How Not to be Exploited by the Capitalists

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Does that imply that eventually there will be winners and losers with the successful capitalists/traders/companies getting bigger and more powerful until the possibility of private tyranny exists? I hate governments/politicians but they're somewhat (albeit not much) accountable (obviously more to the people with power/money) but who would powerful, succesful companies/capitalists be accountable to if there's nobody to limit them. It seems that the small-time/less efficient capitalists would get wiped out and a few very successful ones would end up controlling/owning the whole planet. Maybe that's far-fetched? I don't know much about this stuff but wouldn't free-market capitalism eventually lead to world-controlled corporatism?

Last edited by Kon on 08 Dec 2010, 5:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

scale could be achieved by partnerships. Instead of employees, participants in a business would be partners (with smaller shares).

ruveyn

So because I don't want intrusive left wing policies which make everyone but the government and welfare leeches poorer, I wanna bring back the good ol days of cotton pickin? Wow, I didn't know the world was that simple.

And if you're calling working for a wage you feel too good for slavery, then that's a huge insult to those who suffered from REAL slavery. As far as I know, there's absolutely no class mobility in slavery...

The whole nature of a job is to start from the bottom and work your way up. And for those at rock bottom who are unskilled and uneducated, there's plenty of places to start for them. But high minimum wages will exclude those people as well as make a business run less efficiently.

Business owners don't have unlimited budgets and even big business owners face the threat of bankruptcy so they can't just dick around expect to get any good results out of that. And why do you assume all entrepreneurs would be happy with slavery? Are there no ethical entrepreneurs out there? Or is someone automatically evil cuz they're big?

I think there are. My dad was very ethical to the point of being taken advantage of. That's why he was never verey successful. The majority of the ones that were very successful and I've worked for quite as few were scumbags.

It's good that your dad is ethical, but it would be in his best interest to not be ethical at a loss. You can't go to one extreme or the other. You don't need to be a scumbag or a pushover.

And I find that big shots aren't disproportionately a**holes compared to the workers. There's a lot of unreliable, shirking, irresponsible, cheating, and unproductive workers as well as there are devious, manipulative, power hungry, scumbag big shots. I think it's more of a universal than a relative thing.

I would state it otherwise: the market should decide. In a purely micro economic perspective, the mechanism of a perfect market alone prevents monopolies, and competition, information empowers the demand.
In my opinion, corporatism, passive corruption, legal system, bureaucracy, lack of information of the customer, lack of education of the customer, lack of transparency of the market are what can lead to private tyrannies.


Imagine a shipyard, welders, naval architects and secretaries to make it simple. Who hires who? Who gets a bigger share? Who proposes a product? Even if the right response is: the market, what could manage such level of complexity?

I agree. Unfortunately, in the "real" world, aggression, being unethical and power-hungry is almost a necessary trait to be very successful. There are exceptions of very kind, generous, ethical and successful business owners/capitalists. But not that many. Same with bureaucrats. Most of them are lying, self-centered scumbags. Some seem like they have sociopath tendencies.

I'm not very good at understanding economics/politics/society/social behaviour but I think the world will always be governed or controlled by those who are attracted to power and domination. Whether they are bankers, capitalists, educators or politicians. Different names, same drive, I think. I consider myself to be a political/economic dummy but I still think the belief in a capitalist society of small traders, unhindered by monopoly, state intervention or socially controlled production (anarcho-capitalism) is as much of an illusion as the opposite side of the so-called "libertarian" spectrum (libertarian socialism/communalism).

The bigger shares go to those who paid in the most. The major shareholders decide who they will sell partnerships to.

Or workers could be independent contractors who sign on for a limited task. I spent ten years as an independent software contractor. I paid tax with a 1099.

ruveyn

There is the literature about contracts in economics and it is interesting. The main authors are Ronald Coase and Oliver Hart... If you're hiring an independent contractor it is not always efficient because you can suffer transaction costs. That is for exemple the costs of establishing a contract and stipulating all the clauses, the cost of the uncertainty as the business environment may change and you may have to alter the contract. Think about the opposite if you hire the guy you just say do this or do that (whithin a certain limit). Also there are information asymmetries as you don't know about the product that you are buying as much as the person that is selling to you (although this can be mitigated). And you also have the cost of procuring via the market. Some firms will incorporate some of the production tasks instead of buying them on the market to avoid these costs.