Dead Body Theatre
Tim May
timcmay at got.net
Sun Jul 27 14:22:11 PDT 2003
On Sunday, July 27, 2003, at 11:20 AM, James A. Donald wrote:
> This is the same moron marxism as expressed in the word
> "sweatshop": To a naive and ignorant socialist it seems that if
> each man selfishly pursues his own desire, the result will
> necessarily be chaos and hardship, that one person's plan will
> naturally harm those that are not part of it, hence such
> phrases and concepts as "sweatshop" which presuppose that one
> man producing a plan to create value and another man providing
> equipment to implement that plan, has somehow magically made
> the workers in a poor country worse off, that saving,
> investment and entrepeneurship is unproductive, that
> investment, particularly investment by rich people creating the
> means of production in poor countries, is a plot to swindle the
> poor, a scam, a transfer from poor to rich.
> \
The move to "boycott stores selling sweatshop products" is gathering
steam, so to speak. Stores like The Gap, Old Navy, Target, etc. are
making plans to stop buying from so-called sweatshops.
Of course, when this happens all those employed in these "sweatshops"
in Bangladesh, Malaysia, etc. will be unemployed. What, do people think
shutting down the garment factories means the workers will get jobs at
Intel and Microsoft? Or that somehow their wages will be increased to
economically-unsupported levels for their country/
Duh. I'll chortle as yuppies and GenXers may more for inferior clothing
while millions in Bangladesh and Malaysia starve to death over this
"save the poor people!" scam.
As for the standard of living issue, I _do_ think the standard of
living has declined over the past 40 years, aside from some
availability of high tech products and medical care. Most of my
employed friends are working half again as many hours as my father
worked, are spending twice as much time sitting in traffic, and are
living in smaller houses than my parents and my family lived in. And
they are paying several times the tax burden. If the wife works, which
was rare in the 1950s and into the early 60s, and they have children,
then they may be paying a further substantial hit on childcare and
nannies.
I would not want interference to stop free transaction in jobs, but
it's disingenuous to ignore the fact that many today are working two
jobs, or very, very long hours, to maintain a house that is generally
smaller than in years past.
(Yeah, there are are a lot of McMansions. But many engineers in their
30s are still living in crappy apartments. And working 50-hour weeks,
at minimum, with hours per day spent sitting in traffic. And on call
with cellphones and laptops. And taking work home. And checking their
e-mail every night and weekend. And paying 50% or more of what they
make in federal income taxes, state income taxes, passed-on property
taxes, sales taxes, energy taxes, highway taxes, and Socialist Security
taxes. And what they earn in investments, after paying taxes on income,
is taxed a second time, even if the alleged investment gains are mostly
due to monetary devaluation.)
You often let your intense hatred of Marxism blind you to the very
horrific situation we now face.
--Tim May
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