or if they intentionally choose to be ignorant to said abuses.

 

[CiG]

Sure, but all I'm saying is that even if Nike completely pulled out of Indonesia, the practices of basically destroying any attempt to start a workers' rights movement would still exist in Indonesia. Not that Nike should be let off the hook for exploiting and perpetuating a situation, but only that they didn't create that market that won't allow workers to collectivize against exploitative workplace conditions.

 

[rms]

Workers' rights interfere with optimum efficiency.

not necessarily. asian labor forces can be treated like shit only because of the surrounding context. tech companies do the opposite here

 

[rms]

IMO what needs to happen is they need a labour movement.

there's a lot of articles about how increased pay/rights for these overseas companies working in asian countries would be a detriment

 

[CiG]

Sure but they will need to start somewhere or they'll be basically slaves forever.

 

[rms]

I think it's too late, first world countries only care about tourism in these non developed countries. With India and China providing all the necessary 'smart' labor to the first world, how does anyone else stand a chance?

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh, agreed. That doesn't mean we can't have a capitalistic society that is operated intelligently. Capitalism unrestrained is like anything else, this is why I would probably call myself a social liberal in terms of policy preference. We can have workers' rights, capitalism and social programs while trying to curb the negative aspects and excesses of all 3 things.

Indonesia's problem isn't capitalism.

The way I see it, capitalism is a system and rather inhuman in its machinations. The problem is unfettered capitalism, and things like workers' rights are merely checks on an ultimately dehumanizing process. I'd say that operating a capitalist system "intelligently" means you force it to act less-than-completely capitalistically, so to speak. The same goes for any institutional organization comprised of human actors.

Capitalism gravitates towards efficiency of achieving profits. Efficiency alone means nothing without means and ends.

Agreed, but it's not black and white. The system needs labor, but that doesn't mean capitalism is at its most efficient when its labor force is treated humanely. At very small, local levels this might be true, but it's certainly not true at multinational levels. It's an irreconcilable contradiction that drives the system forward. In order to work at its most efficient, the system would need to severely exploit its laborers; but laborers don't appreciate this, and so they push back. There's no ideal efficiency, only a system that sacrifices optimum efficiency in order to facilitate continual functionality.

The idea that individual (i.e. workers') rights and optimum efficiency go hand in hand is a myth rewritten back over the history of capitalism as a way to correlate the two. It's not built into the system itself.

not necessarily. asian labor forces can be treated like shit only because of the surrounding context. tech companies do the opposite here

I disagree because this, to my understanding, assumes that there's a fixed level of optimum efficiency that can be achieved materially; but that's not true. Capitalism by its very function is always striving to produce more and to produce more efficiently. So the bar of optimum is always just out of reach, materially speaking but also theoretically. At any point in time, capitalism is never functioning at its optimum capacity.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Businesses want the most work for their employees' bucks, employees want the most buck for their work. Both of those equations are matters of efficiency and both are vital components of capitalism. Finding the exact equilibrium that both parties can agree to is arguably the greatest efficiency.

 

[CiG]

 

[rms]

I disagree because this, to my understanding, assumes that there's a fixed level of optimum efficiency that can be achieved materially; but that's not true

just saying efficiency in a marketplace isn't defined as "the closest to human uprising as possible"

 

[CiG]

Lithuania is urging U.S. retail giant Walmart to stop selling clothing with Soviet hammer-and-sickle symbols, which it says insults victims of Soviet-era persecution.

"You wouldn't buy Nazi-themed clothing, would you?" the Baltic state's foreign minister, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted on September 7. "We trust @Walmart's moral stance & call to withdraw products with the symbols of mass murders."

Walmart sell commie gear? I had no idea, that's pretty funny and weird.