The major flaw with this is even if your intentions may be better than those capitalist fat cats this person will not have all the skills if any which will produce a good quality house. Why do people go to a fancy restaurant? Mainly because it is good quality food that they either have no time to make or simply lack the skills to produce that which the restaurant offers.
In the long run this is veeeery unlikely to happen. The way alot of company's/capitalist investor's get business is from presenting the experience they have. Do you really think they will be in business long if all there jobs end in poor quality yet charge high prices? You prosume that all companys will go this way. In fact it only takes one (and yes there is alot more than one in nearly every market in the economy today) but it only takes one to go the other way do a good quality job. I dont deny they will try to reduce costs, but only to stay efficient. Once you get this who do you really think will be getting the work? The company with a good background or the one that has had law suits pressed againist it in most cases? The thing is the reason why a company gets to do what it does and keeps on doing what it does to produce all this profit in the first place is to create a name for itself. Which means long term profits. On the other hand you have people out to make a quick buck, they do not get repeat business and go in most cases bankrupt.
As the materials used become that of poorer quality price will also reduce, this is based on the fact that many other produces will offer the same good/sevice. It may so happen that this said market is a monopoly, in this case yes they could in thoery force a consumer to pay alot of little, but thats why there is no truly capitalist system in place. Mixed economys ftw!
Also they dont become less accountable as my above comments mention, they will need to keep a good reputation in the product they sell in order to competitive.
If there is a issue with a product eg very bad quality or a fault it normally needs to get mass recalled, in my view this kinda does mean companys have a big stake in the goods/services they are selling as if they are faulty/very poorly done it will get a bad name, eg long term unikley to get repeat business. Also it costs a hell of alot to recall the goods/products, or redo a service, it could easly wipe out most of the profits they were going to make meaning they have again a big stake in it.
You really think the CEO's of companys can just chillax? My grandfather was CEO of a huge company. He never had a spare moment, even in his 'free time' he was doing exra work to help the company stay ahead of the others ect. CEO's dont sit around doing nothing, it would just be very inefficient for them to talk to the customer. The way the company employs people in the first place is that either the owner lacks the skills for a job or they lack the time and it would be inefficient to stop what they are doing ovr employing someone else to do that job. Sure with alot of goods you can find problems with atleast some of each of them, thats why they need call centers so they can see if it is just a little problem easly fixed which can be replaced quickly or if it is a global problem and they need to do a mass recall.
It's true that companys will use their vast captials to help them get the best lawers ect. This still does not take into account that in todays society if a big company is taken to court over and over again, or even just once. They get alot of bad publicity, this effect the reputation of a company and means that other companys can step in to take their place quite quickly.
I'm starting to think you really dont like rich people ^^. Most people in the world would not do this. Yes there are afew people in the world that would try this. That is called corruption and it comes in my view from the human need to have more (greed). You may say this is only here because of the capatilist system, but think about it greed and the thurst for humans to have more is in everyone. Dont you want to understand more? Learn more? Be better at a skill? or in your case take over the world and make 'Karl Marx's vision come true? All these things are greedy, you and everybody just want more all the time. So i dont think the system is it blame for it. Some people in the world will try anything to get there way and get 'more'. physically, mentally, money. It will occur is any system and in any time zone which involves humans (that have not been genitically modified). The best anyone can do is put things in place to avoid this.
I really dont see the problem with this. The employer needs a job done. He employs people and to be effective as possible looks for the best deal. Time is only worth as much as people see it. So the worker needs to weigh up the opportunity cost of working/earnering and not working/being poor. The employer also weigh's up the cost of having to employ someone and what beneift it give the company (E.g. output increases). Plus who said the worker would work as little as possible? That is a state of mind about all humans that says they are all lazy and will do as little as possible to get as much as possible. Thank god for the labour market meaning there is a competitive atomshpere in getting jobs, meaning people will do the work they should.
The 'mob' is what runs the country. The mob refers to the mass of normal people. The government is only in place if the 'mob' wants it to be. Thats all i really got to say on that, the bit about the government being employed by the 'rich capitalists' just has no grounding.
People have different skills. The people the huge amounts wealth have just
utillzed thier skills, most of the time the ability to think fast, see the bigger picture, make hard decisions, creativity. Next time you are in a shop look around, if you cant see the how competitive the market is then go on the internet look up houses for sale. Phone companys? Internet access? Everything we do we have so many options. People that have gone to live in 3rd world countrys for a few years when theyget back say when they went to the shop they were shocked. Not because of all the food in it, but because there was so much choice between the same type of food.
I seem to have rambled on abit, if in places its incoherent please let me know =). To get back the main point of this Topic. If they person agrees to have their hair cut for a certain price at a certain quality or goes into the aggrement knowing what the outcome will be then no they should not be protected. The main reason is whatever reason they are still going to the hairdressers for it is obv not the hair cut. So the person has obviously found value n somthing in it (e.g. the expirence of it as they are friendly, they know it so feel safe ect). How can one put a vaule on such things, it seems like only the person paying knows what they truly value it at.
Hi Erbium
I have always been very clear about my political agenda in my posts. I would like to see a system where the workers owned the companies they work in and there are no centralised forms of power
So concerning the argument you have put forward about companies being better at building things than individuals...what I would argue is that if the workers owned the house building company instead of a rich individual then they would care more about the product and their companies reputation and performance because they are directly involved and would also reap the fruits of their labours instead of the capitalist system where they get a 'cut', with the rest going to the owner....make sense?
I'm not sure about what you are saying about people going to restaurants to enjoy good food....a lot of the time i think people go to restaurants to get out of the house. Often it is a social event or a date, birthday, marriage proposal, celebration etc. Honestly I am generally not impressed by restaurant food (and yes i have eaten in upmarket restaurants!)
I think that you are seeing things at face value. There is the theory of things and there is how things play out in reality. For example you can say that capitalism stays vibrant and effective due to competition (you might even read something like that in a textbook about free markets), but in reality the worlds wealth has largely consolidated.
Mixed economies are a poor compromise. Yes I think they are better than completely free markets, but they are largely an illusion created to make the public think they are being protected and have a stake in the power share. This leads to your point about the mob ruling. I agree that the people should rule, but in reality they don't.
There are many forms of democracy. In the UK we essentially have a two party system. We have a 'first past the post' voting system where the country is split into voting constituencies (We do not have a proportional representation system where each party would be represented in parliament proportional to their number of votes).
What this effectively means is that the party in power can look at the voting demographics of the country and draw up the boundaries of the constituencies so that they will win as many constituencies as possible and therefore will have as many representatives in parliament as possible.
This means that voters can see that basically one of two parties will be voted into power. This has the effect of putting them off voting for other parties because they think their vote will be wasted, so they go for what they see is the lesser of two evils and vote for one of the two main parties. Does it sound familiar? In the US it is the Republicans or the Democrats in the UK it is the Labour party or the Conservative party.
Think about the implications of that and bare in mind that we are looking at processes that have been going on for hundreds of years. The implications are that any one who wants to influence politicians for example capitalist investors or corporations they know there is only a relatively small number of people that they have to influence (lobby, bribe, coerce, trojan horse...whatever). The Clintons presided over the deregulation of the derivatives market (which in turn played a part in the economic crisis)...they also got very wealthy at this time. Obama even asked Hilary Clinton to open up her taxes to public scrutiny during their campaigns for party leadership because he knew that his accounts were cleaner than hers
You have to let go of the textbook theory and remember who it is that draws up most of the textbooks. Join the dots yourself.
So anyway you can see that it is very easy for big money interests to infiltrate and influence politics. This idea that the government is always going to fight your corner is wrong, so mixed economies are largely an illusion of protection. This is why Marx said in his assessment of how things worked that the government is the executive committee of the bourgouisie and by this he meant industry and big business.
Try applying that view to what you are seeing happening around you and see if it fits and makes sense of why things aren't always working how the public would like them to
The government sets up regulators, and we have tons of them in the UK for example: OFCOM, FSA, PCC. These regulators are supposed to regulate, but again and again they are found to be either toothless or unwilling to act....you have to ask why these people aren't taking action. It is because they are all part of the same gravy train; they exist however to provide the public with the illusion that someone is looking out for their best interests
You mentioned reputation of companies and the need to secure 'repeat business'....these are irrelevant where there are monopolies.
You think there is competition because you look around and you see a lot of different logos and brands but you have to look at who the shareholders of these companies are to see that they are all intertwinned
Wealthy investors have learnt how to hedge their investments. Why were the banks bailed out...because they are 'too big to fail' the system is all interlinked and integrated.
Do i think that CEO's 'chillax'...well many of the super rich are non domiciled....this means they are registered as living abroad so that they avoid paying tax in their own country. They have to spend a certain number of days out of their country and they usually do this in tax havens which are inevitably in sunny places which are nice to 'chillax' in
There is a billionaire politician in the conservative party in the UK called Lord Ashcroft who effectively runs Belize. He owns their national bank and many other business interests there and he doesn't pay any tax in the UK, yet he wants to be in the cabinet (the top approx.20 politicians who are the 'government') if the tories win the next election. There are rules about not funding political parties if you are non domiciled; however this is easily circumvented by paying the money to a company within the UK who then pay the money to the politician. This shows up clearly in the company books because they suddenly have more money in their account than they have made in profits.
Look i could go on for hours about how corruption is endemic. If you don't see this then look harder (not at face value...because that is smoke and mirrors)...they don't shout it from the roof tops.
If you think markets are competitive then you have not heard of 'price fixing'. There is a scandal (not much has been said in the press) in the UK right now because construction companies have been colluding to raise prices. Also 'insider trading' can take many forms
You mentioned large companies being taken to court. In the US you have fines for corporations that break the law right? A lot of the time those fines are less than the costs which the company has saved from committing the infraction or less than the profits made as a result of the infraction
You say that we all desire things...yes we do but some desires are healthy and some are unhealthy. I do not want to impose some sinister Marxist system on the world; i want to see the workers owning the means of production free from oppression from centralised power. That is what the government and corporations in the US are...centralised power. They call the shots, not the people.
I don't think people are 'lazy' but neither do i think they are stupid; they know they are being conned.
You suggest that people rise up due to good qualities. I would say that in reality people tend to rise up because of bad qualities. Does power corrupt or does power attract the corrupt, like the ex Mayor of London Ken Livingston suggests?
You mentioned third world countries....i have been to many third world countries and many are being ripped off by the IMF and the World Bank; which essentially forward the interests of 'mixed economy' 'western' capitalist countries
