Sunday 27 September 2009

Late capitalist "harvest festival"

1. A capitalist venture is viable if it costs you less to make your product than to sell it.
2. A capitalist venture is viable if you are able to sell products that are either of better quality, altogether cheaper or for some other reason more desirable than those your competitors are making.
3. The curent order rewards individuals primarily for making their workforce available or for investing their assets. In some countries, the system will also reward individuals who are unable to find work or who do not have assets. This is by no means a universal provision, and countless individuals are unable to find work and do not have assets. To these individuals, employment in slave-like conditions is arguably more desirable than no employment at all, though not desirable in absolute terms.
4. Manufacturing of hard commodities is mostly done in countries able to offer cheap labour. CEOs of western companies who wish to uphold the welfare of their western workforce (SIEMENS is a case in point) neverthless delocalise some of their production to countries where labour is cheaper in order to remain competitive and able to sell their products and services globally.
5. Using the phrase of Charles Leadbeater, a sizeable portion of Westerners are "living on thin air", by largely working in the service and knowledge economy.
6. Even in the knowledge economy, productivity is essential, thus employees work long hours with excessive dedication as the need to be competitive is pressed on them by management. Many young and committed professionals are tempted to throw in the towel under the pressure.
7. In a recession, a number of sincere theologians advocate investing instead of giving. The argument is that many jobs, and the welfare of those who hold them, are dependent of a non-essential economy of luxury. This "non-essential economy of luxury" is the first to suffer in a recession as people scale back their expenses. According to them, it follows that the right thing to do is to invest in these businesses who struggle to sell their services and, in these economic circumstances, do not have easy access to credit
8. We are in a world full of abundance, yet the way in which we make this abundance available is seriously flawed. We simply cannot continue to reward only those individuals who have assets or who are able to find employment, because this leaves a huge number of people out and it is not getting better.

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