Capitalism and its consequences

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Capitalism and its consequences

Post by Xyun »

Because we live in a capitalist society, we need to be aware of not only the benefits of our way of live, but also its repercussions. While I think most of us have a pretty firm grasp on the benefits provided for us, too many of us overlook the repercussions. Pure capitalism, while being the best option for us, is not perfect. It is crucial for us to understand the flaws therein, and to constantly adjust our ideology, so that we don't fall victim to these flaws. There are two distinct characteristics that I'd like to discuss. The first is the increasing gap between the "haves" and "have nots", and the second is extreme capitalism.

One of the most cherished aspects of capitalism is the opportunity it provides for the individual to achieve financial success. The idea is that the system will feed on itself, meaning those who achieve success, will then reinvest into the system, thereby increasing the standard of life for everyone within it. This entails that those at the bottom of the economic ladder still have a high standard of living. The traditional meanings of the "Haves" and "Have nots" change. It becomes difficult to label those at the bottom "Have nots" when they own a car, a computer, a couple of TV's with cable and what not. They can live comfortably, or even gluttonously, without concern about the "Haves". This is where the trouble begins.

While the "have-nots" standard grows at a slow and steady pace, the "haves" standard grows exponentially, usually by exploiting the "have nots". Examples of this are credit cards, mortgages, loans, and a variety of other debt inducing techniques. The "haves" are not reinvesting into the system as much as they are into themselves. This causes the gap between them to increase.

As this gap widens, it becomes increasingly difficult for those trying to climb the ladder. And while this should cause concern, most of the "have nots" are content with their status and their ability to be lazy and comfortable simultaneously. Soon, the vast majority of assets is accumulated by the very small minority at the top of the ladder as is evident in our society today. The detriment to society when this happens is that opportunity itself is diminshed, consequently counteracting the same cherished aspect it promotes. This may not seem that detrimental, some may not even consider it a flaw, rather a drawback. However, when coupled with extreme capitalism it can become a deadly combination.

Just as with any other ideology, capitalism can be taken to its extreme. Extreme capitalism is not just greed, it is the belief that the acquisition of money and/or power transcends morality. The existence of this concept is illustrated by organizations like the mafia, or by the latest scandals involving giant corporations such as Enron or Worldcom. Of course, within our society, these people are properly vilified, yet they are not properly punished. Without a deterent, we help to encourage this extremism, and even fall victim to it ourselves. This makes me wonder is it not possible for the entire society to fall victim to it?

Let's consider the "haves" for a moment. They control the vast majority of resources, they have an excessively heavy influence on the government, and they are arguably the most susceptible to extremism. If this extremism becomes prevalent amongst them, they could attempt to make it a standard for society. I believe this is happening right now. We know that money is not greater than life, yet we are slaughtering people for it. I am not asserting that the war in Iraq is solely motivated by money, but I hardly think that it is not an incentive. In fact, it is this incentive that allows us to go to war with Iraq in the name of freedom, but not Liberia, and not North Korea.

Such a trend disturbs me, as it does the majority of the world. Will our future action/inaction in a given moral dilemma be dictated by financial profit or loss? And if so, will we be prepared for the consequences of such an ideology?

The 9-11 terrorists certainly disagreed with our attitude, especially towards their country (Saudi Arabia), and they proved that we are not prepared. It is no coincidence that these were educated men, nor that they chose the world trade center, the pentagon, and the white house as their targets.
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Post by Kilmoll the Sexy »

Communism in its purist form is the ideal society. Unfortunately, in practice, it does not work as absolute power corrupts absolutely. Capitalism would be the least desireable form of society in my opinion. In practice, capitalism ends up being a very desireable form of society, as it gives a motivation to work and succeed.

Personally, I would love to have a way to completely erase the current government of the U.S. The government we have in place today is not representatives of the people. I swear that if I had the money I would run for the Senate under a complete reform platform. My goal in life is to see the entire U.S. governing body be represented by normal every day citizens and not career politicians. They should be paid whatever the median wage of the U.S. worker is plus maybe 10%. They get plenty of benefits outside of their wages as is. Let someone get elected and introduce a bill like that and see who votes for it in the house. The real shakedown would come the next election as people saw who did and did not vote for a pay cut like that. It is well past time to start cleaning up the corruption and financial irresponsibility of the country.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Decisions made by countries have ALWAYS been made on the basis of profit and loss.


Capitalism is far from perfect and I agree pure capitalism is not really a good idea. Nevertheless, capitalism offers one thing that more idealistic systems leave out.....



personal incentive.
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Post by Aabidano »

Communism and socialism for that matter sound well and good in theory, unfortunately people are involved. People can be brilliant, stupid, lazy, hard workers, etc..

I don't feel the fruits of my labors should benefit someone else who has chosen to be less than productive. I have no problem caring for those who are unable to work. Those that are unwilling are another matter entirely though.

Our sometimes plutocratic, capitalist society has no lack of problems, but better than the alternatives. It's a functional system and allows more flexibility of a persons station than anything else I've seen. Those on the bottom can climb out if they're willing to work for it (as I did). I know many others that have as well. Those that aren't willing will continue to suck resources from society at large, and will stay at the bottom. And rightly so. Anyone can go (almost) anywhere they want on the ladder, depending on drive and ability.

I would like to see the end of "career politicians". That change alone would make a radical difference in how our government operates.
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Post by Xyun »

Nowhere in my post did I endorse communism, nor even mention it. The "well it's better than communism" response is completely avoiding the point, which is how are we to resolve some of these issues.

I do not think we need to start over from scratch, but I do think we need reform, especially in the government. I agree that the most important aspects that we need to reform in this regard are career politicians, lobbying, and campaign contributions.
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Post by Atokal »

Capitalism by its very nature does nothing to benefit society unless there is a dollar to be earned by be socially responsible. I look at the billions and billions of dollars that some of the corporate giants are making and wonder what this world would be like if these business giants donated 50% of earnings to cancer research or to housing, or programs for inner city kids, hell address the issue of poverty in a country that has so much.

Yes I realize that some corporations have spent a tremendous amount of money on charities etc. But the amount spent on charities vs earned is a drop in the bucket. The biggest villians as far as I am concerned are the banks.

Because the corps are answerable to shareholders the system is set up to foster greed at all levels with little or no compassion for the society that is crumbling around them.

Unfortunately the Capitalist system is the best we have atm.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Cut politians salaries and you make them more susceptible to bribery.


Term limit them out and you end up handing more power to the bueraucracy that supports the office holders.


I agree, career politicians are a travesty of the system, but I haven't seen a workable solution to rid 'us' of 'them'. :(
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Post by Xzion »

The *IDEAL* government, or lack there of one would be Anarchism, yet this has the same reprocussions as communism, etc since we cannot trust eachother or rely on others blindly as human beings. As long as we has human beings deny "trust" or "faith in eachother to work as a whole and not just for the benefits of ourselfs, there will never be abetter form of government imho.
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Post by Chidoro »

There are very few people in that upper upper echelon of wealth earners but the number of upper echelon earners has gone up considerably. The whole term "upper middle class" kind of defines that.

Now everything is different depending on where you live but the whole 30-100k gross is a pretty wide range defining average middle class. I don't think people in this group are complacent, probably quite the opposite. I still think people in this group can visibly see that better future for themselves and their children. I don't think they see it as hopeless. It's not pretty a lot of the time, but not hopeless.

Socialism was a great sounding idea when I was in high school and early college when I wasn't earning jack and whatever I earned had so few taxes, I couldn't fathom what a tax hit was. That's changed. Tax rates GB and Canada make me cringe even though I know they are benefitting from it. I think it's because I don't see the real benefit of the taxes I'm currently paying on a personal level that makes me feel this way. And certain taxes, such as property tax, are such a gouge, That it may even outweigh the lower income tax overall. Again this is very regionalized but there are certain areas in NJ that aren't cities or waterfront that charge 6-12k a year on property taxes(1/4 acre). Towns that my wife and I are looking into charge about 8.5k in property taxes on ~1/4 acre. I remove this amount altogether and our buying capacity in the form of a mortgage goes from ~500k to ~625k. That's a huge difference in buying power solely because of taxes that are used, primarily, for funding a ridiculously bloated education system in NJ.

If you're going to try and even out the classes, you'll have a tough time explaining how it will benefit me. I already feel like I'm tossing away cash left and right. The everyday person gets gouged out the whazoo. If I buy a used car, I get taxed again even though the taxes for the vehicle new were already paid. Hospitals charge way more for services to uninsured than to people w/ health insurance. It almost sounds counter-intuitive. These are just two unrelated examples of why people, like me, feel that I'm being held back enough.
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Post by Voronwë »

some degree of capitalism is the most plausible economic scheme for this species.

communism works great for species like bees. but even then, somebody is still getting fat at the top =)
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Post by Chidoro »

Atokal wrote: I look at the billions and billions of dollars that some of the corporate giants are making and wonder what this world would be like if these business giants donated 50% of earnings to cancer research or to housing, or programs for inner city kids, hell address the issue of poverty in a country that has so much.

Yes I realize that some corporations have spent a tremendous amount of money on charities etc. But the amount spent on charities vs earned is a drop in the bucket.
Maybe but corporations may contend that aside from the contributions they currently make to unrelated charities, they are providing contributions in a number of ways to their employees, the ones allowing them to earn. Obviously, this differs job to job. My mother was a dental hygienist in a small office setting. She didn't have a 401k plan, medical benefits worth a damn, discounts in local restuarants, etc. However, one of the companies I used to work for not only had those three examples, they also had a gym, tennis courts, softball fields, subsidized lunches, subsidized hair cuts (I kid you not), subsidized gas pump and auto repair on-site, etc. The company invested in its employees, They, in turn, had better lifestyles as a result.

It's not exactly charity, but it's certainly above and beyond what companies are mandated to do.
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Post by Adex_Xeda »

The best government is the one that can harness our selfishness into doing productive and beneficial things.

Capitalism is good at that.



Rather than changing laws to redistribute wealth, I think we should focus on laws that protect and encourage equal access to opportunity.

We should fix it so that if someone wants to work hard, they'll have an equal shot at success as anyone else.

I think we're making progress in that area.
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Post by vn_Tanc »

Read this book:

George Soros on Globalization.

He's got great ideas for reforming global finance instituations in relatively painless ways so that public goods (ie things people need) can be provided as well as the current system which provides more than amply for private commerce.
He's also put his preachings into practice through a global private aid foundation that donated $2bn dollars of his fortune over 1998-2002 and 85% of that money made it to the target projects as opposed to 44% of current foreign aid.

That's a good start. I think capitalism is the way but it needs modifying. The current monetarist/consumerist style of capitalism is a fairly new thing (20-30 years old) and is too destructive to last IMO.
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Post by Forthe »

Corporations have way too much control in most of our governments. When corporations have more control in the laws our government passes than the citizens and even their government representative things have gone horribly wrong.

Corporations which are inherently driven by greedy self interest should have absolutely no influence in public policy. A corporation's shareholders or its employeees as citizens should be the voice of the corporation.

Ban lobbying and lobby groups, both the "good" and the "bad". The only voices the government should even be considering are those of its citizens\voters, and not just a pretense of doing so during an election campaign.
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Post by kyoukan »

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Post by Forthe »

Oops I forgot....

kill all the lawyers.

All laws must then be legaleeze free and readable to a high school grad.
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Post by Chidoro »

Couldn't have put either post better myself, Forthe
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Post by Fallanthas »

Here's the rub.


Those corporations are acting on behalf of large globs of the electorate. Those lobbyists are representing special interest groups made up of the same.


I'm not saying your solution is wrong, but you are going to have to stack angels on the head of a pin to divide groups legitimately representing citizens and those representing 'corporate' interests.
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Post by Forthe »

Fallanthas wrote:Here's the rub.

Those corporations are acting on behalf of large globs of the electorate. Those lobbyists are representing special interest groups made up of the same.

I'm not saying your solution is wrong, but you are going to have to stack angels on the head of a pin to divide groups legitimately representing citizens and those representing 'corporate' interests.
I made no such distinction.
Ban lobbying and lobby groups, both the "good" and the "bad".
All of them.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Yes, I saw that.


Now, what is the difference between a lobbying group and a representatvie from your rotary club?



Easy thing to say, tough to draw those lines
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Post by Marbus »

Actually many governments, Switzerland, Germany etc... have made Socialism with Free Enterprise work well. In fact that would be my preferred method of Government. However I truly do not think we could pull it off in the US. Our "Capitalistic" society here has a LOT of socialism built into it since the 30s put people seem to freak out at the thought of adding any more.

Lets take for example... Bernnie Ebbers. IMHO when you accumulate more wealth than you can ever spend you should be made to pay more taxes not less. Of course once you get to a certian point like the man aforementioned not only do you not really pay taxes at all but you can ruin the lives of thousands of people and fly off to one of your multiple mansions to escape the glares. Yea they indited the bastard but what will REALLY happen to him... nothing. And NO I didn't work for Worldcomm. Just using that shitass as an example.

Of course those ideas go against what some people see as the American dream. But in todays society how many people can REALLY achieve the "American Dream" anymore. I make good money and live a comfortable life but I see many who don't and I alone can only do so much. I think of the fact that if a few, just a few of those really rich bastages would help the world, especially America, would be such a better place.

Of course that's just my opinion I could be wrong...

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Post by Neost »

Doesn't matter what economic/political system you subscribe to as the best. It only takes people to fuck it all up. Just like my network. It's perfect until users start logging in.

There is no system that can't be corrupted and turned to the benefit of a few individuals or anyone willing to play fast and loose with the rules. And as long as human beings are involved that will happen.
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Post by Neroon »

Capitalism is certainly the only way to go. It favors the hard worker, drives people to achieve, etc. Well, when it works it does anyway. We have a lot of things working against it however, I'll throw out a couple of the biggies and see what people think.

1. Capitalism thrives best with an expanding frontier. If a market gets saturated, you simply take your trade to a new area and set up shop. When you have a finite frontier, the only way to expand is by the reduction of your competition. This reduction, though it may flush financially, causes insecurity and instability. I honestly have no idea how to combat this issue until we begin moving out into space (thus expanding our frontier again), and that's a hell of a long way off.

2. Monopolies work in complete contradiction to Capitolism. Somehow they have become legal again. A monopoly, at it's heart, trys to aquire an increasing market share with a decreasing overhead. Overhead generally meaning employees, buildings and equipment.

That may seem nice, but the problem is they pull an increasing amount of cash out of the system, and put a decreasing amount of it back in. That's a recipe for economic disaster. Now, if the higher ups that were raking all the cash in went out and blew it on products and services it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It simply would turn our economy from more of a manufacturing base, to a service base. But, the current state of our economy shows this is not happening.

One thing that comes to mind to combat this, is to base a corporation's income tax on it's profit/payroll ratio. If they aren't going to put the money back in by paying employees or spending, tax the hell out of them, and lower taxes on individuals who will put the money back into the system.
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Post by kyoukan »

capitalism favors the hard worker? you can't be serious?

capitalism favors people who take risks, manipulate those around them, and people who are already wealthy.
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Post by Neroon »

kyoukan wrote:capitalism favors the hard worker? you can't be serious?
I've always been a hard worker, I've always recieved nice raises and promotions without asking for them. I've known other hard workers with the same results.

I've also known slackers, and they never get promoted, and get cost-of-living raises if they are lucky.

The only time I didn't see this trend was working for the government where wages were controlled. You know, like in Socialist systems.
capitalism favors people who take risks, manipulate those around them, and people who are already wealthy.
Those people thrive in all econimic systems, capitalist, socialist and communist alike.
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Post by Truant »

I really find it hard to agree with a statement of capitalism favoring the hard worker.

I have never in my life seen capitalism favor anyone other than the employer.

businesses exploit their employees to increase the profit margin. have never in my life witnessed an employer who was benevolent to their employees to keep them loyal and hard working. (though it has happened in history of course)
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Post by Xyun »

While capitalism does drive people to achieve, it does not favor the hard worker. Blue collar people make a lot less than white collar people on average, but they work much harder.

I don't think we necessarily have a bad system, but I do think we have a corrupt one. Money influences our elections and our laws to such a degree that it is quickly becoming detrimental to us. It is one thing that corporations break laws and get away with it, it is a much more serious concern when they help change the law to suit their ends.
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Post by Hammerstalker PE »

While capitalism does drive people to achieve, it does not favor the hard worker. Blue collar people make a lot less than white collar people on average, but they work much harder.
I don't believe this to be true at all. Physically, yes blue collar workers work harder but white collar workers on average work far longer hours. The stress level at a white collar job is far higher as well.
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Post by Xyun »

are you agreeing with me or disagreeing with me?



nevermind.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Capitalism favors hard workers and risk-takers, no question.


Until the company begins to grow, that is. The larger the corporation you work for, the less likely you are to be noticed.


Truant, I have seen many employers reward employees in a whole host of different ways to improve their productivity and increase loyalty. What I am having a hard time coming up with is a single such case in an organization larger than 150 people.

Xyun,

While blue-collar workers have more physical demands, white-collar employees work longer hours every year. Blue-collars aren't shouldering more of the load. Matter of fact, with increasing safety regulation I would make the argument that blue-collar jobs are becoming easier.
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Post by Xyun »

Are you making the argument or not? I never said white collars don't work more often. Of course they do, their jobs are easier. I hate repeating myself, but I'll do it over and over, just for you.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Ok, define 'easier'.
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Post by Krimson Klaw »

That depends on what the meaning of "define" is.
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Post by Fallanthas »

Nice try.


Is developing a five-year technology plan for your company easier than digging a ditch?

Is recabling a 30 year old building easier than painting a bridge?
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Post by masteen »

Clearly, Xyun's definition of easier means not sweating like a slave on the assembly line. Very 19th century.

The blue-collar monkeys may have physically demanding jobs, but white collar workers have many more mental demands put on them. Any asshole with a reasonably healthy body can dig a ditch. Not everyone can do budgets for a multi-million dollar company.
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Post by Krimson Klaw »

That depends on the meaning of the word "is" is.
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Post by Xyun »

Is making you look like a nincompoop easier than brushing my teeth?
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Post by Fallanthas »

**psst**


Here is a clue, fool.



NO ONE IS AGREEING WITH YOU.


Come back when your command of the english language can encompass words like 'winner' and 'loser'.
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Post by masteen »

They're spelled "winnar" and "roser."
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Post by Xyun »

Clearly, Xyun's definition of easier means not sweating like a slave on the assembly line. Very 19th century.

The blue-collar monkeys may have physically demanding jobs, but white collar workers have many more mental demands put on them. Any asshole with a reasonably healthy body can dig a ditch. Not everyone can do budgets for a multi-million dollar company.
Yes, all of us blue collar people are monkeys with jobs anyone could do, and none of us could carry out the demanding tasks of sitting in a cubicle typing shit in a computer. Thanks for your ub3r 21st century analysis.
While capitalism does drive people to achieve, it does not favor the hard worker. Blue collar people make a lot less than white collar people on average, but they work much harder.
If your argument is that capitalism favors going to college and getting a white collar job, then I agree with you. If your argument is that capitalism favors the harder worker, I disagree. kapish?
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Post by Xyun »

NO ONE IS AGREEING WITH YOU.

You mean 2 idiots are disagreeing with me, I must be wrong!
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Chmee
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Post by Chmee »

Hard work can certainly help to get ahead in a capitalistic system, but it is obviously not the only factor.
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Post by masteen »

I took Physics, Trig, American Civics ect. while working every weekend busing tables and running room service at a hotel. I saved up my cash and got into a good school. I graduated.

You are trivializing all that by saying white collar folks don't work hard.

Fuck you, Xyun. Just because you were too stupid to finish school and land a nice job doesn't give you the right to dismiss what I did.
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Fallanthas
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Post by Fallanthas »

Have you worked a blue collar job?


Have you worked a white collar job?


I've done both bub. Before you start slinging words like idiot around, it might help to garner a bit of life experience on which to base these opinions of yours.


Does capitalism favor those who get an education? Yes. Guess what? So does every other economic system on the planet.
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Xyun
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Post by Xyun »

Fuck you, Xyun. Just because you were too stupid to finish school and land a nice job doesn't give you the right to dismiss what I did.

hehe. I'll interpret that as "even though you're right, I'm taking it personally". It'll be ok, bud. It'll be ok.
Last edited by Xyun on August 28, 2003, 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Chmee »

From the original post.
While the "have-nots" standard grows at a slow and steady pace, the "haves" standard grows exponentially, usually by exploiting the "have nots". Examples of this are credit cards, mortgages, loans, and a variety of other debt inducing techniques.
I strongly disagree that these are "exploiting" the "have nots". Credit cards, mortage and loans are services, and highly useful ones. Yes some people get in trouble with debt, but just because some people make poor decisions doesn't mean that the rest of us don't benefit from the services.
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Post by Wulfran »

A capitalistic system tends to monetarily reward those who put more time/effort into it. The problem is there is a general white colar mindset that their worth is exponentially higher than the blue collars who work with/for them. The attitude stems from an environment where manager-types are the fall guys if the end product or process stops for some reason, which in some cases is valid but in some cases is crap:

- if a group stops producing because their leadership is faulty then removal of the leadership is legitimate.
-if a group stops producing because they lack/were denied resources then it is not necessarily the group's leadership to blame but the people allocating resources.

Because of this level of "accountability" managers and executives have convinced themselves that they are more essential to the business, than the blue collar grunts... and thus as they determine the wages/bonuses the rewards tend be exponential rather than linear.

An example from when I worked for a major Canadian-based energy company. The team I worked on saved the company an estimated $32million dollars one year, in reduced downtimes, maintenance costs, etc. It was our job, and we were paid to do just this, but we recieved bonuses for it: the team leader go a $5K bonus with $30K in stock options and the 6 team members got $3K with $10K in stock options, for a total of $23K in bonuses and $90K in stock options. That same year the companies cash flow increased to $100 million and the CEO got a $550K bonus and $1.5 million in stock options. The "chain of command" wasn't that convoluted (CEO --> Division Head --> Business Unit Head --> Team Leader --> me) yet there was a pretty drastic reward scaling that is typical in at least the Energy sector and I have a hard time believing other sectors are much different (how much does a teller or a branch manager at your bank get paid, compared to their CEO?). I realize there is a skill differential in some cases as well but in a manufacturing facility, if some guys on the line screw up, no one is able to produce. Happily in my example, a few years later 5 of 7 of us left and 1 of the remaining 2 has switched to contracting to the company and in his words "screws them for every penny he can get" :p

Edit: skipped a word or 2 while my mind was traveling faster than my typing speed.
Last edited by Wulfran on August 28, 2003, 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Fallanthas
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Post by Fallanthas »

Personally? Sorry, you would have to have some way of impacting me for me to take such a silly discussion personally.


Your entire analysis was flawed, your conception of white-collar and blue-collar is nonsense and you have nothing but book theory to hang your hat on.
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Post by masteen »

Exactly, Fall.

The point that they're missing from my first post is that pretty much ANYONE can do a blue-collar job with a little training. Not everyone can even begin to comprehend the scope of a manager's job.
Last edited by masteen on August 28, 2003, 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Fallanthas »

And I started as the son of a mechanic throwing bags of cement on a construction site, worked up through college, got a job as an SQL programmer and eventually moved into my current position as the IT department for a police department.


Obviously, Xyun is right and the 'have-nots' have no chance of improving their lot in the capitalistic country.
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