From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 09 2004 - 04:29:57 BST
Some more quick replies, Platt, and then I think we may have to agree to
disagree.
On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 20:43:41 +0000, "Platt Holden" wrote:
> Is the Spanish government aware of the common law against polluting
> upstream affecting a neighbor downstream? Are extra regulations required
> to enforce a law that's have been around in the civilized world for
> centuries? If so, why doesn't the Spanish government have such a
> regulation and, if it does, why doesn't it enforce it?
>
Good question. Likely American waste disposal recognized an oversight, or
recognized that even with laws there was no court for retribution. I think this
is just your example of the greed and self-interest inherent in man exploiting
an ability to dispose of hazard waste at the lowest possible cost to the
company. Maximize profit at any cost.
Are extra regulations required? I don't know. Is there nothing that could be
done to prevent things like this, or is poisonous waste being dumped into the
groundwater of the poor just a sad side effect we have to swallow to support
modern capitalism?
> It always starts with a "little regulation." Then do-gooders come along
> and add more regulations. Eventually the country ends up with a lot of
> regulations as the busy-bodies of the world keep interfering with other
> people's lives in order to create their versions of Utopia. Thus, the
> world ends up with a Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba and a hundred other
> totalitarian governments.
>
Yes. I am very familiar with the "slippery slope" argument. It is used to cast
fear quite often by corporate interests, who oddly favor government regulation
of other "moral" areas. If we allow one regulation next thing we know we'll be
like communist Russia, so therefore no regulations for the corporations. So why
not rebuke these regulations and ask for Union Carbide to dispose of their
waste in your backyard? It'd be cheaper for them I am sure than shipping it
overseas. And if you can help them maximize their profits, then you did the
right thing.
> I have enough common sense to know that thousands of immigrants came to
> this country with nothing but the shirts on their backs and have
> prospered. This country wasn't built by on people seeking handouts or
> whining about "fairness." They rolled up their sleeves and went to work,
> grateful to live in a country where they were free to compete in the
> marketplace.
>
Handouts? Whining about fairness? Are you telling me the laborers in Tijuana are
not working their asses off? But, I agree, American markets are more prosperous
and appealing because they are free, when did I ever say otherwise? Or suggest
that a solution to the problem is closing them? Why is any challenge to modern
capitalism immediately reducible to eastern-bloc socialism for you?
This is a fundamental problem I am not understanding with you, Platt. And this
is the reason for a proposed "cease fire" agree-to-disagree. No matter how many
times I tell you I am completely in favor of free enterprise and free markets,
my concern over labor abuse and alienation between labor activity and product
make you paint me out as something opposite of what I am. I am sorry the world
is so black and white in your view. I favor free-markets, I am not in favor of
"handouts" or some government stipulated "equity in wages". I do see the abuses
and problems (namely, again, alienated labor) in the current system and only
wish to propose a dialogue to (1) continue free markets, (2) rectify the
injustices of modern capitalism.
Are they "bettered" because of all the wonderful
> > consumer choices they have when they go shopping? Perhpas we disagree
> > fundamentally on what "betterment" means.
>
> Yes, I guess we do. Nothing is more precious than individual freedom.
> Review the MOQ if you need reassurance that freedom is the highest good.
>
I absolutely agree with you. But, this wonderous individual freedom can be
blocked by unfair business practices, Platt. This is my argument. The laborers
in Mexico are hardly "free", they are forced into a perpetuating cycle of
poverty to supply cheap labor to American corporations. Whether it is slavery
at gunpoint or indentured servitude, the effect remains the same. People who
labor endless and never attain the power in their lives to prosper. Removing
the obstacles to this, by creating a truly free-market, creates the best
atmosphere for individual freedom.
You cannot justify a system that enslaves some to "free" others as promoting
"individual freedom is the highest good".
>
> Why don't you tell me the cure for poverty throughout the world.
>
I have no answer. I believe any answer lies in the dialogue shifting from
"earing money" to "doing good". Once we do this, then I think everything else
will follow. Slowly but surely.
So long as wealth is justifiable at any cost, we are stuck in modern capitalism,
and stuck with poverty throughout the world.
The best way to treat others is
> "Live and let live." The best way to get ahead is study and work hard.
>
We disagree here, to no suprise I'm sure. The best way, in my opinion, to treat
others is "as family". As for getting ahead, I fully favor an even playing
field.
>
> Where have you been? Ever heard of unions, of robots, of the shift from an
> industrial to a service economy?
>
Unions? I thought you hated these socialist endeavors? As for the shift to a
"service" economy, I hardly find that in and of itself comforting. The change
should be towards a "connected" economy, where I value, and am allowed to
partake in the rewards, of my labor. Whether I am on an assembly line scewing
bolts into parts, or stamping "paid" on forms in an insurance regulator's
office, if I am disconnected from my activity, then I lose.
> > And as for "technological improvements", I think Pirsig pointed out that
> > technology bereft of Quality is vacuous. And I don't see much has changed
> > from his descriptions of labor then until now.
>
> Well, I don't think Pirsig is blaming the economic system of free
> enterprise for the shortcomings of technology. He blames the scientific
> worldview of a purposeless, amoral universe.
>
And the scientific worldview has created a world without value. Where, besides
in the accumulation of wealth, is value as a concept in modern capitalism?
Where is value in what has been done, and is being done, to the population of
Tijuana?
> > >What would you suggest as a substitute for "money" as the impetus in the
> > >economy?
> >
> > Quality, of course.
>
> And what if Quality to me and my neighbor means money?
>
Then I suggest you re-read ZMM. :-)
>
> No emergency rooms where you live? No free clinics? Do you live in
> Mexico?
>
I told you where I live. I make no secrets of this. There are free clinics here,
and I know a few people who go there. But there are no clinics for dental
and/or vision practice. The clinics are good, sure, for what they do, but
aren't really capable for treating serious illness. Emergency rooms? Last year
I had a friend turned away, they refused to suture a gash in his arm because he
lacked insurance. This is the real world, Platt, not the illusion propagandized
by Rush and Sean Hannity.
>
> Well, if you have better ideas, let's hear 'em. I'll bet they'll involve
> some form to state coercion affecting the freedom of individuals to go
> about their business as honest traders in an open marketplace.
>
I wish it was simply individuals going about their business as honest traders in
an open marketplace. Sadly, it is not.
I would like to pursue ways, and then encourage their adoption through financial
incentives (since this is the only language you speak) to restructure
production activity so that the laborer has a vested interest in his activity
and has a connection to his product. Perhpas through profit sharing. Or through
restructuring production to do away with meaningless rote work (service or
industrial). Perhaps through providing equal access in the market to local
products made by local labor? You think this exists, I'm sure, but it doesn't.
Consider Pirsig's example (regardless of whether you believe it resonates with
Marx or not). Is there no way to rethink economic practices so that we foster
the attitudes the old machinist had? People have to care about what they do,
and to care they have to relate it somehow to themselves. And to relate it to
themselves they have to have their activity connected to their product.
Overall, I wish I had answers. I am optomistic enough to believe that
restructuring the dialogue from "earning money" to "doing good" is an important
first step.
Coercion? Hardly.
Arlo
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