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Can you please define the verb highlighted above? It is one of those words where lots of people use it to mean different things. What do you mean by it?
It means they pay less then could because they have the power and if their employees have to work or go hungry or become homeless they pretty much have to take that job
To answer the OP, it's usually corruption that causes 3rd world countries to stay in the shape they are in. Also, fundamental beliefs in archaic ideals can be blamed.
It means they pay less then could because they have the power and if their employees have to work or go hungry or become homeless they pretty much have to take that job
Unless they have the skill to do a different job, or unless they move to an area with a different worker to open positions ratio, or a thousend other options.
People keep pretending that labor is not a market. IT IS, and market rules apply. If the supply of a certain type of workers is way higher than the demand for them, well, they will be offered low salaries. That's the reality, and it doesn't go away by decree.
So socialism , only some 150 years old, is the cause of all these ills? Socialism did in Rome?
What do you think "bread and circuses" were? The "I will give you something for nothing taken from somebody else if you submit to my tyranny" idea is much older than 150 years old. Sadly, it is timeless.
Lets be honest. Explain the difference between a corrupt government that ignores people's property rights vs one that has few people left who own property. Explain to me how a billionaire with his own island differs from a governor. That is to say there is little difference between a "corrupt government" vs one that owns a vast tract of land and disposes it as he pleases.
Nonsense. Someone who owns his own island, so long as he respects the property rights of his neighbors, no matter how few they are, has harmed no one. A corrupt official who runs roughshod over someone else's property rights is something entirely different. Any rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of a government official with a gun, ought to learn the difference on his own hide.
Nonsense. Someone who owns his own island, so long as he respects the property rights of his neighbors, no matter how few they are, has harmed no one. A corrupt official who runs roughshod over someone else's property rights is something entirely different. Any rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of a government official with a gun, ought to learn the difference on his own hide.
Property rights are created by governments, they are not some eternal fact. The idea that property is a natural right (or even a logically self-consistent proposition) has been torn to logical pieces many times, from Proudhon onward. It's a construct. If one believes in it, fine. If one desires a government which protects it, fine. But claiming it is some inherent harm/no harm principle is wrong.
Second, the power of a dollar over the power of a private official, in reality, may be far greater. You see, in a democratic government, a person is a vote. In the private economy a dollar is a vote. I'd much, much, much rather be subject to the democratic power of a government I have an equal say in than the unaccountable actions of a wealthy person with control over resources necessary for surviving and thriving. In the "democracy of dollars" the vast majority of Americans have a tiny share of the votes and a small percent of Americans have the majority of votes.
Socialism is compatible with democracy. Capitalism is not.
What do you think "bread and circuses" were? The "I will give you something for nothing taken from somebody else if you submit to my tyranny" idea is much older than 150 years old. Sadly, it is timeless.
Panem et circenses is again much more akin to welfare, not central economic planning.. nor the other idea and that is a redistribution of the wealth of the state, among the other ideas linked to "socialism".
Just curious...which historians about Rome have you read?
Free market fundamentalists often attribute prosperity to free market principles, but have they visited developing countries? I would say free markets are more pervasive in the third world than they are in the US and other western nations. Any merchant could set up shop without a license. Children are seen on the street peddling fruits. Child labor isn't frowned upon. Many of the red tape we find as a violation to free market principles in this country are non existent in the third world, so how does a free market alone lead to productivity and prosperity?
For someone with Knowledgeiskey as your screen name, you really haven't thought through your argument very well. For while you do indeed take into account minimal government influence, you omit an enormous factor in the development of wealth.
For a free market to exist, there has to be a fundamental respect for property rights. That means a strong legal foundation that exists independent of the whims of despots and oligarchs.
This is why, for example, about an eighth of the Chinese GDP gets moved overseas yearly in the form of foreign investments rather than get reinvested in the domestic economy. Because there is no faith that the government today will not simply take away property tomorrow, there is no long-term investment. Capital gets moved from places where assets are simply confiscated by fiat, or is simply stashed in the form of jewels or precious metals--for who in their right mind would trust a capricious state? As one recent example last year, the EU simply up and decided to confiscate 15% of all holdings in Cypriot banks. This resulted in a mass panic with people moving their money out of Cyprus and the EU in general.
In fact, if you look at countries that went through spectacular and largely permanent economic growth, you'll see countries such as the United States and England, Japan and Singapore. Places where there are strong legal structures in place to ensure that money isn't simply confiscated because the regime needs it. China, for example, has gone through spectacular economic growth over the past twenty years, but it likely that it won't last. The demographics and the corrupt totalitarian state almost guarantee it. And, even now, all those oil kingdoms of the Middle East are seeing their economic futures in peril. Why? Because they squandered their economic wealth by buying off the masses rather than ensuring the rule of law and developing a strong and diverse economy.
So if you look at the third world, the thing that is immediately apparent is the lack of long-term legal stability. Despots come and go, whipsawing the entrepreneurial class back and forth. This makes it incredibly hard to build anything or save anything at all. As one other example, Venezuela used to be the most prosperous country in central America until Chavez came to power. Now there is electricity rationing and a host of other economic ills. On the other hand, Chile was struggling for decades, but became a powerhouse economy as the country decided to follow the principles of Milton Friedman. And, of course, we have Argentina. Once one of the richest countries in the world, it has been an economic punchline for decades since the Peronistas came along.
Someone who owns his own island, so long as he respects the property rights of his neighbors, no matter how few they are, has harmed no one.
There is no landed property of any neighbors when one owns the island. That's the point of the island model. The land owner is not distinguished from the state. You have therefore quickly fulfilled my expectation of nonsense.
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A corrupt official who runs roughshod over someone else's property rights is something entirely different.
The right is based on what? Yet another colossal, undefined abstraction from god knows where, not to mention axiomatically "correct" ; 1 =1; saying nothing.
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Any rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of a government official with a gun, ought to learn the difference on his own hide.
So might holler a slubberdegullion that besmirchers sour his own hind. A gourmand's plow share starts out fine but another orifice has dung, and oft on his urn for more than a pittance he feels the rinds.
Free market fundamentalists often attribute prosperity to free market principles, but have they visited developing countries? I would say free markets are more pervasive in the third world than they are in the US and other western nations. Any merchant could set up shop without a license. Children are seen on the street peddling fruits. Child labor isn't frowned upon. Many of the red tape we find as a violation to free market principles in this country are non existent in the third world, so how does a free market alone lead to productivity and prosperity?
The problem is you see what you see or what you want to see, but failed to see what you NOT see and what you did not want to see.
10+ years ago, China was practicing almost FREE market within regid political system and India was/is practicing State guided political/economical system. One can see the huge different between these two countries.
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