Monica our Action Decaoness prays for the soul of an already-closed Starbucks
The LOCAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT is already alive - we're just proposing this name for activists in every town and city who are bravely facing down the monoculture. The realistic awareness that so many of us have now - throughout the world - is that our governments and corporations have an idea of producing wealth that sacrifices local, more compassionate economies. What we casually share with each other about the economic downturn would have been called "radical" in the past, but now it's just common sense. The corporate requirement to expand-at-all-costs? It costs too much. We can't shop our way to glory. Don't try to talk us into that anymore, whether you are Bono or Obama. The things we lose when the mono-culture conquers us - it starts with our happiness. The super-mall is supposed to be a Promised Land full of happiness on a higher level than the neighborhood economy that it killed. Then the mall designers seek to replicate that neighborhood inside their emporiums. But the way of life that pleasures us in a human-scale community cannot be re-manufactured inside retail displays, even if they measure the town carefully and re-cast it in their plastic: down to each corner, stoop and bodega newspaper rack. For years we missed our small shops as they got evicted. We felt that empty loss, and some of us shouted in pain as the people who labored in our communities for so long got the boot. Still the city council voted the big box into town and we usually lost that fight. But now we truly have a Local Rights Movement. As the financiers in Wall Street and London and Europe, big gamblers in the sky, are caught hallucinating value that doesn't exist, we turn and look at the devastation wrought by their financial schemes. Our towns are reduced to about 15 logos, all owned by them. The robbery couldn't be clearer. We want to defend ourselves now. We learned from our UK Shopocalypse Tour over the last two weeks that activists defend their communities from the economic assaults of malls and chains are everywhere. We are everywhere. We were greeted from Norwich to Liverpool to London to Brighton. Each time our bus stopped, we were singing "Local-a-lujah!" with the locals and ready to march. Police-persons quickly formed lines, Starbucks closed, helicopters hovered over-head. This happened regardless of what we were singing or shouting. It was the awareness that we all KNOW now. We know to claim our own community. The police fell back, shouting again and again. "You must have a permit!" "This is private property!" But there was a resignation to it, and even sometimes a flicker of a smile. Some of the bobbies are afflicted by our same radical common sense. It is time for the Local Rights Movement. Local-lujah!
Comments
Think local, act global
The message that we are given over and over again when groups of us form to fight the takeover of our cities and highstreets by the giant chains is "give up, you can't win - they are rich and powerful and you are just a bunch of nobodies". We all know that's not true - you can see the evidence of it in every town where a chain loses a planning application, or where people carry on shopping in their local, independent stores despite the superstore around the corner. One of the ways that we make ourselves more powerful is by making contact with each other, sharing knowledge and experiences. We protect our local communities by connecting globally.
It can be hard to remember this and I think we can all feel like little islands sometimes, isolated in our own local struggles. Thank you, Rev, for helping to remind us that we are a global archipelago of activism!
JUST THINK!
In spite of the fact that a Quinnipiac University poll found that 51% of New York City residents would welcome Wal-Mart [including 64% of Bronx residents and 58% of Staten Island’s residents], while 37% would oppose Wal-Mart [largely from Manhattan] - a coalition of small businesses and labor unions [who, unlike most of the U.S., can actually influence city elections] thought that they knew better than the people and blocked Wal-Mart, depriving residents of greater consumer choices.
So, who won and who lost, and how much?
Queens residents who own cars can, and do, drive to Hempstead or Westbury - both of which have Wal-Marts. In fact, over one-half of New Yorkers shop outside of the city on a regular basis at "big box" stores! The “mom and pop” stores, who sell essentially the same products as Wal-Mart but at a much higher price, benefit because they can gouge the poor who have no/or limited transportation, or other options.
Besides the poor, who else are losers? New York City is also on the short end because the city loses shoppers, jobs and sales tax revenues to big stores in the burbs. By the way, if you think that Wal-Mart is exploiting its workers, why don’t you walk into a neighborhood “mom and pop” store and ask the clerks [assuming that they hire people from the local community and not extended family] how much they are paid and whether, or not, they have health care coverage or profit sharing plans - two benefits that Wal-Mart offers to its employees. You may be shocked at the answer.
However, the real winner is not the “mom and pop” stores or even the unions - it is Nassau Country. Long before Wal-Mart came on the scene, Nassau County benefited enormously from New York City ’s success in keeping out the “big-box” stores.
How big did Nassau win?
Nassau won big time! Queens’s residents have slightly higher aggregate annual personal income compared to the residents of Nassau [$65 billion vs. Nassau ’s $64 billion]. Since these two counties have nearly the same aggregate income, we should expect them to have very similar levels of retail employment and spending, shouldn’t we?
Well, sadly that is not the case. Nassau has double the annual retail-sales volume as Queens . Nassau has 82,000 retail jobs, approximately 6,200 stores, which pay about $2.3 billion annually in wages versus Queens - which has only 49,000 retail jobs [an astonishing 40% fewer than Nassau], working in approximately 5,700 stores which pay a total of $1.2 billion annually in wages – nearly half of Nassau’s! It is obvious that the Wal-Marts, and other large stores, are creating more jobs, income, and wealth than the “mom and pop” stores of Queens .
Perhaps the biggest loser are the New York City taxpayers. The extra sales-tax income that QUEENS ALONE forfeits to Nassau County amounts to about $250 MILLION per year! This doesn’t even begin to count the lost property-tax revenues when potential sites sit empty in Queens, or the cost to keeps these empty lots clean abd safe.
So, putting all of the happy-clappy singing and childish pranksterism aside - what did stopping Wal-Mart in Rego Park *really* accomplish?
Are the people who *could have* now be working at a Rego Park Wal-Mart better off today having no job, or by having a job that pays them less than Wal-Mart would have paid? Are the poor, who have no other option, better off paying higher prices at the neighborhood “mom and pop” store for the same [or perhaps inferior] products? Are those who have cars better off by being forced to drive out of New York City in order to save money because competition is so severely restricted within the city? Is the City of New York better off by forfeiting the income and property tax revenues that a Rego Park Wal-Mart would have created, to Nassau County or to New Jersey ? What about the taxpayers of New York City ? Are they better off paying higher property taxes and receiving fewer city services due to the lost tax revenue that Wal-Mart could have generated?
Where is the “victory” in keeping Wal-Mart out of Queens? Could someone please tell me?
John Galt
WalMart
Tax revenue? That's if WalMart doesn't cheat its way out of paying the revenue (which it has a long history of doing). Also, how much cash is going to come out of city coffers to subsidize the infrastructure the building requires? How many tax breaks is Wal Mart going to GET before it GIVES?
Jobs? That's a joke. I could go on and on about unpaid overtime, low wages, and the way this company ENCOURAGES its employees to get on the state funded healthcare system.
As far as mom and pops exploiting workers, I agree-many of them do. The problem, however lies in the nature of capitalism in America: it's in your (apparent) best interest to cheat your neighbor wether you are selling a car or running a multi-state business.
In other words, you are working off of a lot of false assumptions, the first of which being that people in positions of authority act in an ethical manner, the second being that trickle down economics works.
Thin Arguments
As for taxes, it would be very difficult for a publically held corporation – who has to be audited and issue annual reports to shareholders – to cheat. That is not to say that large corporations are 100% honest with their taxes - and who is? – but they are far more transparent then your “mom and pop” stores who usually keep 2 books – one for the IRS, and the real one. I know of many small stores in my neighborhood who will give you a “discount” with no receipt if you pay cash. Do you really think that this money is reported to the IRS? There is nothing wrong with Capitalism as long as everyone follows the rules. Small businesses can get away with cheating far more easily than a large publically held company. Perhaps you are under the false assumption the small businesses are fair and ethical!
“Mom and pop” stores also cost taxpayers money in infrastructure and services. Just as in the case of large businesses, small stores also require police and fire protection and the roads and sidewalks that get people to their doors had to be built and have to be maintained. These small stores produce enormous parking and traffic problems which often become deadly. After all, Queens Blvd. isn’t called the “Highway of Death” for nothing!
As far as labor relations, do you honestly believe that “mom and pop” stores are paying their workers generous wages and giving them “gold plated” health care plans? Do you think that these establishments, many of which employ extended family members brought to this country on “family reunification” visas, are paying overtime or even the minimum wage? Wal-Mart is big and transparent and this is why it had to pay out $22 million in back wages to their employees in 2007. There are literally armies of lawyers ready to sue Wal-Mart at a moment’s notice. ‘Mom and pop” stores are not subjected to this level of scrutiny.
As far as health care, many [if not most] people who go to work at Wal-Mart lack health care coverage to begin with and, without Wal-Mart, would have neither a job nor any hope of private health coverage. Wal-Mart has, in the past three years, improved the health care coverage for its employees because of public pressure. This tactic would not work with the many “mom and pop” stores, most of whom offer their employees far less than Wal-Mart!
It is ironic that your group mocks and denigrates Christianity, and then presumes to know what is *best* for the rest of us. To be honest, you guys are far more fanatical and dogmatic than any Evangelical Protestant or Traditionalist Catholic that I have ever met!
Your group is also grossly out of touch with human reality, imagining a society where economies of scale and transnational trade are no longer needed. In this fantasy, our needs will be met by neighborhood stores selling local goods [none of which are at this time, nor ever can be, produced locally] and community gardens – most of which can barely grow enough food to feed one person for a year, let alone a community!
This anti-Wal-Mart nonsense is nothing more than a hobby horse for arrogant out-of-touch white middle class liberals who have nothing better to do. It appears that you guys think that it is better for a person to be unemployed, or under-employed, than it is for them to have a job at Wal-Mart. And, that it is better for poor people to pay more money for, what is often, inferior merchandise at their local “mom and pop” store. This mentality reminds me of what Marie Antoinette said when she heard that the peasants couldn’t afford bread – let them eat cake!
John Galt
Human reality? Not where I live!
You really seem to have a hatred of independent shops!
Maybe it's different where you live (I'm in the UK), but I've never been offered a cash discount in any of my local shops, nor do I have any evidence that they are cooking the books or otherwise misbehaving - unlike Britain's largest supermarket chain which has been involved in a price fixing cartel, attempting to stop competition by buying up land to stop rivals acquiring it, and (and this one is legal) involving themselves in complicated offshore tax structures so that they pay a fraction of the tax they owe. And this is before you get into the ethics of child labour, or slashing the prices paid to local farmers so that they struggle to survive and then selling the food back to the people in the same area with the boast that it's locally sourced, or moving into an area and replacing full-time jobs in existing stores with minimum wage, part-time ones, or taking 95% of money spent in their stores out of the local community (compared with just over 50% for independents).
The logic of the big chains is to open more and more stores, squeezing out as much of the competition as possible. Where I live - a town of under 120,000 - Tesco (the store where £1 out of every £7 spent in the UK goes) has 9 Tesco-branded stores and 4 under a different logo. Before they opened store number 13 they already had 51% of the city's grocery market, but that obviously wasn't enough. They have spent the last 2 years trying to open up store number 14 in my area, in the face of overwhelming local opposition. When asked about the fact that yet another Tesco was neither wanted nor needed, their PR man said to the press that if there were already that many stores, "Why would one more be a problem?" At what point do the advantages of economies of scale become outweighed by the disadvantages of monopoly? And why should local people have to watch their local shops be forced out of business by a company large enough to hold down prices until they've put their competitors out of business and then raise prices back up?
There is more than one type of choice to which people are entitled, and the choice not to see a row of empty storefronts surrounding one chain store, the choice not to be knocked down by the endless delivery lorries that these stores require, the choice to shop somewhere where the people behind the counter are part of the local community: these are all valid choices too.
One last thing: I don't think anyone does their position any favours by slinging insults around, or by claiming to be able to see what colour people are across cyberspace. But then that's your choice too.
Ruth
The moral reality
I have nothing against independent stores or small businesses. Today’s large companies began as small businesses. These small businesses became large because they had the foresight to develop a new paradigm that made them more competitive in the market.
The one thing that I do greatly dislike, and will fight against, is coercion. It really does not matter whether we are talking about Wal-Mart, Tesco, or a small neighborhood store – each earns what it gets in trade for the goods/services that it sells or produces. Firms, large or small, ask for nothing more, or nothing less, than what they earn in the market. This is moral and just.
Neither Wal-Mart nor the local shop forces anyone to trade with them or to work for them. Firms, consumers, and employee only trade for mutual benefit. Where I live and study [ New York City, New York University ], Wal-Mart was not permitted to build a store by a coalition of small store owners and corrupt unions who were able to convince the even more corrupt city government to deny a building permit – in spite of the fact that numerous polls clearly showed that a majority of New Yorkers want a Wal-Mart. This is undemocratic and is a grotesque perversion of the very idea of a free market and free society.
The tactic used by Wal-Mart’s opponents was the tactic of force - an evil that has no place in a just and rational world. When we allow our world to be run by means of force, the result will be a society run by men and women who claim that fear and joy are equal incentives - but will conclude that fear and force are the most practical way to run society.
There is nothing wrong with a firm attempting to squeeze the competition. Companies are in business to make money, they are not charities, they are not producers of social goods, and they owe nothing to anyone. As far as off-shoring profits to avoid taxes - that is a policy issue that can be changed if the British public demanded change from the politicians.
As for sweatshop labor, who defines what a sweatshop *is*? Are people forced to work is sweatshops, or do they work in these places because it is the best option available? Rev. Billy and his followers once protested in a Disney store, citing the fact that the toys were made in Chinese sweatshops. Many of these Chinese factories are now shut-down due to the global economic slump and their former workers are creating unrest in a number of regions - protesting and clamoring to get their old “sweatshop” jobs back! Sometimes the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited! As for slashing farmer’s prices, farmers are free not to sell produce to Tesco if they do not like the price that they receive. In any case, Tesco cannot unilaterally control prices or wages.
In the U.S. , Wal-Mart wanted to sell Snapper lawn-mowers [Snapper is a company that makes very highly quality lawn and garden equipment]. Wal-Mart told the Snapper execs that they had to lower the price of their mowers and that they could do so by cheapening the product and building the mowers in China . Snapper wanted to preserve is good name for making a quality product and refused Wal-Mart’s offer and walked away. Guess what? Snapper is as profitable today as ever!
The best thing to do is to allow the market to work. If Tesco is expanding too rapidly, and saturating the market, they will over-extend themselves and the market will punish them. Speaking of the market’s punishment, look at GM in the U.S. as an example – they sell roughly the same number of cars as Toyota but have 4 times the number of dealerships. Stores, such as Wal-Mart and Tesco, are not natural monopolies. It Tesco thinks that it can raise prices unilaterally then they are mistaken - someone else will enter the market to compete.
People do not have to watch their local stores go out of business. No one is preventing people from shopping at the local “mom and pop” store and no one is forcing anyone to shop at Tesco or at Wal-Mart. If people want local stores that are run by local people, then all they have to do is to patronize these stores. I object to those who prevent stores such as Wal-Mart from coming to my city. Wal-Mart is not forcing anyone to do anything against their will - it is those who stopped Wal-Mart who are taking away my freedom and the freedom of millions of New Yorkers who want this store in our community. The anti-Wal-Mart coalition of small stores and unions did not take away my freedom for the greater good, they took away my freedom because most of the stores are unwilling or unable to compete. Once again, this is unjust. Force is evil and has no place in a rational world.
By stopping Wal-Mart from coming to New York , a handful of people are attempting to force other New Yorkers to act against their judgment. The problem with denying the people’s right to Reason, you also deny *your* right to your own judgment. We are allowing our society to run by force and coercion.
As far as slinging insults, I do not believe that I have intentionally insulted anyone. Disagreeing with opinions posted in an open forum does not sink to the level of an insult. I am not sure what you mean by me “seeing color”? Perhaps it was my comment about these liberal causes are the “hobby horse” of the white middle class. This is obvious when you look at the Rev.’s website.
John Galt
THE IMMORAL REALITY
John isn't living in the real world. Big stores have the power to put neighbouring independents out of business by undercutting them before putting prices back up again. There are now only two convenience stores within walking distance of where I live, so I have a choice. Problem is that they are BOTH Tesco.
In case John is not fully up to speed, Tesco has just overtaken Carrefour as the world's second most profitable retailer. I wonder why?
Oh, but I am living in the
The fact that a firm is large and profitable today is no guarantee that it will exist forever. Consumer preferences are constantly changing. K-Mart was once the largest retailer in the U.S. back when Wal-Mart and Target were small regional chains. K-Mart is struggling for survival today! Someday, someone will come up with a better business model than Wal-Mart, and they will grow to be the nation’s largest retailer.
John Galt
Not a free market
Thanks for replying, that made very interesting reading. I think we will have to agree to disagree (very British of me, I know) about the efficiency of the market. About 10 years ago, I was in a macroeconomics seminar being run by a former member of the "Wise Men" panel who advised the British Treasury during the last Conservative government. One of the things that struck me about his seminar was his observation that "all economists know that the free market is a myth" - by which he meant not that it was a fairytale, of course, but that it was a useful organising concept but not reflective of the specifics of what actually happens in real life.
We could obviously spend years debating why this might be (or why this is incorrect, I guess you'd say), but one important problem is the ability of very large companies to bend the rules as a consequence of poor regulation, unheathily close relationships with sympathetic regulators or politicians, or (and I'm not making accusations against particular companies) corruption and/or other forms of criminality.
Certainly in the UK, Tesco had an extremely close and well documented relationship with the Thatcher government and this undoubtedly helped them to expand agressively in ways that companies who did not have the ear of the Prime Minister were unable to do.
The kind of competition you seem to be suggesting as a correction to the threat of a monopoly is not possible in an environment when one or two very powerful companies have the ability to influence the rules of the game (and their application) to their advantage.
You are wrong about the relationship between farmers and Tesco, by the way. I could go on about this at length but will spare both of us, other than to say that a company that has almost a third of the UK grocery market has enormous leverage on prices paid to producers.
I have to say that I find it very odd to hear you talk on the one hand as if having to travel slightly further to visit a favourite chain store was some totalitarian deprivation of a fundamental human right, but on the other as if people being forced to work 24 hour shifts in dangerous conditions for (even by local standards) disgraceful wages (which are kept low because trade unions are banned and trade unionists are murdered) because the alternatives are starvation or prostitution was just a lifestyle choice. I'd say it was the other way round, personally.
I don't think any of us like coercion. But expressing views and asking people to consider thinking about consumption differently is not coercion. Participating in the planning process as a means of expressing views about what you want to see happen in the neighbourhood you live in isn't coercion either.
Ruth
Hi Ruth, You are correct
You are correct that the “free market” is a myth - it is really more of an idea than anything. Much of Wal-Mart’s success is the result of their business model and efficiencies. However, some of Wal-Mart’s success can be attributed to government intervention – such as using eminent domain to obtain land, with the intention of building a highway, and selling off the remaining land to Wal-Mart at a less than market price. Wal-Mart also benefits from property tax abatements that local governments hand out. Wal-Mart benefits from Chinese authoritarianism and command capitalism – which keeps product prices low. Just as Tesco had a close relationship with the Thatcher government, Wal-Mart had a very cozy relationship with the Clinton administration which was also cozy with the Chinese government, giving them most favored nation trading status in spite of China ’s nasty human rights record. These factors do undermine the “free market”.
I agree that companies can, and do, corrupt the political system and undermine democracy. However, what other model do we have to meet our needs? Human nature is essentially corrupt, so why do we expect corporations to be any different? Even the small shops in my neighborhood give free stuff to the police so that they will not ticket the shop’s patrons!
The fact of the matter is that competition does break monopoly power. The U.S. economy is very dynamic.
For example, IBM was considered such a dangerous monopoly in the computer market that the U.S. government took them on in court. By the end of the trial proceedings, IBM no longer manufactured computers! This giant computer monopoly’s management thought that the personal computer was nothing more than a toy and that they would be lucky if they were be able to sell a dozen per year! The market was corrected by up-start firms such as Apple, Intel, and MicroSoft – companies that didn’t exist a few years earlier – which sold completely new products.
The reason that I say that I have been deprived on a portion of my freedom, is that I do not own a car [and many New Yorkers do not own cars] and I cannot go to Nassau County to shop at Wal-Mart.
I, along with a majority of New Yorkers, want a Wal-Mart in our city. I am a student with a very limited budget, so Wal-Mart’s low prices would improve the quality of my life. It is no coincidence that 64% of Bronx residents want a Wal-Mart in their community – while only 20% oppose Wal-Mart. The Bronx is the poorest area of the city and the poor know that Wal-Mart’s lower prices will improve their lives and that Wal-Mart will give jobs to people in the community. It is very expensive to shop at small stores in New York , which often sell outdated products. This is such common knowledge that the cartoon “The Simpsons” has a running joke about a local store, called the “Kwik-E-Mart”, whose Indian owner [Apu Nahasapeemapetilon] sells over-priced, out of date products. In fact, a local shop keeper in my neighborhood admitted that the Ramen Noodles [a staple of college students] in his store came from Sam’s Club – which is owned by Wal-Mart. He merely buys them and marks up the price!
Incidentally, according to public opinion polls, Wal-Mart is least popular in Manhattan – the wealthiest part of the city! I guess they know what is “best” for us poor folks! If we cannot afford bread, the let us eat cake!
As far as sweatshop labor, people work in sweatshops because, for as bad as they are, they provide a livelihood and employment opportunities to people who would otherwise have had worse, or no, alternatives. Remember that the first factories in the U.K. and the U.S. would be considered sweatshops by today’s standards.
There was a big anti-sweatshop movement during the 1990’s. Now, I am sure that the relatively wealthy Americans and Brits in this movement had the best of intentions; however, things did not turn out well. In fact, there are three documented cases in which anti-sweatshop activists in rich countries unintentionally caused increases in childhood prostitution and poverty in poor countries. In Bangladesh the closure of several sweatshops - run by a German company - sent thousands of Bangladeshi children into prostitution, crime, or starvation. In Pakistan sweatshops run by Nike and Reebok were closed, causing many of the Pakistani children who worked there to turn to prostitution. In Nepal , a carpet manufacturing company closed its sweatshops, resulting in thousands of Nepalese girls turning to prostitution.
I also believe that the public should have a voice in the planning process. However, a minority – especially one that has a vested economic interest in the decision - has no right to over-rule the desires of the majority. This is exactly what happened in New York City with Wal-Mart.
John Galt
Hey "John", With your
With your unfortunate choice of a moniker, I have a little question I'd like to ask you. Wal-Marts business model is entire predicated on their purchasing of cheap goods in volume from Communist China and reselling them at markup here in the US. This allows them to undercut other American retailers and manufacturers. You seem quite alright with this, in fact you defend it as an ardent capitalist. So what would Ayn think about that, huh? Seriously. Additionally, why are the Chinese Communists _so_ much better at capitalism then we Capitalists? The lines are open, and operators are standing by....
China
What do you want Wal-Mart to do, stop selling Chinese made goods? Wouldn’t K Mart and Target and other retailers simply pick up the supply “slack”? As far as China being Communist, they have simply evolved from being a command Communist economy to a command capitalist oligarchy. As far as undercutting American manufacturers, the Japanese and Koreans beat the Chinese long ago. Honestly, when was the last time that an American made a radio, a TV, or any other consumer electronic?
Ultimately, or arrangement with China is untenable. The U.S. trade deficit is so huge, and the Chinese holdings of U.S. dollars are so enormous that China will eventually have to “float” their currency. To date, China has kept the Yuan artificially cheap compared to the dollar to promote exports. When the Yuan is allowed to float, and it finds its proper exchange rate with the dollar, a trip to Wal-Mart will be as expensive as a trip to Nordstrom’s is today.
As for Ayn Rand, she would detest the Chinese system for it authoritarianism, corruption, cronyism, and ineptitude. But the U.S. made a deal with the devil - the Federal government and private sectors have sold $100 billions of debt to China and this keeps the U.S. economy afloat. Singling out Wal-Mart is a bit silly.
John Galt
Comrade Wal-Mart
Dear "John",
No, I don't expect Wal-mart to do anything differently. As you point out, we enjoy the fruits of unregulated capitalism. So there is no law preventing Wal-Mart and other chain retailers from destroying Americas manufacturing base. There is no law preventing the banks from selling America lock stock and barrel to the Communists. They have the money after all, and we don't.
You seem to think that the Chinese will somehow want to float the Yuan rather than peg it to the dollar. Why? Because you want it to? They don't. They're quite happy with the arrangement. So is the Oligarchy in this country. After all, if Wal-mart is as expensive as Nordstroms, then Wal-mart fails. Additionally, the lack of real wage growth for the poor and middle class of American these past 30 years means that if this were to ever happen, the middle class would largely be wiped out. Think Brazil or Argentina as your future ( coming sooner than you think ).
"The Capitalists will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equiptment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide" - Vladimir Ilich Lenin
You write, "As for Ayn Rand, she would detest the Chinese system for it authoritarianism, corruption, cronyism, and ineptitude. But the U.S. made a deal with the devil.." Yet this system is roundly kicking our Capitalist asses. Really, I think you should apply all those adjectives closer to home. You've been conscious this last decade, yes? And who is the America you refer to, who has made a deal with the devil? You mean Wal-mart? General Electric? Disney? This America you speak of is a fiction John, the corporations are the reality. If it looks like feudal serfdom, well then...maybe it is.
Well, no one is forcing
Can you find me a store, aside from an electronics antique shop, that sells an American made TV or radio? We are currently watching our auto industry die, is that Wal-Mart's fault as well? You also mention Disney. Now, honestly, does Disney make anything that any human being needs to live? The issue is freedom. If someone wants to buy their kid Disney's stuff, who are any of us to stop them?
Do you want to know what really killed American industry? It is the attitude of entitlement. If someone has more than I, then they are evil and owe me.
Take the woes of the auto industry - GM pays more for employee health benefits than it pays for steel! Look at starting pay for an unskilled GM worker before the bailout - the average starting salary, not counting benefits, was nearly $30 an hour! That is more than many college graduates earn. Consider the "legacy" costs of GM's retired workers - who demand "gold plated" health coverage and generous retirement benefits. Now, let's go upstairs and look at the executives. These guys paid themselves tens of millions in "performance" bonuses while the company was plunging to the ground! In a sane world, these guys would have been sacked years ago, not rewarded.
Even if a company is well-run and wants to be generous to its employees, it will probably not survive. Americans also demand a lot of goodies from the government, so the U.S. government charges one of the highest corporate tax rates in the Western world. The U.S. and State and Local governments take up to 42% of what a company earns. This would not be so bad if it were not for the layers of regulation [environment, equal opportunity, planning, etc.] that each level of government enacts - some serve counter-purpose. For example, Federal law required that forklifts in a warehouse beeped when they backed up while state regulators forced workers in the same warehouse to wear ear guards - which prevented the workers from hearing the beeping!
Because we "yearn" for "social justice", companies must hire, promote, and retain a percentage of their employees based on identity, not on qualifications or productivity. Yell at Wal-Mart all you like, we have destroyed our society with our envy and sense of entitlement.
As for the Yuan, the Chinese want to make China a global power, they are not really interested in giving us charity. When the time is right, in their minds, they will pull the rug from under us.
John Galt
Hey John, One of the
Hey John,
One of the advantages of being young is being able to afford idealism. You're definitely rich in that area. Me, I've done everything from being a short order cook to having a corner office on Wall St. I've also read those books you seem so enamoured of; just so we're on the same page...
So bearing that in mind, would it surprise you that I can't even identify the planet which you are talking about? Here on earth, few of the things you mention actually take place. For example, I was tasked with staffing an entire department of our company. At no point was I required ( or even asked ) to accept people who were less than adequate because of their identity, with one notable exception. The owner of the company required me to hire some of his relatives, most of whom were incompetent idiots. So that's your affirmative action in practice. You mention the executives upstairs. In this world, they are rewarded, as you correctly observe. What you miss is the fact that Capitalism is about making money, not about building sustainable companies that provide valuable services to customers. So the system rewards them for driving the company into the ground, because it made the most money. You can at least see the problem here, but you are unable to see it as a natural outgrowth of the philosophy behind the system.
I could go point for point over your last post, but what for? You need to actually get out there and work, and get experience. Most of what you are saying above is just regurgitation of right wing media talking points. How is that any different than listening to the movement left people prattle on about "free mumia" and the like? I mean, are you seriously suggesting that our major problem right now are the equal opportunity laws???? I am telling you, as an American employer and business owner, that this is rubbish. New York is a hire/fire at will state, I've never been questioned about either operation and I've hired people across the spectrum. As you seem like you have a few brain cells to knock together, I urge you to start thinking for yourself and get some real world experience. Then come back and see if some of the stuff Bill Talen is banging on about makes more sense to you.
You don't have to go home...
I just created a new Forum called "The Commons"...it's our open forum where you can debate and talk about whatever, just no hate speech please.
I really appreciate the civility of this thread and hope this debate can continue in the Forum. Thanks!
-Brother Michael
Life After Shopping Order Of Digital Mysteries
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