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DagothGares
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posted November 15, 2011 06:10 PM |
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Social liberalism? Ewww...
And no I agree with mvass, actually, about people looking for better living conditions.
Working your land under a noble is worse than being free in a factory and working in an industrial farm is no different from working in a factory. Sure, conditions were terrible compared to now, but you seem to have no idea how much more conditions SUCKED in medieval times.
Also, you do know that whole thing that the proletariat fought for to get welfare done in the west, you know, minimum wage, all those fancy limitations we put on corporations and employers, all that jazz, is the reason why these corporations outsource, right? The people here are too expensive to employ.
Recently (a year ago or so), there's been a hilarious outrage in Belgium (hilarious in a cosmic sort of way) where a car producer shut down a couple of factories in Belgium (forgot the brand... peugeot? Opel?) Anyway, people didn't like that and protested and I was kind of disappointed. The thing is that Belgians are way too expensive to hire to work in factories, so they move to Lion and Tiger countries to get that done. I think that's perfectly reasonable. I mean, artificially holding the company here is outright theft (or if you do it with subsidies: outright theft from the tax payer and creating an imbalanced economy) and the reports were so one-sidedly supporting of the workers protesting (and doing strikes: yeah, just stop working, that's gonna make your employer think twice about firing you...)
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Zenofex
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posted November 15, 2011 06:17 PM |
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Except that when it was fashionable to have serfs the vast majority of the economy and the exchange was barter-based and talking about prices is a very misty subject. The costs of production is something quite different. The industrialization certainly moved the world forward and helped a great deal for the advancement of the civilization as a whole but it certainly wasn't a process which treated everyone equally. The mortality rate among the factory workers and their overall health status as about as disastrous as that of the serfs and to an extent even worse because they were horded in the industrial centres en masse, lived in battered down hostels or shacks without any real health care or even adequate living conditions and worked to total exhaustion. The last part at least was the standard until the laws about the limitation of the working day were finally passed (and of course it took quite a while to get to the 8 hours of today) and this didn't happen because the industrialists were thinking that they are exploiting their employees too much.
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del_diablo
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posted November 15, 2011 06:20 PM |
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Well, you know, if there was no surplus people, and the farmes had still needed their 9 kids and their neighbors kids for the harvest, nobody would have left.
So "appel to worse" is not a argument either, because medicine and farming tools had finally gotten to the point where most of it was fixed. So its not about "everybody had to move to get it better".
As for the moving companies:
1. They are earing money, but they want another 300% profit margin
2. They usually also ignore the long term costs of making a factory in the middle of nowhere, with no infastructure support
3. You are suppose to lay of people because of automatization, and not because of the bonuses for the CEO and stockholders
Most of them didn't need to move in the first place, so their actions is fairly irrelevant. What is even more fun is that the outcry also signalizes that there is a labour shortage of some sort too.
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DagothGares
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posted November 15, 2011 06:23 PM |
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Quote:
lived in battered down hostels or shacks without any real health care or even adequate living conditions and worked to total exhaustion
And serfs lived in Virgil's Bucolica?
Though, I will step back and say that circumstances may haven't been for the best what with the big disparity between available work and people moving around. I still highly doubt that people who lived in the cities had it so bad. I mean, they must've had time for having sex like rabbits and drinking, because all those kids had to come from somewhere and alcoholism didn't originate out of wealthy industrialists. 
And an industrialist will not want to have dead bodies clogging up his factory, so people can't have died by bushels. (I am aware of some of the horrible jobs they gave to kids in cotton manufacturing plants.)
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del_diablo
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posted November 15, 2011 06:28 PM |
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You know, people died like flies, except that people breed like rabbits.
Man got home from work, completely broken, and craves sex, has sex, makes baby, makes a few more babies, dies, wifes becomes prostitute to support the kids, makes more babies, and a lot more.
A systemized hell if you will.
Life expectancy of the Nobles in the city was.... 35? The ones on the countryside had 60 on their statistics. And the nobles was shelted.
What do you image the poor man had? 22? 27? He could make quite a few kids by then, and the child mortality danger was low enough for such a thing to be sustainable.
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DagothGares
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posted November 15, 2011 06:33 PM |
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1. No, why would they stop producing in Belgium if Belgium rendered profits? It's not like a corporation needs to shut down a factory when it wants to extend his market (Belgium is a sated market for cars by the way)
2. Well, the highest cost of production will always be labourers and in a developping country it's better to produce cars, because suddenly you will have a big increase who want to buy cars and it's an efficient way of cutting costs.
3. I don't understand what you're saying.
Also, why was there a sudden increase in medicinal, economical and other technology? Because there suddenly was a huge increase of people who could sit around all day and do some sciencing (same thing with farming, which became very efficient and didn't require all of the families there to have nine kids.)
But really, diablo, I feel like you and I are two people in a Chekhovian play and we don't actually talk to each other. I will agree with you that elodin is pure evil, though (with all due respect to elodin. He's evil in a good way. That make sense?)
EDIT: Quote:
Life expectancy of the Nobles in the city was.... 35? The ones on the countryside had 60 on their statistics. And the nobles was shelted.
I want to see some statistics. I am calling BS on serfdom going til 60, though.
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Zenofex
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posted November 15, 2011 06:35 PM |
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I'm not saying that the serfs' life was better, it's just that you make it sound like it was much worse and it wasn't. The industrial revolution improved many things but the living conditions of the workers was certainly not among its priorities. Actually the primary difference was that in the serfs' case they were legally tied to their land and landlord while in the workers' case they were... well, "free".
And actually yes, the industrialists didn't care that much if their workers will live or die for reasons which have already been mentioned - for every "casualty" there was a nice bunch of readily available replacements waiting to be hired for whatever salary they are offered. You are not obligated to care about the other people's health you know (refer to the previous pages).
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DagothGares
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posted November 15, 2011 06:37 PM |
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All right, all right, but don't you think dying people hurt production?
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Zenofex
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posted November 15, 2011 06:45 PM |
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Only the skilled workers dealing with complex tasks were considered relatively important. Everybody else was expendable. The production can hardly be hurt when one of its components can easily be replaced at any time.
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del_diablo
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posted November 15, 2011 07:00 PM |
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All right, all right, but don't you think dying people hurt production?
As Xenofax said: It only applies to trained engineers.
If a worker dies, you will have a new worker hired, which is done more or less automatically, and perhaps 1 hour of training, and the replacement is good to go.
You don't need to bother.
Now, if a skilled engineer or repairsman die, you have problems. But those where the educated people who was not that expandable, so you had at the least a double set of them.
Edit: I might be remember wrong on the number 60, but it was certainly around there. I will need to find the paper first, because it was a printed form in history class.
We also had the "honour" of reading a doctors "letter of complaint" which was sent to the local magistrate, stating the fact the polution was a bit to easy to measure, so ignoring it would cause death and disease.
Quote:
Also, why was there a sudden increase in medicinal, economical and other technology? Because there suddenly was a huge increase of people who could sit around all day and do some sciencing (same thing with farming, which became very efficient and didn't require all of the families there to have nine kids.)
"Sudden?"
About 1500 Europa got a pile of Arabic books in circulation and translated them to latin, combined with the pritning press.
The scientific method started getting good around 1600.
And lets not forget the Liberalisation of the Victorian Era for GB.
Now, the "jump" was in food production, and the "health jump" was in the fact that "staying clean" was starting to get a bit closer to being science.
It didn't happen over night, what happened was that there was enough poor homeless men in the citites for the factory makes to thing it would be profitable to hire them, and some inventions related to automatisation was also invented around the same time.
And then there is a whole load of economic theory and smog.
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mvassilev
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posted November 16, 2011 12:15 AM |
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JJ:
I assume by "fire squad" you mean "fire department" and not "firing squad".
The fire department is employed by the government and must therefore do what the government tells them to do. They don't have the choice to not put out fires (at least if they want to keep their jobs). I assumed that your scenario with the doctor was an independent practitioner or a doctor who was simply driving by. If the doctor is employed by a hospital, then he has to treat the patient if contracted to do so.
del_diablo:
Quote:
John: "I demand X, we both know I am worth it"
Bourgeois: "I agree there sunny,
This hypothetical conversation is meaningless. As long as you keep repeating this mistake in regard to value, there's no point in continuing this discussion.
Zeno:
Things were different in Western Europe (and the US) than they were in Eastern Europe. In the West, serfdom ended long before the Industrial Revolution.
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Corribus
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posted November 16, 2011 01:54 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 01:56, 16 Nov 2011.
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Fact check:
Quote:
The fire department is employed by the government and must therefore do what the government tells them to do.
Actually, in the US 71% of firefighters are volunteers (Source). Many fire departments are private or partially private entities that receive tax exempt status in addition to funds that come from a variety of government and nongovernment sources. Volunteer firefighters often do not receive any compensation for their shifts. Thus maybe volunteer fire departments are not part of the government at all and, I suppose, could choose not to put out fires.
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
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posted November 16, 2011 01:59 AM |
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My friend is a volunteer firefighter and I am thoroughly convinced he does it for the calender.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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mvassilev
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posted November 16, 2011 02:01 AM |
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I stand corrected. Everywhere I've lived in the US had government-provided fire departments.
In that case, JJ, it is as Corribus said. Assuming the aid is not conditional on them having to try to put out every fire they're called about, they should be free to not choose not to put out some fires. (But if this became a problem, there is legitimate room for government.)
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JollyJoker
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posted November 16, 2011 09:13 AM |
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Mvass, we live in a highly refined and specialized society - to do a qualified job, you need a certain training/education plus the necessary equipment/tools (which means, you owe society anyway).
While all not-life-supporting businesses - let's say haircutter and so on - will work according to supply and demand with prices being indeed a "voluntary agreement between buyer and seller", this is not the case with all things directly necessary to keep soeciety going. They cannot ask moon prices, just because they are in key positions or will be called on in emergencies which suffer no "price talks" or getting in a competing offer. In many countries they are also forbidden to go on a strike for that reason.
For example, in Germany the garbage collectors must not go on strike - it's too much of a risk for people's health, vermin and so on. Striking (for whatever reasons) would be considered EXTORTION.
The same is true for fire fighters; soldiers; doctors; medics; police; druggists; hospitals; emergency transports; and probably a couple more. Withholding their services or suddenly charging moon prices would be considered EXTORTION, since their services are indispensable for society.
Also, they KNOW that, when they start their career.
In Germany, there are price regulations for drugs and medicine for exactly this reason (while there are different providers for stuff, only qualified people can prescribe it, so there is in fact no free competition, except when you make a legal regulation that forces druggists to sell the cheapest product and have a watchful eye on price collusions).
People simply do not want, that the price for a service or item doesn't depend on the provider and THEIR effort and expenditures, but solely on the NEED of the person who has to take it. I mean, you wouldn't want a cab drive to hospital cost twenty bucks regularly, but if the cabbie sees that you are in trouble, having problems to breathe, he'd charge you 200 for it, telling you, if you don't pay, you can walk.
This would be the kind of shark society no one with a minimum of brains wants for fairly obvious reasons, because it simply IS NO society; it would be a breeding ground for violence.
Of course, this kind of "opportunity ´pricing" is what unfettered capitalism is all about - EXPLOITING the needs of persons and finding the right moment to charge the best price possible. Which is the reason, why unfettered capitalism is detrimental to any form of human organization that calls itself "society": it will breed too much tension, corruption, violence, infighting, you name it.
If you can artificially increase or even create a demand, and if NEED is paying best, then it's only a small step to realize that increasing or even creating NEED is the best business idea.
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mvassilev
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posted November 16, 2011 09:21 AM |
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I mostly agree with the first part of your post. It is only right that garbage collectors/firefighters/other necessary government employees (assuming firefighters are government employees) should not be allowed to go on strike. They freely agreed to that condition when they signed up.
Quote:
I mean, you wouldn't want a cab drive to hospital cost twenty bucks regularly, but if the cabbie sees that you are in trouble, having problems to breathe, he'd charge you 200 for it, telling you, if you don't pay, you can walk.
Of course I don't want him to do it, but I'm not a tyrant. I'm not going to force the cabbie to do what I want, or use the government to force him for me.
As for the second part of the post, you're critically mistaken. When wants rise, so does willingness to pay. Demand increases, and people are willing to consume more. If prices aren't allowed to rise to meet this change, you know what happens? Shortages and lines. When the price mechanism isn't allowed to work, worse mechanisms spring up. Look at rent-controlled apartments and the associated corruption, for example. Or the lines at gas stations in the US in the 70s.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 16, 2011 09:40 AM |
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Mvass, with all due respect - your stance is ridiculous.
You can't on one hand demand GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED areas of work, because of the danger of exploitment with the sole purpose to AVOID that kind of exploitment, but then allow exploitment of needs in others.
Why, for example, would people have to pay a fortune for a drug, just because they need them dearly to survive in certain situations? When on the other hand OTHER dearly needed things like police or fire fighters would be GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED for the sole purpose of avoiding that kind of extortion?
Obviously, once you postulate that government control is necessary is SOME areas, it's only a question of agreeing about the areas, not about the principle anymore.
By the way, a SHORTAGE is a completely different thing. A shortage means, that the offer cannot meet the demand. We were NOT taking about that.
Still, an example for this are transplantation organs - an area where capitalism is rearing its ugliest head.
Still, last thing I know is that GENERALLY organs are NOT auctioned off to the highest bidder (if you disregard the black market, that is).
Believe me, when I say, Mvass, that you wouldn't want to live in a society working under the rules you so adore. 
Your parents would be allowed to press you to everything they desired for you as long as they would still help you economically. Your alternative would be to stand on your own feet. Would you really want that? I doubt that very much.
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mvassilev
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posted November 16, 2011 10:16 AM |
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I don't believe it. You blame organ transplant problems on capitalism while organ markets aren't allowed to exist? We literally have nothing to talk about.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 16, 2011 10:42 AM |
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I blame organ transplant problems on the fact that where demand meets need and short offer, the biggest profits wait, and where the biggest profits wait, usually the law is in the back seat.
While you might think that was a problem of capitalism, of course it's not - "profit" is a term that goes far beyond monetary gain. It might be priviledges or anything else.
However, since THE GOVERNMENT (or the law inforcement agency of any given society) is the only institution that has the means to make sure that the supply for the demand isn't created by illegal means (for example, that people are "shanghaied" and find themselves a kidney short in the process), there is no reason whatsoever to even ALLOW a free market (where organs would be auctioned off), because AGAIN it's the government who would have to make sure that things are played by the rules.
Since it's basically SOCIETY which grants (more or less successful) that things are played by the rules, it's SOCIETY as well that can determine said rules, and the rules don't necessarily have to favor those with the biggest wallet (which would be "free market").
But, you are right with one thing, Mvass: we have indeed nothing to talk about.
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Fauch
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posted November 16, 2011 12:01 PM |
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Quote:
If you can artificially increase or even create a demand, and if NEED is paying best, then it's only a small step to realize that increasing or even creating NEED is the best business idea.
it's already what they do. or maybe we should talk about desires. how many young people affirm that they NEED a phone, that they can't live without it?
but obviously, you are talking about exploiting real weaknesses. I think I heard something about insurance companies charging much more (or wanting to do it) if you have health problems. but I'm not sure if it enters the field of what you are talking about.
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