Most people think big business is the devil.
“The problem with this country is corporations.”
“Big business is sucking the money from the unfortunate.”
“They get richer, while we get poorer.”
This according to me these are false statements often used by Democrats to win the support of the under classes and average people who find the need to blame someone for their troubles. Business is not a zero-sum game. If it were a zero sum game, in order for someone to get richer someone has to be getting poorer. Stealing money from someone leaves a zero sum because the person isn’t getting anything in return. But how is selling a product, as business does in this country, leaving the consumer worse off?
The consumer did not have a gun to his head, when he was purchased the product from the producer. He valued the product for the amount of money he was paying for it, thus he purchased it. It was voluntary exchange of two products that the consumer considered to be of equivalent value.
When you go into a grocery store and pick up a loaf of bread for $1.99 you consider the bread more valuable then the $1.99, thus you traded it in for the bread. Now say the bread loaf was $10 most likely you wouldn’t purchase it, and move to a different alternate, say pita bread or the like. When you purchase a product you and the sellers without communicating are trading two objects that are considered of similar value. If you considered the price too high, you would move to a different alternate.
The wealth of corporation or person is measure of judging how much good he/she has done for its consumers. The wealth a corporation has isn’t a measure of how much money it has extorted from its consumers. Corporations can only profit to the extent that consumers are willing to pay. Consumers are willing to give up their money when they obtain more benefits from trading in their money than by holding it
The following passage is an excerpt from one of my favorite books Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
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“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Aconia.
“Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor — your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?
Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions — and you’ll learn that man’s mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made — before it can be looted or mooched — made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.”
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For the most part, corporate America is good for the general public.
The entire problem with the ideas of “Big business is sucking the money from the unfortunate.”,
“They get richer, while we get poorer.”, and “Money is the root of all evil”, is that they are based on the apocryphal dogma of morality. People must realize that this morality, a concept that is meant to be absolute, is purely relativistic. Your benefit is at the expense of others. In order for you to eat, something has to die. Big businesses are merely taking advantage of their positions (as we humans do being at the top of the food chain), for their benefit and being that the top 1% control half of the planet’s wealth, there ain’t much shit we can do about it. Also, in order to have a structured hierchy of benefit vs expense (who gets the most from the arrangement and who get’s the least) there has to be someone on top and unluckily for us, it just happens to be the big businesses. If it was us at the top, the big businesses would be the ones bitching. There is no arrangement whereby everyone benefits equally. The Communists tried it, and look at how well that turned out. Consequently, absolute egalitarianism will never be achieved and even if we could, it would be an inefficient system and nothing more than a magnafied version of communism.
I disagree. In order for someone to get richer someone doesn’t get poorer. Wealth is created.
A consumer purchases something, because he values it more than the money he is paying for it. He is gaining something by trading in his money. The corporation can only profit to the extent the consumer is willing to pay. The consumer wasn’t forced to by the product.
“Wealth is created” sounds like a violation of the first law of thermodynamics. Yes, wealth is created, but at the expense of the consumer because the consumer paid more than the cost necessary to produce the product. It is at the consumer’s expense to purchase something just by the mere fact that the business is benefiting more than the consumer is. This grants the business a tiny bit, although neglible yet significant on the mass scale, more power than they had before and takes away some of the power of the consumer. And no, consumers aren’t directly coerced to purchase products but we live in a society based on capitalism in such a way that isolating yourself from the system of benefit vs. expense, would be self-detrimental.
To say that the consumer is getting jipped is the same as saying the consumer doesn’t value the product for the amount he is paying for it. If the consumer doesn’t value the product for the amount he was paying for it, then why would he purchase it? More likely then not you’ll say because he has no other alternate. But of course he does. For every product there are tons of alternates. If consumers don’t buy a particular product the price goes down on its own. It’s a simple supply and demand situation. The price of a product is an indication of what the consumer values the product to be. In the short run if a product isn’t purchased the price will not fall, but in the long run it most definitely will.
If both parties are better of then wealth is created.
The consumer is better of because he has a product he values more than his money, and the producer is better off because he sold a product for more than it cost him to make.
Therefore wealth is created.
“For every product there are tons of alternates.” Yes and all of those alternates involve the consumer being “jipped” as you say, or not benefitting as much. We purchase products because it is the most benificial and efficient course of action which is indirectly forcing us, and thus compelling us, to buy things that we consider necessary (rather than attempting to produce them from scratch and whatnot). Let’s analyze it in a system parallel to the business/consumer system where the change of wealth is more significant than a few dollars. A southeast Asian sweatshop is often controlled by some wealthy western corporation. Both parties (the workers in the sweatshop and the big business) seem as they are better off than they were before. The big business are making money off a product that cost them very little to produce (a few measly cents per hour) and the workers at the sweatshop go home with enough to feed themselves (almost). The workers obviously value the money more than they do the work because then they just simply wouldn’t work. But like I said, working in a sweatshop is the most beneficial and efficient course of action available to them in contrast with death by starvation and/or utter poverty the same way is purchasing products the most efficient and beneficial course of action available to us. Although, as in the business/consumer system both parties come out seemingly wealthier than before, the net wealth is a transfer from the second party (sweatshop worker/consumer) to the first (the business).By purchasing a product, or working at a sweatshop you are at loss (it as at your expense) because you are aiding the support of the business which benefits more from the arrangement than you do. It then goes back the balance of power and that you either loose a little(power) or loose a lot (lack of the products we consider essential for living). The system is well balanced so that the transfer of wealth is such a small one that is goes unnoticed and therefore considered “moral” by many but nonetheless, it exists. When you purchase something, the seller is making more wealth than you are, therefore the purchase is at your expense. For you to eat, something has to die. Additionally, this system parallels to the last two because when you eat something it is a clear transfer of wealth, the animal’s (or plant’s) life for energy. The animal is better off than before because chances are it was raised on a farm which means it was sustained at no cost to the animal (other than it being eaten when its time comes). Also, if we didn’t eat animals, their population would run rampant and consume all resources available. All of this means, the system works because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t exist. But like in any “game” there is always a winner and a loser.
If that corporation that ran a sweat shop was not there and didn’t employ those people even though under horrific conditions would the people be better off?
No, because you just took away a major money source (relatively).
I agree with Nietzsche that although American businesses may benefit the American consumer, most American big corporations are exploiting the foreign worker. Almost every electronic product, toy, household appliance, computer, etc. has the label “Made in China,” “Made in Taiwan,” “Made in Korea,” or another southeastern Asian country. If it wasn’t for the cheap labor in those countries, big businesses may not be as successful as they are. They might not be cheating the consumers who are willing to buy their products, but big businesses are surely exploiting the laborers who are working for their factories.
Directed toward you Shyiue, would the workers there be better of in anyway if the factories were not there? I’d imagine that those people would either have no job or a worse of job then they currently have.
Businesses provide the people in those countries with employment, but in some cases the working conditions in those factories are less than humane. Hence the exploitation.
Well since they provide employment that just supports my argument. It’s a win-win situation for the corporations and the workers. Even though it might be exploitation and everything your saying is true the workers are still better off because the company is exploiting them, rather than if the company wasn’t.
Exactly. The workers are like slaves, who without masters to provide them shelter, food, and clothing (along with the toil), might not be able to find better employment. Albeit being a “win-win situation” economically for both parties, it is, however, a psychological strain for the laborers.