From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 07 2004 - 21:04:32 BST
Platt,
Thanks for your answer. Quick follow-up... You say "there's nothing static
about the current economic system other than government interference with
laws and regulations". Are you in favor of in opposition to the laws and
regulations child-labor, workplace conditions or environmental regulations
(for example)? I've spoken with many "capitalists" over the years who argue
that marketplace self-regulation would create "good" (I'll leave this
undefined) workplace conditions and interactions between the corporations
and local communities. And yet, historically, the horrific conditions of
early industrial production were not stopped by corporate altruism or
self-regulation. Indeed, the opposite has shown to be true.
Consider the long-reported out-migration of jobs to overseas markets, where
corporations depend on poor economic conditions to manufacture their goods
for slave wages. For a concrete example, let me back of the MOQ and remind
you of the tons and tons of industrial lead waste that was dumped across
the border near Tijuana, dumped deliberately and without regard because
environmental regulations in this country prohibited such wanton disposal.
The groundwater in and around Tijuana is undrinkable. Are the American
corporations responsible doing anything to clean this up? Show me where
removing the regulations (in this instance) would have produced the
altruistic market you seem to describe? Consider too, that Coke operates a
manufacturing plant in Tijuana so it can avoid paying decent living wages
to its hires. I can practically guarantee you that were Mexico to mandate a
living wages regulation, Coke would move to another impoverished area so it
could continue to pay slave wages, to children as well as adults. Or, for a
more American example, should what happened at Enron (the price gauging,
not even necessarily the corporate theft of millions of worker's pensions)
be against the law or legal? After all, it is a static regulation that
makes these actions illegal. Are you telling me that removing these
regulations would suddenly make corporations act with regard for its workers?
In short, give me any historically-backed reason why I should believe that
purely unregulated markets would not immediately revert to conditions
similar to those following the industrial revolution? And, if government
interference is inherently bad, show me any one instance of a corporation
turning down a government handout and saying the money should be returned
to the people?
Now, ideally I suppose I'd like to believe that people would not commit
such attrocities as the dumping of tons of poisonous lead into known
groundwater. But, I believe, so long as "money" (read capital or wealth) is
the primary and completely unassailable impetus in the economy, that
certain regulations are required. And, importantly, I do not feel these
regulations kill DQ. I do not believe that providing access to basic
healthcare for the citizenry kills "free enterprise" in the marketplace. To
sum, I am all for free-enterprise in the marketplace, I just do not believe
that means that everything should be reduced to a marketplace.
One final comment. You say "Second, employe-owned companies are
corporations where employees own the majority of the stock and get to pick
the board of directors. Being human, they will vote their self-interests,
often to the detriment of the company's ability to compete and/or stay in
business." You illustrate this by the idea of "voting themselves raises". I
think employees of employee-owned companies have just as much interest in
the company staying viable as corporate owners. But you are right, it is
about money. Employees of employee-owned companies will likely not vote to
pay themselves several cents an hour to they can compete with corporations
who do pay cents to the hour to its employees. If all companies had to pay
decent living wages to all its employees, wages based on the area where
that product was consumed not produced, I think employee-owned companies
would suddenly be very competitive.
Arlo
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