Since that stands in direct conflict with workers' interests, the conditions of workers have been in decline as a consequence.
Truth To Power wrote: You are delusional.
Davea8 wrote:You continue to resort to personal attacks. You don't seem to realize that it makes you look weak and unable to debate the issues honestly without such feeble attempts at intimidation.
<yawn> It wasn't a personal attack, it was an observation that your claim is absurd.
Truth To Power wrote: The conditions of workers are worse since corporate ownership of business supplanted individual ownership? Ah, no.
No, conditions are worsening.
But they are better now, under corporate ownership models, than they were under individual ownership models. The corporation has to serve the interests of its owners, which means not treating valued workers so badly that they leave; the individual owner could just be an evil, vindictive $#!+.
You may have noticed that income inequality has reached an extreme degree and workers real incomes have stagnated even while productivity has gone steadily upward. It goes mostly to the top.
But that is the result of PRIVILEGE, not corporate ownership or profit-seeking.
You may also have noticed that there has been a veritable war on unions.
Yes, well, they are also privileged, so the war on them is justified. The unions are the authors of their own misfortune, because instead of justice for all workers, they demanded
countervailing privilege exclusively for union members at the expense of non-union workers.
The percentage of employed workers that were union members peaked in 1954 at 28.3%. In 2003, 11.5% of employed workers were union members. Also, many employers who have not yet abandoned the American worker and moved business overseas for cheap labor, have instead switched from full-time workers to part time in order to avoid having to pay for employee benefits, and those workers now often work 2 or 3 different jobs to make ends meet. And those workers now must pay fully for their families' health insurance out of their incomes. If a worker wants to be sure their child can go to college today they have much higher tuitions to pay out of their stagnant wages. Due to law changes we now have huge political contributions to PACs made by the wealthy in hope of buying elections to obtain favors for big business at the expense of workers. Corporations and politicians collaborate in A.L.E.C. with the same goal in mind. Workers are not represented and journalists who do not lean to the corporate right are not welcome.
Why do you think non-union workers won't sign union cards? They want to work, and they have seen for themselves that unions just bankrupt private employers, destroying jobs. This is inherent in the perverse incentives unions set up. Economic analysis has established that the ideal union demands more and more for workers, reducing employment in pace with attrition and retirements, until the employer goes bankrupt on the day the last union worker retires.
Need more? Let me know.
I will demolish more of your claims if you like.
In any case, the socialist notion that workers' and employers' interests are in irreducible conflict is a fundamental misunderstanding, and makes no more sense than the idea that producers' and consumers' interests are in conflict. They are exchanging to mutual benefit.
I think I just proved you wrong.
See above. That didn't happen, nor will it ever be happening. Take it to the bank.
The fundamental challenge of economics -- which socialists are simply incompetent to meet, and they know it -- is to create an economic environment where the ineradicable individual desire for success and material reward serves the wellbeing of society as a whole.
You need to look into the Mondragon Corporation in Spain.
Obviously, I already know about it.
Mondragon Cooperative Corporation began in 1956 with 6 workers. It began as a furniture repair shop.
Today, they have a university, bank, etc.
Nobody earns more than 8.5 times the lowest paid worker. Managers hired by workers. Workers can fire managers. They are the 7th largest corporation in Spain with over 100,000 workers today. Two American companies have signed agreements to send their scientists to Mondragon to learn from them. Microsoft is one of them.
Like the Israeli kibbutzim, Mondragon is a VOLUNTARY socialist organization, not a compulsorily socialist SOCIETY. It is true that
voluntary socialist organizations can be successful. But not everyone wants to be a member of a socialist organization. In fact, most people don't.
By refusing to know the difference between publicly and privately created value, capitalism and socialism both disqualify themselves from the process of designing such an environment. They have nothing to contribute, but they won't shut up and let those of us who do have something to contribute get on with it.
Poor you. Are you vastly outnumbered (I'm not at all familiar with your theories) or are socialist too convincing to the public?
Like anyone who identifies inconvenient facts, I am indeed vastly outnumbered by those who prefer their accustomed, comfortable lies. But I demolish socialists -- and capitalists -- before breakfast.
The rest of your post was a defense based on idealistic textbook theories of economies that don't actually work in the real world.
Wrong again. You will not find views like mine in any economics textbook I am aware of.