General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "Sorry, It's Not a 'Law of Capitalism' That You Pay Your Employees as Little as Possible. It's..." [View all]fasttense
(17,301 posts)Wouldn't feudalism have opened them and exploited them too? Slavery would have been able to use those advances as well - remember the cotton gin.
Capitalism merely allowed the rich capitalist to gain the majority of the wealth from the new markets or technology.
You use some of the most horrendously poor societies as your "models" for capitalism.
1st India - 32.7% of the total Indian people fall below the international poverty line of US $1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7% live on less than US $2 per day. India has been a capitalist country for centuries, the East India Tea company was one of the 1st to use India's cheep products to undermine prices in the US. Why are they so poor? Why are they just now getting the 'rewards" of capitalism. Seems to me capitalism doesn't provide the rewards until desperate and starving people can provide a cheap labor pool.
Then there is Communist China - Are you really using a country that calls itself communist as an example of the success of capitalism? Aside from that contradiction, China certainly isn't a democratic nation. Capitalism - much like feudalism works best when democracy is crushed out of existence. So it's no surprise capitalism thrives in Communist China. But what you call serve them well means a decline in the poverty rate from 85% in 1981 to 13.1% in 2008 (poverty being defined as the number of people living on < $1.25/day). Of course when dealing with a totalitarian country, you don't know if those numbers are true or if those numbers merely represent in increase for just the uber rich.
Yes, mankind is greedy. Mankind is also ignorant, lazy, and hateful. So lets set up economic systems based on those faults as well. Why would you pick the worst qualities in a species and use it as your bases for an economic system? Why not pick the best qualities and use that? Why is greed and avarice so sacred to capitalist anyway? I'm so sick of the greed worshiping capitalist praying to their god of money. Do you NOT believe humankind is able to be motivated by other considerations besides money and greed? Really?
Oh by the way, you need to really check out those links. They are not all small businesses. From wikipedia, if you like that source better: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Mondragon at the end of 2012, employed 83,321 people in 256 companies in four areas of activity: Finance, Industry, Retail and Knowledge.
I don't call that small.