ninjablu said:
Well, honestly SFBFG, I can't out argue you. You win that there is always doubt, and that I'm apparently part of some mass of sheep who can't make his own mind up.
You win. So did Goebbels.
I'm sorry I'm not able to meet your standards.
But I still win. You've got many other points I raised to destroy. And most of them you simply can't do so with.
And have you ever considered that maybe if Walmart takes some hits, some big hits, and fades partially into obscurity, other companies will take note and not follow the same path?
That maybe, you know, killing the biggest will have some impact on how everything else is run?
Some food for thought.
Glad to know you.
Glad to see some here is an Ayn Randesque idealist, but forgive me if I decide not to post in any direct fashion with you again.
The following has very little to do with Wal-Mart.
Actually, in the capitalist society we live in today, other companies will very likely follow the same or similar paths set out by Wal-Mart because of the resounding success that resulted from it. No one can deny the fact that Wal-Mart's expansion strategy is very effective.
If Wal-Mart was to take a severe hit resulting in another big box store becoming top dog, then the Wal-Mart hatred will shift from Wal-Mart to whoever takes Wal-Mart's place as top dog.
The fact is that most people are against some of Wal-Mart's practices despite them being within the law. Now any of Wal-Mart's illegal activities (face it it's bound to happen with 1.2 million employees) are often brought into the light of the general public. The result from this is a lot of media coverage and the general overreaction to a problem that really is an isolated incident. Just because Wal-Mart was seen doing something illegal in one county doesn't mean the other counties were in on it.
I don't have a problem with those who use Wal-Mart as an example for a much bigger problem, though. Like I said previously in the thread the founding laws that surround capitalism never took into account super corporations that are well over a hundred thousand employees strong. The original capitalist concept took into account many smaller businesses competing with each other. This is of course not what is going on, and yes we are feeling the results of that.
When a super corporation of any kind comes in and sets up shop, they will inevitably go into competition with the smaller businesses in the area. This can result in the smaller companies going out of business. The open-market idea of capitalism is under attack by capitalism.
Simply destroying the bigger companies will just open the door for the smaller ones to take their place. The only solution would be to propose new laws and amend old laws to support the smaller businesses without harming the larger businesses. Of course such laws are a complete mystery to me. I honestly don't know how the laws could be changed in a way that is fair.
In a fair world; the stronger, faster and better creature will win over the weaker, slower and inferior creature, this is part of the infamous process of natural selection. The capitalist society that America lives in often operates in a similar fashion.
If you start to think even deeper into the subject of capitalism and begin to compare it to other economic systems like Communism and Capitalism it brings us to the very seed of the problem. That problem is currency. Currency opens the door to trades that only benefit one party (in most cases the retailers). Currency attempts to apply an absolute value to certain objects. With the usage of currency as a trade medium, it makes it nearly impossible to have a situation where both parties in a trade will make a legitimate profit.
In the days before currency we would often find ourselves trading goods. In those days value was much more subjective, and not absolute. Something that could be of immense value to one group of people could be a trivial matter to another group. So we have Jeremy here who happens to be a good carpenter, and can essentially supply his own furniture without much trouble. Marcy is a great farmer, she has developed ways to grow crops more efficiently then the average person, and as a result she produces a surplus of food. Jeremy spends a lot of his time with carpentry and thus doesn't grow his own food. Marcy needs furnishings for her farm house. Both parties realize their needs, and thus see what the other party has to offer as something that is more valuable then what they already have in abundance.
There is very little reliable research done on a world without currency. One such study is Doing Without Money: Controlling Inflation in a Post-Monetary World [http://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/v1y1998i1p173-219.html] by Michael Woodford (Department of Economics, Princeton University).
Now the Star Trek world of the Federation is one that doesn't have any currency. In the world of Star Trek the advancements in nanotechnology. genetics, and other technological breakthroughs created a situation where there was an abundance of food, energy, and synthetically created materials. Essentially what happened is there was so much supply that the prices of everything went down to a level where currency became redundant.
Many people would look at the idea of a world without currency as preposterous without giving it much thought. But after thinking about it I began to realize that such a world backed with the proper technology could exist.
Someone did bring up possible problems.
If you are envisioning a system where people just get these things without bartering, that really won't work because you will create a system that doesn't encourage people to put effort into anything. For instance if everyone needs five apples to survive, what reason would I have to put the effort into growing more than five apples if I won't receive any benefit from them and I would rather be surfing the internet or getting a tan?
This only happens if you think in a capitalist fashion. Personal wealth is something that we do not need to survive or advance as a society. The majority of people today are motivated by money when they go to work. There is still a small minority who enjoy their job and work because they take pleasure from it. You need only look at the legitimate non-profit organizations to understand this.
In a world without currency, the monetary barriers that prevent anyone from doing a job that they truly enjoy are no longer there.
Also without currency, you would have massive bartering going on which in and of itself will increase scarcity because the bartering would take up time that could otherwise be sent in creating value and there is the headache of finding someone who has what you want and is at the same time willing to trade for something you have. And with that system you will still have poverty (and probably more of it due to the decreased production of society as a whole).
Well this isn't necessarily true if you apply the idea of no currency to a technologically advanced society. This would need to be a society that has the technology to produce an excess of the things that we need to live.
Personally I don't think we're too far off in terms of technology. If string theory is proven to be true within the next few decades, it could open the door to some of the most amazing technological advancements we have ever seen. Of course with our current understanding of atoms, we can begin to research ways of deconstructing things like sand at the atomic level. We can already do this to water. If we figure out how to turn things like rocks into new elements to use as materials and resources, the impact on our society would be unimaginable.
Now assuming these technologies are developed, it is likely that someone will try to make a profit from this technology my monopolizing it and controlling the market. Well I'll be frank with you. At that point I think a revolution would be an order.
Take a quick gander at this paper [http://www.rense.com/general81/civv.htm]. I actually found it recently and haven't read it entirely, but it puts many of the above mentioned issues under a bright light and provides some possible solutions.
I can has cookie now?
