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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Dec 26, 2017 - 12:15pm PT
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What would those women and children be doing for a living if not that?
I always find it ironic to hear the proponents of globalism decry "all of us" for having "blood on our hands."
So, please explain the fix, you know, how you're going to make not just the USA but the whole planet a global utopia.
Sure. It is a challenge to save the world by posting on SuperTopo from your keyboard. Workers around the world face lots of different issues. Just putting enough food on the table, unfortunately, is often one of them.
But shaming US companies, that produce high mark-up goods in sweatshop factories, into forcing suppliers to pay workers higher wages and better working conditions, doesn't take a lot of effort nor does it cost the US consumer much.
There were several years where Nike paid Michael Jordan more money than all the workers combined, who were actually, like, you know, making Nike shoes, were paid.
Yes the beauty of the free market combined with winning the genetic lottery plus opportunity lottery.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 26, 2017 - 01:34pm PT
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What would those women and children be doing for a living if not that?
Yes, praise the Lord for a system that forced them into sweatshops!
So, please explain the fix, you know, how you're going to make not just the USA but the whole planet a global utopia.
Kill capitalism.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Dec 26, 2017 - 04:22pm PT
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^^^ LOL
Yeah, good luck with that. Every nations that's tried to kill it just found it to poke up its ugly head again in the form of black markets.
Consider how organized crime became big business in this nation. Look at the rise of the Russian Mafia. Look at how Hong Kong went from one of the poorest "nations" to one of the richest as it was allowed to turn black markets into legitimate, capitalistic markets.
Capitalism is human nature, and every other system that's been tried ends up turning back into it, even with totalitarian efforts to the contrary. Even China is economically viable today because it embraced capitalism.
Consistent with the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution, capitalism isn't going away. The best you can hope to accomplish, imo, is in OUR one nation (USA), you force government to do its job regarding anti-trust enforcement and regulate a level playing field.
Utopia is nowhere on the horizon.
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Dec 26, 2017 - 04:39pm PT
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High tech jobs are also being out sourced to India not because it is cheaper but because the work is better quality.
Trump said the Nigerian would be immigrants should go back to their huts.
Nigerians are the most highly educated group in the US with 17% having Masters degrees and 34% having a Bachelor's.
People like these, along with Iranian PHD's in Engineering, and many others would add tremendous value to the US.
Now many of them are going to Canada.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Dec 26, 2017 - 05:07pm PT
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I know in some cases, "outsourced" engineers are brought into the US on special visas to replace expensive home-grown workers. Bust your ass at CalPoly for that engineering degree and high student loans then get replaced by Sanjit from Deli working at a fraction of your wages. This is a real deal.
You "know"? As in, you've seen these outsourced engineers' paystubs, and the paystubs of the home-grown workers they replaced? And Sanjit from Deli [sic] was making "a fraction" of what Joe from Portland was making before they fired him and hired Sanjit?
Or you've read about it on the internet somewhere and just believed it? I actually do know a fair bit about the visa process, having been through it myself. Several times. And if Microsoft, or Amazon, or Google or whomever was able to replace Joe with Sanjit and save big time on wages, then the fault lies not with those greedy capitalists, but with the US Customs and Border Protection division of the Homeland Security Department.
The two fundamental principles of the H1-B visa process are that the hiring company must prove that no qualified US citizen is available for the job, and that the wage they are paying is in line with wages for similar jobs in the area where the foreigner will be employed. If the company fails to prove both of those things, US CBP won't issue the visa.
I'm sure that, somewhere, sometime, some company managed to get Sanjit in at a lower wage than they'd pay Joe, or when Joe was actually available, but the idea that millions of cheapo foreigners are arriving en masse to steal your jobs is simply not based in reality.
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JLP
Social climber
The internet
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Dec 26, 2017 - 05:43pm PT
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The political economy is much harder to understand, and predict, than rocket science. Predicting might be difficult, sure, but we're masters of looking back. I enjoy observing. The reasons are very fluid, but the common theme I see is decreasing natural resources and increasing population.
All I have to add here is if you are looking at blue collar wages from the 80's or whatever and asking where they went - what did an elementary school dropout make back then? The world is ever increasing in complexity. We look at economic inflation, consider also the knowledge inflation and how many keep up with it.
You have to compete and your competition is from all over the world now and almost all of them can take MIT classes online - from their home in a shipping container or some sh!t like that. Like your fat BS job and want to brag about it? Tell me all about it maybe 10 yrs from now. Or less...
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chipper_shredder
Social climber
outinthecuts
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2017 - 05:50pm PT
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Homelessness: One of Capitalism's Many Inevitable Products
"As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution to the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers." -- Friedrich Engels, 1872
"Homelessness exists not because the system is not working but because this is the way it works." -- Peter Marcuse
Housing is the necessary precondition for security, identity, emotional well-being, work, leisure and community. There is no greater condemnation of capitalism than its inability to provide adequate housing for those who produce its wealth -- the working class. The high percentage of people of color who are homeless points to the wealth divide between the white and non-white working class, based on the historical legacy of racism and the building of capitalism out of slavery. The ruling class explanation relies on blaming the victims, arguing that people experiencing homelessness are in some way individually incompetent. Other, more perceptive, yet incomplete explanations point to shortages of affordable housing, privatization of civic services, investment speculation in housing, poorly planned urbanization, as well as poverty and unemployment.
Actually, the fear of homelessness helps capitalism maintain its power. In the days of industrial capitalism, the unemployed were used by the ruling capitalist class to signal to the workers that they were lucky to have their jobs, and if they rebelled, they could be unemployed. Now, after the 2007-8 recession, as we move further into post-industrial capitalism, the homeless are a warning to those potentially rebellious workers unhappy with their loss of wages, lack of stability and benefits, and to students of the zero generation: zero jobs, zero hope, zero possibilities, zero employment, who are in debt for their schooling. The message is: Accept the declining status quo or end up homeless.
The media reports daily about the "crisis" of homelessness. The use of the term "crisis" implies that housing insecurity and homelessness is abnormal, a temporary variation from a tolerable standard. "Crisis" is currently used to voice the experience of some of the newly devastated middle class, an outcome of the 2007-8 recession. But for working-class, low-income and communities of color, the "housing crisis" is the norm. In a recent study, it was found that nowhere in the United States can someone who works 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) afford to live in a one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. Housing and homelessness have been problems for the poor and working class throughout history. Even in the beginnings of capitalism in England, peasants kicked out of their land were forced to rush to the crowded cities and sell their labor to the new factories in order to survive, with the resulting problems of slums, squatter settlements and homelessness.
In reacting to the current housing crisis, the US government and local communities create programs to help, even though due to austerity cutbacks, fewer funds are allotted. Some of these attempts are helpful, but most are insufficient or even illusory. The dominant view is that the housing system is temporarily flawed but can be resolved through a targeted approach. Many homelessness programs tout "successful" measures. But with further examination, the picture is not so positive. For example, Utah reported a 91 percent reduction in chronic homelessness, but upon further investigation, it was found that the figure was false and driven by changes in how people were counted. New York City has a 99 percent failure rate of convincing those without homes to go to shelters. San Francisco has not markedly reduced homelessness in 20 years. Los Angeles has continually failed in its attempts.
An analysis of capitalism actually demonstrates that the government, under the control of powerful corporate lobbies, uses housing policies to preserve political stability and support the accumulation of private profit. Over the last decades, housing policies have been primarily aimed at expanding homeownership for the middle class, giving private homeowners a chance at the "American dream" by aligning their interests with those of the real estate and banking industry in rising property prices, while programs to prevent homelessness have suffered. Building affordable housing for low-income and potentially homeless people is not as profitable as building homes for the wealthy.
The housing market would collapse if shelter was plentiful and affordable for everyone. In the book, In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis, the authors demonstrate that the interlocking processes of deregulation and financialization turn homes from a living space into real estate -- a commodity, manipulated by investors, banks and even some local governments. This occurs because there is no right to adequate housing in our Constitution or in federal law. If housing was a right and not a commodity, then shelter would be taken out of the private market.
The contrast with homelessness in Cuba is telling, where Cuba has no significant homelessness problem. It is a contrast between the US, a rich society based on profit (capitalism) versus a society based more on the common good. In the US, we are currently hostages of capitalism, an economic system based on wage labor, private ownership or control of the means of production, and the production of commodities for profit, while a tiny corporate elite uses its wealth and political power to dominate. Currently, the effects of this domination are that the poorest people cannot afford housing and end up homeless due to the inequalities caused by capitalism.
The economically vibrant San Francisco Bay area has experienced a high-tech boom, record high housing prices and a significant increase in the number of homeless people in encampments. Studies have placed the causes of this condition on federal government policies. There are five basic causes: 1) cuts in affordable housing programs, which began during the Reagan administration; 2) rent increases during a time when incomes are not also rising; 3) the supply of housing units has not kept up with population growth; 4) welfare cuts, thanks to "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" signed by President Bill Clinton, giving states the power to impose stricter eligibility rules, limiting families to five years on welfare; 5) a decline in the value of benefits given to low-income Americans.
In economically depressed Detroit, outsourcing and automation contributed to a destroyed job market. Most of the remaining labor force changed from a high-productivity, well-paid middle class, into low-paid domestic service jobs. Many workers who lost their jobs also lost their homes. Some moved elsewhere to find work. Detroit's housing market is currently in flux, with some groups claiming success, for example with "tiny homes" for the homeless population, but workers don't often have the income to pay for new housing. The remaining workers are faced with low-paying jobs or loss of jobs, loss of homes and no way to get back to a decent life.
Capitalism goes where the profits are. In the '60s and '70s, it was Detroit, the automobile capital of the world, and now it has shifted to the Silicon Valley, one of the new centers of power of the economy. When Detroit was in its prime, US politicians proudly brought world visitors there to show off capitalism's success. Now it's a destroyed area, with a thin veneer of the glory days exhibited in the inner city, giving the illusion that Detroit is back in business. Silicon Valley is full of profit potential, a center of creativity, a laid-back life, beautiful buildings and campuses, near a world-class tourist city, and the destination for world visitors, mirroring an earlier blue-collar Detroit. Since capitalism is profit driven, it takes no responsibility for those without homes, the laid-off workers or abandoned plants and toxic dumps. One can only imagine what Silicon Valley will be like when the American empire declines and the center of capitalism moves, probably to China.
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Lollie
Social climber
I'm Lolli.
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Dec 26, 2017 - 06:00pm PT
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It's better economy for a country as a whole with higher wages. It's a shortsighted policy to keep wages down and let only a few be very wealthy. Simple numbers. If people make more money, they buy more stuff and pay more taxes. If people buy more stuff there's more earned making them. Wages lubricates the wheels of the economy.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Dec 26, 2017 - 06:15pm PT
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I'm just chilling out awaiting the return of the Guillotine and the Angry Masses.
Of course, revolt by the people will never happen as long as Facebook distracts the women and the NFL airs a game every night to quell the men.
Regarding housing - I've got friends "glad" to pay 1100 bucks a month to live in a one car garage with bathroom privileges twice a day in the main house just so they can say "I live in Santa Barbara".
While 3 miles to the east are hundreds of 10,000 square foot mansions with 10 bedrooms and 10 baths that are visited only 2 or 3 times a year by their Owners.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Dec 26, 2017 - 07:11pm PT
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It's better economy for a country as a whole with higher wages. It's a shortsighted policy to keep wages down and let only a few be very wealthy.
So, isn't it wrong (immoral) for the government to not make the minimum wage $50 per hour? Why not $100? Why not $1000 per hour and really stick it to those corporate bastards?
On your model, what's the "principle" by which the "right" line should be drawn?
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 26, 2017 - 07:39pm PT
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Better yet eliminate minimum wages altogether.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Dec 26, 2017 - 07:51pm PT
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^^^ Why would that be "better yet"?
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Dec 26, 2017 - 08:07pm PT
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Ghost:
The two fundamental principles of the H1-B visa process are that the hiring company must prove that no qualified US citizen is available for the job, and that the wage they are paying is in line with wages for similar jobs in the area where the foreigner will be employed. If the company fails to prove both of those things, US CBP won't issue the visa.
I'm sure that, somewhere, sometime, some company managed to get Sanjit in at a lower wage than they'd pay Joe, or when Joe was actually available, but the idea that millions of cheapo foreigners are arriving en masse to steal your jobs is simply not based in reality. I am familiar with this propaganda by large outsourcing and software companies.
Actually a bit of creative writing when creating a job description allows to bypass this qualification requirement.
In reality H1-B workers are serfs working for companies that brought them to the US.
Their salaries are significantly lower than salaries of US citizens or green card holders.
This is a common knowledge for everybody working in this industry.
And yes, import of the large number of Indian etc. guys lowers salaries of the locals.
Again, this is a common knowledge and only people who have a stake in this process (management of these companies, lawers etc.) claim that the opposite is true.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Dec 26, 2017 - 08:10pm PT
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^^^ Why would that be "better yet"?
You don't know?
Ask GoreVidal.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 26, 2017 - 09:11pm PT
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Capitalism is human nature
No, it is not. It is a very recent development in human history.
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Byran
climber
Half Dome Village
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Dec 26, 2017 - 11:05pm PT
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(Capitalism) is a very recent development in human history.
That's because until recent times there were no manufactured goods and almost the entire population was employed in agriculture working land they didn't own and with laws preventing them from ever acquiring land.
One should really view the feudal system as a type of capitalist structure where all the resources and means of production are in the hands of a few wealthy families. In other words: an oligopoly. The industrial revolution created new sources of wealth and allowed people from outside the class of landed gentry to begin accumulating capital.
The only thing really new about "capitalism" was the introduction of property rights which are egalitarian rather than based on family bloodlines and caste systems.
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Bruce Morris
Trad climber
Soulsbyville, California
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Dec 27, 2017 - 12:36am PT
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agriculture is a very recent development in human history...
Yup. The modern centrally-controlled bureaucratic nation state did not emerge until people began intensive farming, which produced sufficient food surpluses to allow various groups to specialize. A written language was pretty important in this process too.
Before that, it was all free roaming hunter-gatherer bands moving from place to place following resources on a seasonal basis. No fixed abodes. No towns, no cities, not even villages.
Modern money-market capitalism came along pretty late in the game.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Dec 27, 2017 - 03:33am PT
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No, it is not. It is a very recent development in human history.
False, but irrelevant. What capitalism IS has been around forever.
But the real question is: What would you replace it with?
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 27, 2017 - 05:41am PT
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Dec 26, 2017 - 11:05pm PT
(Capitalism) is a very recent development in human history.
That's because until recent times there were no manufactured goods and almost the entire population was employed in agriculture working land they didn't own and with laws preventing them from ever acquiring land.
There were no manufactured goods until recently? Really? Roman farmers did not own the land they worked? Is that true?
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Dec 27, 2017 - 05:46am PT
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I think most people would agree that the game is rigged
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