Wifely Duties
POSTED BY: piratenews
UPDATED: Saturday, January 9, 2010 04:47
VIEWED: 62964
PAGE 15 of 19
Capitalists are concerned about excess available workers??? If that were the case, why is the drive always towards more and more automation??
Quote:But too many and they face revolution???
too few laborers, and they limit profits
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BTW Byte
I hope you don't think I'm arguing that capitalists are just too NICE to manipulate life and death for millions to their own advantage. Nothing could be further from the truth.
But it makes very little sense to claim that they are trying to reduce populations through means that make them grow. Or to say that a well known, globally-reaching, centuries-old phenomenon - high population growth in impoverished peoples and low population growth in better-off ones - doesn't explain what we DO see today - namely those exact facts.
And, for whatever reason, this seems to be a highly charged topic for you. I observe that it puts together two volatile issues - a well-deserved distrust of TPTB, and defensiveness over loss of personal freedoms - two very understandable and important topics for anyone.
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Silence is consent.
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With the intention of REDUCING POPULATION. That's the other part of your schema. If the intention is to REDUCE population, they are failing miserably, in that the populations they want to reduce are growing by leaps and bounds.
The goal IS to reduce population. Do you want me to find you some quotes from some prominent politicians in support of population control and what they say the goal is? You say you support population control, is not your stated goal to reduce the population so that less damage is done to the environment?
As for why it's not working, maybe either they haven't really started yet (doubt it), maybe the demographic transition IS the instrument of population reduction (as it's mostly an education issue), or maybe they're running into a conflict of interest as they're realizing that they might end up converting an exploitable population. Corporations have already had to move on from China, India, and Pakistan to some degree because now workers can start demanding higher wages. Maybe corporations realize that Latin America and Africa are the last not-too developed areas, and are trying to manage or slow the transition so it works for them, which is in direct conflict with the interests of population reduction, but corporations have more money and power.
Your comments about China are so extremely different from what I've heard that I can't even begin to address them. Unless this is Hepatitis explanation is something that's happened in the last five years, but then why does it mostly effect girls? Anyway, when I said that, I was responding to an analogy Sig was asking me to consider. The analogy I think was valid, but Chinese female mortality rate is I think a completely different issue from population control.
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Capitalists are concerned about excess available workers??? If that were the case, why is the drive always towards more and more automation??
Uh... Because it decreases the amount of workers they need, and makes the rest purely expendable? How does this conflict with what I'm saying?
Too many workers is bad. They want less workers, because they don't have to pay as much / supply as much resources to keep them working. Until they can make everything fully automated, though, they need some workers so they don't have to do stuff themselves.
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But too many and they face revolution???
One possibility. Unlikely, as you said, but something I think they are afraid of. The other possibility is that they're concerned about their spread of resources.
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Highly charged? Sometimes, maybe. I'm more enjoying talking it over with you. Plus I'm kind of bored at work >_> and I am a very patient girl. I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye, but it's good to try to understand each others' point of view.
<_< Though there's been a few times I have been trying to get away a little, because my first year review is coming up next week, and I'm concerned about people thinking I'm slacking off. I try not to. The internet makes it difficult.
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Also, if the demographic transition IS the instrument of population control, and it's basically about educating people about ways to have a better quality of life, I don't mind that at all, it's still people's choice then. If I had an issue with people choosing to not have many children, I'd kind of be a hypocrite then, wouldn't I?
But, as with the issues I have with mandatory health insurance (and how the expense might hit families), or an actual government restriction on children per family, I can't agree with that. It's compulsion. And with government programs, I also become concerned about ulterior motives.
And if what you say is true, and demographic transition is natural, why do we need compulsion anyway?
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Quote:The goal is to reduce population so that we don't face a catastrophic population and societal crash. Is it just possible, do ya think, that might be a valid and good reason, in and of itself, without any horrible ulterior motives?
The goal IS to reduce population. Do you want me to find you some quotes from some prominent politicians in support of population control and what they say the goal is? You say you support population control, is not your stated goal to reduce the population so that less damage is done to the environment?
AFA population considerations, you seem to have "them" poised on a fine balance between "too many to support" and "too few to exploit", between "not enough" security forces and "too many to recruit from". You think somehow they're worried about "the spread of resources" when every famine shows us they are not? Given that the logic just doesn't seem to be there, why do you have an unbreakable assumption that TPTB have ANY reason whatsoever to control "us" by controlling our population???
ETA I just read your other post.
The problem that we are having is that you keep putting a mental "compulsory" in front of "birth control". But I would argue that "not supporting" large families is NOT the same as "compelling" small ones. People face the same choice as before: do I have more children, which will cost $$$ and time, or do I have fewer? The choice has not changed.
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Well, the reason I have a problem with it is it's a difference between a family hurting their socio-economic status because of a lifestyle choice or because they have no alternative options (can't afford birthcontrol), versus additional economic hurt being put on them because of those choices or lack of options.
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between "not enough" security forces and "too many to recruit from".
I never said this. If they could make everyone who wasn't part of a non-expendable labor force join their military under their control, I think they would.
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You think somehow they're worried about "the spread of resources" when every famine shows us they are not?
Ah, you misunderstood me here. When I say they're concerned about the spread of their resources, the emphasis was on THEIR. They don't want their resources spreading too much beyond a small circle, and yes, when there's a famine, and their productivity is unaffected, their response is "let them eat cake."
And observing that a group seems to be carefully keeping something within a fine balance does not seem to me to imply a lack of logic involved in the observation. Sometimes something must be kept between two extremes. It's not unreasonable to think worker supply/demand might fall under this category, especially when supply/demand is such a push pull cause reaction idea in the first place.
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"if what you say is true, and demographic transition is natural, why do we need compulsion anyway?"
It's the chicken and egg phenomenon: you can induce natural population control by improving the standard of living - or you can improve the standard of living through population control.
The first is an often demonstrated and well-known phenomenon that happens naturally. The second is an experiment b/c, until now, there wasn't enough technology to actually KEEP people from having children if they wanted them.
I've thought for a long time now that China is busting butt to improve the standard of living just to induce that transition, and provide for the long-term stability of the country.
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Silence is consent.
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Byte, I think you're using a lot of weak assumptions to make your case.
"Spread of their resources". TBTP don't spread their resources voluntarily, and I doubt that you can show me a single case where they did so. So the thought of them worrying that it might (somehow) come to pass is... unfathomable. The ONLY reason to spread the wealth is to avert revolution, but you haven't made that argument, you've left it at some vague notion that they might want to for some reason ... and I'm just not seeing it. Come up with a more compelling reason why TPTB might worry about having to SPREAD THE WEALTH bc of overpopulation, and then I'll consider that they have a viable interest in reducing population from a selfish standpoint.
You also argue that there is such a thing as TOO LITTLE population. Again, you have not shown that TPTB depend on population per se to make their wealth. A population living off subsistence agriculture, for example, is neither here nor there as far as capitalists are concerned. They only enter the capitalist equation as labor or consumers. As far as labor is concerned, capitalists do their darndest to GET RID OF IT as much as possible. Do they undercut their own viability? Of course they do. Such is the irreducible conundrum of capitalism, but is has to do with CAPITAL, not population. If you can make a strong argument for HOW capitalists depend on "population" for their wealth, then I'll consider that they have a viable interest in INCREASING population for a selfish standpoint.
You also made the argument that a larger population might threaten TPTB's security forces. But if the population has not YET done so... despite having an overwhelming majority... what is going to change in the future? You should be making the case that population growth is going to change the RATIO of security forces v population, but you haven't done so.
You really need to be looking at the population issue very practically and from the capitalists' POV, not just assume that "they're" nasty people who want to get rid of the poor.
Finally, you really haven't addressed the issue of the finitude of the world's resources.
I suspect that your argument is an emotional one, not logical and not based on fact. You may have good reasons for thinking as you do, but you haven't brought them. If you could narrow down on WHAT it is that really bothers... For example, are you OK with population control via the carrot but not by the stick?? Do you think large families are good? DO you object to the underlying materialism of smaller families? Is this REALLY about mandatory healthcare? ... then maybe we can have a more fruitful dsicussion.
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