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Originally Posted by Katczinsky  I have taken formal philosophy classes, but I was not able to do so until college. Most of high school constituted a stultification of creativity and critical thinking. Most of what I learned of value was on my own.
By the way, I enjoy your posts a lot. They lay out the importance of critical thinking and of philosophy very well.
What do you mean? Presumably, critical thinking leads to more logical outcomes than the absence of it.
Money is a form of capital, and capital is merely stored-up labor. Whether wages increase or decrease is irrelevant in an exploitative system where the worker is alienated from the product of his labor and his "species-being". It would be like arguing for slavery merely because the standard of living has increased (and indeed, Southerners did use such an argument).
Under what context are you saying wages have increased? In actuality the income gap has not only increased in the United States but it has also increased globally. Since the advent of capitalistic globalization, the poorest in the world are forced to live on less while the capitalists (i.e. those who are accumulating the capital [exploited labor]) have increased their profits.
If you're saying that America as a society has gained in capital then you're right. I think it's obvious, being the world economic super power. All that means is we're just exploiting more people. It would match the data too, considering the third world has gotten poorer. America is dealing with the absurdity of overabundance while the third world riots over a food crisis.
It depends. This is a source of debate with myself. In short, is it better to take your problems to the labor board or to your union? This is the main source of division among the left. I think it's circumstantial and particular to the country in question. To me, how it's done is irrelevant so long as a democratic society is secured where the workers own the means of production, non-exploitative property is available, alienation is a thing of the past to a degree as much as possible, and the necessities of life are shared.
Do you starve your kids out of fear they will turn fat, dumb, and lazy? | No, but if you had three kids would you allow them to overrule the will of the parents?
The best government is a small government that stays the hell out of my life and pocketbook.
For employers, if I don't like my employer then either the employer is unfair or I have made an incorrect assessment of our arrangement. In either case you only go around once so simply leave and find new employment or start your own. Service industry is easy to start, I suggest some thing with three A's so it hits the search engine on the Yellow pages first. Unions suck and give employees a false sense of security. I remember the CA long-shore strike in Bush's first term, it seemed the port authority wanted to transition from pencil and paper to a bar code system and the union had a problem with that. They almost canceled Christmas but a compromise was made that was acceptable to both sides... I think the eighth grader dock workers start out at $84,000 and average $182,000 plus benefits now. But now Mexico and Canada will be doing more and more of the work, imagine that?
If you want free medical run for congress or join the military or other government job. If you want medical care buy it, because there is no such thing as free health care... the money comes from tax.
We are running out of slaves, soon Korea, China and India will be like Japan with an improved standard of living. China is setting up power in Africa, the last bounty of cheap labor. You are right America enjoys bounty at the costs of our slaves and I don't agree to it. There is no political party willing to run for office saying I'll assure "all" a fair wage but it may mean you will have to pay $15 for a head of lettuce. The Demwits set minimum wage laws and what is the first thing they do? They "slave qualify" the law saying "non-farm payrolls" as if farm labor is justifiable slavery. What party? What party indeed will represent "all the people"? |