Subject:
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Re: Fixing the world (was Re: Ldraw cannon
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Dec 1998 18:57:24 GMT
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Viewed:
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1954 times
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Larry Pieniazek wrote in reply to "Moz (Chris Moseley)"
> Deliberately inflammatory reply by me follows..
Larry, old stick, it would be nice if you didn't simply ignore inconvenient
questions. I know you don't have pat answers, but they make your provocation
seem somewhat empty.
Moz, who asked:
---cut here---
Jesse Long wrote in message ...
> Obviously, the MW for teenagers needs to be abolished. But, while I don't
> like the MW, I have no doubt that Man's greed would have companies paying
> pittance levels in a bad economy, which would only make things worse
I dunno - it produced the French Revolution, which was not all bad.[1]
> (capitalists still haven't figured out that you have to pay your workers
> good money so they can buy all your products. This was part of Marx's and
> later Lenin's arguments.
Also a strong point of that extreme radical, Henry Ford. This was mentioned
in the Time magazine issue on business leaders, if you're interested. He
believed in paying enough that his workers could afford the product.[2]
In NZ it has resulted in kids being fired when they get old enough for
the minimum wage to bite. "happy birthday kid, now get lost".[3]
> I could never be a libertarian because 1) I have no faith in Man's ability
> to care about each other and 2) I have no faith in Man's ability to • consider
> the common good without being forced by government.
For example, the many US laws that only work if the population is sensible -
your excessive right to have lawsuits decided by juries is one example. [4]
And the theory that companies will care for the environment because they're
there for the long term. Which fails because stripping pays more, and the
owners can always move on. So the caring ones usually get driven out or
forced to change. Look at nuclear power plants, for instance.[5]
---cut here---
[1] which was indeed a direct response to the conditions of the time, and
led Marx to his theory of the proletariat. Personally I like the idea of
libertarianism for that very reason - I think it would produce a real
revolution in the USA.
[2] and isn't Ford one of the big capitalist heroes?
[3] yes, every law has a downside. And I'd be interested to see those
firings
challenged under HR law on discrimination by age.
[4] which results in silly settlements, and in corporate reactions that
annoy
everyone, like McD selling lukewarm coffee. That jury sure thought ahead,
and
of the common good.
[5] It does now, and I see no real way to stop that within a mass capitalist
system. Anything that allows multinationals will allow them to cut their
losses
if they need/want to. So they can come in, buy companies, sell their assets,
and
abandon their liabilities. The same mechanism applies to strip mining -
promise
the earth beforehand, fight in court while mining to delay the fixup work,
then cut your losses when finished mining. Or repeat ad infinitum if the
mine is still worthwhile. But you knew that from observation, didn't you?
Eg: Fission power means accepting unlimited forward liability for an
infinite
time, according to how I understand Larry. Infinite, meaning "at least an
order
of magnitude longer that the duration so far of any of these involved". So
Larry would have the shareholders of GE accept liability on behalf of their
descendants for any accident that might happen in the future involving
either
a power plant, or waste from one. Such liability being at least the
cost of moving New York 200 miles, should one of those plants become
inoperable.
But the question there is, what are the alternatives? Burn petrochemical
feedstocks and face future ecovandalism charges when the cost of oil has
risen in the future? And greenhouse gas charges now?
Plus the very real possibility of lifting the leukemia rates under power
lines,
making generating electricity a pretty dubious game in itself.
All in all, I think bankruptcy laws are a good idea. And the idea of suing
for
damages would make only lawyers happy.
Did I mention that one other drain on the US economy in the lawyers? You
have
a lot of them, and they cost both directly and indirectly (by retainers and
by the caution they advise).
Have fun
Moz
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Fixing the world (was Re: Ldraw cannon
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| <F3KMny.FDD@lugnet.com> <F3Lxqn.GrG@lugnet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Moz (Chris Moseley)" wrote: Deliberately inflammatory reply by me follows.. (...) That's claptrap. Normal people are (...) (25 years ago, 7-Dec-98, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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