Re: Solution to poverty - Socialism or Capitalism?

At a restaurant you trade money against a good meal. Wealth just got created.
You valued your money less than the meal, and the cook valued the meal less than the money. The sum of the difference of valuation is wealth.

Not all trade is equal. Most of the time there is a power relationship where the strong exploits the weak.

An example is sweatshops. People who need jobs are willing to allow themselves to be exploited because they need money. This was common in 19th/ early 20th century before existence of labor unions

how is a sweatshop exploiting anyone if they agree to work there out of their own free will, without the sweatshop they would be worse off.

Do you believe its ethical to exploit desperate people? Free will is just a red herring

They are not as desperate as you think. These people can try to get better work or collectively bargen for better wages or work environment.

My question was simple...is it ethical to exploit desperate people. Even if these people voluntrarly amd free willungly accets the sweathop jobs. Yes or no?

I wouldn't call it exploitation as they receive capital and jobs that could have been given to a person in the 1st world. But if that's what you call exploitation then sure, that's how the world works, you need a job to obtain wealth. Look at the Japanese, Koreans, and currently the Chinese, they once were "sweatshops" but the foreign capital that was spent on wages and infrastructure has risen salary and living standards for them. So exploitation? No, that would be like calling going to school "exploitation", going to school even if you hate it makes your chances of obtaining more income later in life higher.

But on regards to the original post, I really believe that the unholy hybrid of both Capitalism and Socialism in the form of Cooperatives will solve poverty issues.

So you deny that exploitation exist because you have an example where end justifies the mean Roll Eyes

Exploitation in capitalism exists, it exists in socialism too(Via Cuban-Venezuelan Doctors for Oil trade). But in capitalism it starts to subside when workers have sufficient capital amassed (from foreign investment) to Unionize and bargain for better conditions, etc. Remember you can't have unions without having jobs to unionize. Cheesy

Quote from: yunkie on August 18, 2014, 09:52:57 AM

The only way to solve this mess is redistribution of wealth, it doesnt take being a rocket scientist.

Well how do we redistribute wealth then? Progressive Taxes? Violent Revolution?