Do you think Wal-Mart is evil?
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Sunday, November 27, 2005 20:12
VIEWED: 21084
PAGE 11 of 17
Maybe it's scorptialism.
Walmart will die when it is forced to comply with the law. The amount it saves by not complying with the laws of countries in which it operates exceeds its profit. But it will take a long time for every nation to force it to comply, and then once done, for the losses to build into an insurmountable debt that would cause it to crumble.
Recently I was walking around a corner when I ran into a historical marker informing me that this building was the first Woolworth's five and dime. It wasn't a woolworths anymore, it was some second hand store.
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Quote:Any fool can argue a point if they grant themselves the privilege of inventing definitions to suit their particular bent on things. Re-inventing definitions or re-writing history are the oldest tricks in the book, but an accurate understanding of the world is dependent on having consistent definitions. These are the definitions of socialism.
Originally posted by Valdron:
Got a camera?
Great. Here's me giving a rat's ass for half baked dictionary definitions of socialism.
Quote:Otherwise known as capitalism to the rest of the world.
Originally posted by Valdron:
Wal-Mart and its ilk is the oldest kind of socialism, which is the socialism that involves the rich and powerful manipulating the system to enrich themselves further. Specifically, by getting the rest of us saps to subsidize them or just transfer our tax money directly to them.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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And any fool can quote latin in defense of half baked ideological posturing.
Now, are you an erudite guy? What the hell, I'll call you an erudite guy. I'm happy to call you an erudite guy. That and a package of cigarettes gets you a ticket to lung cancer.
Now, I'm not claiming to have a degree in political science, though I might well have one around here somewhere. But the core definition of socialism involves the use of the state as an agency of redistribution of wealth. The common default assumption accompanying socialism is that wealth is redistributed by the state for the 'general good' or to the 'needy.' In this case, we've got an entity which is very good at arranging the redistribution of wealth by the state to itself.
A state subsidized commercial enterprise does not fit the general conception of capitalism. It may well fit the evolving American definition of capitalism, as, increasingly, many major American companies have proven to be much better at pumping money out of the taxpayer than they are at actually making things.
But really, this sort of highfalutin jabber is not to my interest. I'm more looking for some decent convo on Firefly.
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Quote:Erudite is probably fair characterization of me. But I’m not confident that the number of books you’ve read has anything to do with whether cigarettes give you lung cancer. Or so I’ve read.
Originally posted by Valdron:
Now, are you an erudite guy? What the hell, I'll call you an erudite guy. I'm happy to call you an erudite guy. That and a package of cigarettes gets you a ticket to lung cancer.
Quote:And if you’d like to label the US government socialist, then I’d still disagree with you, but at least then you might be using the word correctly.
Originally posted by Valdron:
But the core definition of socialism involves the use of the state as an agency of redistribution of wealth. The common default assumption accompanying socialism is that wealth is redistributed by the state for the 'general good' or to the 'needy.' In this case, we've got an entity which is very good at arranging the redistribution of wealth by the state to itself.
Quote:There is nothing about the general conception of capitalism that says that a corporation or business cannot receive money. In fact it is the cornerstone of capitalism. The whole purpose of a business is to make money. A company that receives money from the state is not socialist, even if the state in which it is located is. Although Wal-Mart is hardly subsidized.
Originally posted by Valdron:
A state subsidized commercial enterprise does not fit the general conception of capitalism. It may well fit the evolving American definition of capitalism, as, increasingly, many major American companies have proven to be much better at pumping money out of the taxpayer than they are at actually making things.
And just to promulgate my erudition, I’ll produce a quote:
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.”
-- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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That's a fancy quote. Might have been better if it had some passing application to the discussion at hand, but you know how it is, you can't have everything.
On the subject of Wal-Mart, I've merely said that it is not capitalist. While business or corporate enterprises have as their function the acquisition of wealth, I think that there's a material distinction to be drawn between enterprises which realize their competitive advantage by pumping money out of taxpayers, and enterprises which operate on a level playing field in a competitive environment.
Economists have written extensively about the distortions produced by state socialism, in which wealth or advantages are channeled directly into autonomous or semi-autonomous commercial entities. Both the states and the commercial entities in these cases are described with the broad label of socialist.
As to labelling the US government. I'd say that currently, Kleptocracy is fitting increasingly well. I'm not terribly interested.
Have a nice day.
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Wal-Mart is, for the record, heavily subsidized in a number of direct and indirect ways. This is beyond argument.
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What utter rubbish!
In a capitalist system companies exist to make profit, in fact it could be argued that that is their only reason for existance. Northrop, General Dynamics and a whole host of defence contractors make most of their money from government contracts and by extension from taxpayers. That does not make them Socialist, if it did we'd have lost the cold war.
If I'm in business and I can find a way to get the government to give me money I'll take it be it as a contract, loan garentee, help with infrastructure or tax relief. That just means that I'm doing my job and making more money. If I pay a lobiest to make sure that my interests are heard in Washington that too is perfectly legal. Now the point at which those government grants become corporate welfare, the difference that makes a contract a payoff to corporate palls, the line that seperates lobbying from bribary is defined by law and the eye of the beholder. You can claim it's criminal if you like, but it aint socialist.
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Well, I'm fascinated by the skewed values in which looting the taxpayer is equated with sound business practices. I applaud your ringing endorsement that corruption is in the eye of the beholder and that companies that can't make money by actually producing and selling things should have the right to fix themselves to our backs and simply use the government to take our money.
So this isn't a perverted form of socialism? Well, it ain't capitalism. So what would you like to call it? Feudalism? Corporatism? Fascism? Feel free to call it whatever you'd like.
So you see nothing wrong with Wal-Mart extorting millions of dollars per store in land grants, services, tax holidays, employee subsidization? You figure that the richest company in the world should be government subsidized?
You see no difference between Northrup which contracts with the government to make fighter jets, and Wal-Mart? Well, given Northrup's cost+plus contracts, 500 dollar screwdrivers, and cosy backroom deals, there isn't.
But attitudes like this go a good way to explaining why the US is running half a trillion dollar deficits, why the trade deficits are climbing steadily towards a trillion, why China makes everything Wal-Mart sells, and why the only thing America exports these days is jobs and bombs.
And you didn't win the cold war. The Russians went home.
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Quote:Not according to the definition of socialism as provided by the dictionary. In fact, regardless of your various strawman arguments and convenient redefinitions, the only convincing candidate remains capitalism, perhaps a perversion of it, but capitalism nonetheless.
Originally posted by Valdron:
So this isn't a perverted form of socialism?
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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