MiamiFlorida
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nkgupta80 said:Only the first two are true fantasies. The 4th is arguable.
3. That is pretty much true. A democracy cannot be forced on people who aren't ready for it, or don't want the system. Its arguable if we're actually forcing democracy on the Iraqi people, but only the final results will tell.
4. It would be if countries could sacrifice some of their own interests for the greater good. But that is not conceivable any time soon.
5. Capitalist corporations are one of the main causes of exploitation in 3rd world countries. Many oppressive regimes in countries are in place because of corporate pressure.
MiamiFlorida said:-Capitalism has saved BILLIONS of lives. Every medical and technological advance since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is a direct result of Capitalism.
Naughty Nurse said:And I really need to see your source for that statement, because I have always been under the impression that quite a few medical innovations have come out of the British National Health Service, which is absolutely NOT a capitalist system.
MiamiFlorida said:Is Britain a capitalist country?
MiamiFlorida said:Who funds the British National Health Service?
Naughty Nurse said:Yes, it is.
The British tax payer. Your point?
Many medical innovations have also come out of charitable organisations.
My only point is to say that your statement that EVERY medical advance has come out of capitalism is innacurate.
Countries are poor because of trade barriers and monopolies.
Countries are poor because governments run institutions that should be run by private enterprise. Government only knows how to create bureaucracy and debt.
Countries are poor because they do not respect foreign investments and the sanctity of contracts....therefore, no one wants to invest in them.
Countries are poor because they blame the corruption of their politicians and the inefficiency of their governments on foreign scapegoats, multinationals, the World Bank, etc....
"Sacrificing", as you say, for the "greater good" is not going to help one iota. You do not give fish to a poor man.....you teach him how to fish....if he wants to be taught, that is.
nkgupta80 said:Countries are poor because capitalism drove imperialism which drove colonialism which caused the African, South American and Asian countries to be exploited. If you think most multi-national corporations really care about the welfare of a third-world countries over their own profits, you are mistaken. It just isn't the capitalist way. Why the hell would you pay for better working standards in an African country, if you could just pay a couple million to the African dictator, and get cheaper labor. Globalism has fueled progress, but has done a lot to rape these third-world countries.
thats a very thoughtless statement that has no insight into what really happens. You think all those poor people in the third world countries don't know how to make their own food or how to work? Its not that simple. People need land, they need rights, and most importantly, they need to survive in the competition. After colonialism, much of these countries were devestated. But the remenants of the exploitation still exist. Globalist companies in Europe and US still use the people of these third world countires any way they want to maximize profits, even if it means they pay these people a buck a day. Capitalism has its pros and cons, and the results of the cons is waht you see in the poor countries today.
Deegan said:I must agree, those are all fantasies, and Europe is falling behind everyday because of these widely held beliefs.
You haven't produced one argument to refute what I wrote. What's this "capitalism drove imperialism which drove colonialism which caused the African, South American and Asian countries to be exploited...." Please expand on that. Repeating slogans is simply not good enough. More substance, my friend.
The reason a farmer on the Altiplano of Bolivia cannot compete with an American farmer is because the latter produces 8 times more per acre. Plain and simple. You forget that when America and Europe were in the same developmental stages as those Third World countries you talk about, their populatios also earned "a buck a day". And who's responsible for thet "buck a day" situation?....their governments.
For-profit companies are never going to police themselves, so kill that thought. Get rid of your corrupt politicians and the practice of under-paying will end.
Countries are at the whims of others depending on which is more powerful. Thus not all have full sovereignty.Sovereignty means that you are responsible for the garbage on your own country. Otherwise, call the Marines.
nkgupta80 said:I wish I could expand more on this, and I'll try but it is long and has a lot of history in it. I suggest reading a book on capitalism and its ties to imperialism. Capitalism allowed the formation of large companies, and allowed the beginnings of globalization. Along with the industrial revolution, Europe was able to take its exploration to a whole new level and start reaping the riches of the east. The slave trade for example was run by European companies, not a specific country. Another example would be the British Empire during the late 1800s. Industrial revolution had to be fueled by a global trade which was run by growing companies that exploited colonies. Do you think the colonial people always had a choice? some were being oppressed through sheer military power, while others (like india) through deception and bribes. This is all due to the capitalist system. Colonies were used for profit, while the well-being of the people depended on how much labor they could do.
This is very true. Capitalism isn't the only cause of poverty in these countries. Technological gaps are a factor. Bridging those gaps requires better infrastructure which requires an able government with less corruption, which cannot happen when outside forces hinder it.
The companies that control these countries have immense power in their own governments. Our politicians have strong ties with businessmen (many having heavy investments in corporations themselves). Thus it is in their best interest to protect the se corporations. With government backing, corporations can force anything out of lesser countries. Many times, corrupt politicians are supported by the outside force. They are given money to suppress their citizens, as long as the corporations' interests are served.
Countries are at the whims of others depending on which is more powerful. Thus not all have full sovereignty.
Third World countries....especially in Latin America....have one common denominator: populations who will follow a "caudillo" to the end....right or wrong. They all have a gringo under the bed....in siege... waiting to pounce on the poor defenseless population at the slightest provocation. The story is old and stale. They have run out of fairy tales to justify their own corruption and inefficiency. Freud would have a field day with this collective hysteria.
nkgupta80 said:....of course Hugo Chavez is formally in charge of venezuela. But theres no doubt that hes fed tons of money from other countries, and investment in his country's oil gives him a lot of powerful foreign corporate support. Historically, corporations involved in the diamond industry in Africa would help fund dictators who in turn would help keep the people oppressed. With this kind of stable authoritarian regime, labor was extremely easy to get at a cheap price.
Third world countries aren't poor just because they can't pull themselves together. There are many factors including capitalism's spread through globalism.
That is the direct effect. I am not arguing with that. But at the greater geopolitical scale, globalism does cause much poverty in these nations. Historically you cannot deny that the capitalist colonial powers exploited today's third world countries. These governments can only survive with their military. The military is kept at bay through money. How do these poor governments get money, when most of their country is starving? 1) By being extremely hard on the people. 2) as a consequence of possible unrest caused by being hard on the people, they turn to foreign help. Most of this comes from support from corporations. How do they get money from corporations. They offer their resources both human and non-human to these foreign companies. People get exploited for their labor. Land gets exploited for the resources. Dictator gets tons of money which he uses to build his military and keep the angry people in line. There comes a point where these places become such an asset to these multi-national corporations that they take their own governments help to secure their interests in the area in case of civil unrest. This is where the vicious cycle occurs.No, my friend. Third World countries are poor because their own governments make them poor. Because there is no democracy that makes their governments accountable for their actions.
nkgupta80 said:That is the direct effect. I am not arguing with that. But at the greater geopolitical scale, globalism does cause much poverty in these nations. Historically you cannot deny that the capitalist colonial powers exploited today's third world countries. These governments can only survive with their military. The military is kept at bay through money. How do these poor governments get money, when most of their country is starving? 1) By being extremely hard on the people. 2) as a consequence of possible unrest caused by being hard on the people, they turn to foreign help. Most of this comes from support from corporations. How do they get money from corporations. They offer their resources both human and non-human to these foreign companies. People get exploited for their labor. Land gets exploited for the resources. Dictator gets tons of money which he uses to build his military and keep the angry people in line. There comes a point where these places become such an asset to these multi-national corporations that they take their own governments help to secure their interests in the area in case of civil unrest. This is where the vicious cycle occurs.
Yes they need a democracy, and a strong one. But right now, a dictators might coupled with foreign coercion keeps this from happening.
MiamiFlorida said:The reason a farmer on the Altiplano of Bolivia cannot compete with an American farmer is because the latter produces 8 times more per acre. Plain and simple. You forget that when America and Europe were in the same developmental stages as those Third World countries you talk about, their populatios also earned "a buck a day". And who's responsible for thet "buck a day" situation?....their governments.
I'm sorry. I don't buy that. Look at the Bahamas wich is a small group of Islands that has nothing but sand and coconuts. They are one of the most developed countries on earth. The same could be said for places like Liechtestein and Monaco. The Bahamas were exploited by a colonial power.
Look at Chile. They only have a fraction of the natural resources of Brazil and since they took steps to dismantle their protectionist barriers, privatize previously government run industries and encourage foreign investment, they have become a developed country.....while their neighbor Brazil with the potential to be a world power, languishers in Third World condition.
And how about Venezuela....with all that oil and no foreign companies? Third World. Do you know why? Because their leaders suffer from the same disease as the rest of the Third World: Steal as much as you can and blame the gringo.
Actually, the reason that a Bolivian farmer can't compete with an American, is that American agriculture is subsidized. The government pays the grower to grow as much as they can, buy what they can't sell because the market's saturated, and give the rest to third-world countries in the form of aid. How is a Bolivian farmer supposed to compete with nearly free food from the US? They can't, they lose the farm, and all of a sudden the country is dependent on the US for food because they don't have any more farmers.
nkgupta80 said:First of all most of the examples you gave such as Bahamas and Monaco are all examples of countries that live off tourism.
Secondly I never said that bad governments aren't the problem. But corporatism and global capitalism help keep these bad governments from being fixed.
Thirdly, there are always exceptions, Venezuela being one of them. But you still neglect to explain all the other countries I talk about. India, African countries, (make up most of the third world), Brazil, Indonesia, and you leave out tons of other South American countries. The fact that colonialism existed is enough to prove that capitalism had led to some horrible stuff. Capitalism or I should rather say corporatism has played a big part in the extreme poverty of third world countries.
true
nkgupta80 said:BTW you don't think that colonialism exploited? WHy do you think we wanted to free ourselves from the British? We felt we were being exploited. It was a direct cause of globalist capitalism.
Today this is much less so since there is no colonialism. However, Corporations do use their power in third-world governments to induce certian measures and changes. Again combine the two factors, and you get a vicious cycle the third-world countries have a hard time escaping.
What "certain" measures are you talking about?
Every country on earth was exploited, invaded, colonized or subyugated by someone else at one time or another. This has nothing to do with Third World poverty today.
MiamiFlorida said:.
It is in the best interests of every country that multinational companies make a profit on their soil. The more profits, the better. They bring money, technology and jobs. If their goods are sold internally, the local market grows. If their goods are exported, the host nation benefits by selling local products at the International level. When the operations are profitable, companies stay and expand their investments.
Find me a poor country and I will show you a country populated by local businessmen protected from competition by their government. Businesses who owe their fortune to captive markets, trade barriers, price controls, subsidies and bureaucratic nepotism. Sindicates are tied to state-run enterprises...generally monopolies...which are beehives of bureaucrats feeding from the benefactor State.
Utopia is a resistant bacteria.
How do we convince the Third World that the real wealth of a country.... the productive wealth of a country..... represented in machinery, equipment, factories and transport is created exclusively by private enterprise and not by the bureaucrat? How do we explain it to the populist politician, or the professor and his students impregnated by the marxist utopian bacteria?
For these members of the Third Word intelligentsia, the gringo fulfills a ceremonial role extracted from a Freudian plot: He's the father we have to kill to achieve happiness. He's the scapegoat to whom we assign all guilt. Because of him we are not rich, wise and prosperous. Because of him we can't take our place in the marvelous concert of nations.
It makes me want to puke when I hear someone say: "we don't hate Americans, only their government" Governments change and hate persists. The "Perfect Idiots" have hated us since Washington was president and they're still going strong.
Kelzie said:Have you heard of Bhopal, India? You seem like a smart guy (you are pro-choice after all ), and yet you still seem to think that corporations play nice. In 1984, more than 27 tons of toxic gas leaked out of Union Carbide's pesticide plants. The numerous safety devices installed to detect such an occurance weren't working because Union Carbide was trying to cut costs on the plant. Over 22,000 people have died as a result. In the words of one of the survivors:
"It felt like somebody had filled our bodies up with red chillies, our eyes had tears coming out, noses were watering, we had froth in our mouths. The coughing was so bad that people were writhing in pain. Some people just got up and ran in whatever they were wearing or even if they were wearing nothing at all. Somebody was running this way and somebody was running that way, some people were just running in their underclothes. People were only concerned as to how they would save their lives so they just ran. Those who fell were not picked up by anybody, they just kept falling, and were trampled on by other people. People climbed and scrambled over each other to save their lives – even cows were running and trying to save their lives and crushing people as they ran." source
Horrific right? And Union Carbide's oh so humanitarian response? They promptly sold most of their stock in the plant to lessen their impact. They are still around today. You think farmers stopped buying from them because of what they did? They did of course, have to make a settlement. Each of the survivors got between $300-500. 50,000 Bhopalis can't work today because their nervous systems were destroyed by the gas.
This is just one example. There are thousands more where corporation have committed crime against humanity. You think everyone working is getting paid? Slave labor is rampant, children are sold into sweatshops to work off a debt that gets bigger every day. Corporations are not the suave, cool, elite places that show on wall street. They are souless, and rutheless, and do anything to help their bottom line.
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