oh by the way, that bangladesh building collapse had just hit the death toll of 900 people - Polidicks

[quote]At least eight people perished Wednesday when a blaze raced through a garment factory in Bangladesh. The fire comes just weeks after the building collapse at Rana Plaza claimed more than 900 lives.[/quote] [url]http://world.time.com/2013/05/09/latest-bangladesh-garment-factory-disaster-spotlights-continuing-safety-concerns/[/url] What the fuck man this is depressing. One building 900 dead.

Well fuck, that's just terrible.

holy shit

Christ...

The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581210]The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.[/QUOTE] That and urban sprawl, that's a lot of people packed into a small space, when disasters happen the death tolls are always huge especially in low quality buildings.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581210]The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.[/QUOTE] Suggest a better system. Be my guest. What future does humanity have except for globalization? What system works better than capitalism?

[QUOTE=Miskav;40581300]Suggest a better system. Be my guest. What future does humanity have except for globalization? What system works better than capitalism?[/QUOTE] socialism

[QUOTE=Miskav;40581300]Suggest a better system. Be my guest. What future does humanity have except for globalization? What system works better than capitalism?[/QUOTE] wanking in a ditch and expecting food to grow from it

[QUOTE=Miskav;40581300]Suggest a better system. Be my guest. What future does humanity have except for globalization? What system works better than capitalism?[/QUOTE] Globalization is just a quest for cheap and obedient labor. One of those things that makes it cheap is no safety laws.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581347]Globalization is just a quest for cheap and obedient labor. One of those things that makes it cheap is no safety laws.[/QUOTE] Globalization is the slow, but steady improvement of living standards throughout the world and the downfall of nationalism.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581210]The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.[/QUOTE] Sorry but do we hear of these kinds of stories in the western world, in societies that have been capitalist for around a hundred years? No, we don't. It doesn't matter whatever way you look at solving the economic problem, shit like this will always happen in the third world as long as the third world stays that way. China was shit for workers before they became capitalist and its still (relatively) shit now, only a bit better.

[QUOTE=Riller;40581355]Globalization is the slow, but steady improvement of living standards throughout the world and the downfall of nationalism.[/QUOTE] AHAHAHAahahahaha. Wait, you're serious. HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahah... Okay, now that I've got that out of the way: No, it isn't. It's migrating where the work and materiel is cheap, and running away and destitution where it isn't.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581347]Globalization is just a quest for cheap and obedient labor. One of those things that makes it cheap is no safety laws.[/QUOTE] That's an extremely naïve way at looking at globalisation. [editline]9th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581374]AHAHAHAahahahaha. Wait, you're serious. HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahah... Okay, now that I've got that out of the way: No, it isn't. It's migrating where the work and materiel is cheap, and running away and destitution where it isn't.[/QUOTE] China's living standard has increased a fair bit (but by no means to be the greatest) since its market was opened up and the west showed interest. People who could only live on rice now have more and better choices to the way they live.

Jesus christ, 900 people packed into one building.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581347]Globalization is just a quest for cheap and obedient labor. One of those things that makes it cheap is no safety laws.[/QUOTE] You have absolutely no idea what globalization is.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581210]The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.[/QUOTE] It doesn't have anything to do with Capitalism, it has to do with the poor architectural regulations in these countries that are mass manufacturers of consumer goods.

And capitalism has nothing to do with countries becoming mass manufacturers of consumer goods and being driven to; - producing clothing as cheaply as possible - paying as low wages as possible - paying as low material costs as possible - adopting as little safety measures and auditing of premises and equipment as possible and many more all in order to amorally feed the profit motive of large corporations and the greed of mass consumerism?

[QUOTE=JustExtreme;40581517]And capitalism has nothing to do with countries becoming mass manufacturers of consumer goods and being driven to produce clothing as cheap as possible with as little safety measures and auditing of equipment as possible in order to feed the profit motive of large corporations?[/QUOTE] "Feed the profit motive of large corporations". Lol. More like the hunger of consumers who are willing to buy such products. If no one wanted to buy things made in the third world there would be no need for those factories to be in the third world. Nevermind that living standards in the third world have increased thanks to open markets. Have you ever wondered why Africans have been arguing for trade, not aid?

Maybe they want more trade because they are forced to sell their products at ridiculously low prices unprocessed (coffee, cocoa, etc.) so that corporations can process them away from the global south and skim off the majority of the profit? Living standards have improved because completely starving and homeless (not even a mud shack) people can't be very effective wage slaves for large corps. It's a good thing that they have improved but I wouldn't say it was directly caused by markets. Co-operation is often far more effective than competition - it would be nice to see more working together and less competition for the sake of competition and "letting the market take care of it". Iraq was "left to the free market" after the main conflict ended as an experiment and didn't that turn out great? Profit might look good on paper but in reality profit often results from exploitative behavior, not positively working to improve the world and living standards.

[QUOTE=Miskav;40581300]Suggest a better system. Be my guest. What future does humanity have except for globalization? What system works better than capitalism?[/QUOTE] Utopian society with parts of Marxisism, were everything is run by science and education, and machines automatically collects material in a resource balanced way for the ecology.

[QUOTE=Jocke;40581732]Utopian society with parts of Marxisism, were everything is run by science and education, and machines automatically collects material in a resource balanced way for the ecology.[/QUOTE] That would be a valid idea, once earth is globalized and technology developed through capitalism. Good luck getting there without those two things though.

If you don't think that globalization has created a race to the bottom, though, then you're being blissfully ignorant of the condition of developing nations. Take Mexico, for example: with NAFTA, the state took every means necessary to seize land, remove indigenous rights, destroy labor laws, and cut benefits, in order to provide land and work force for American businesses. In China, the majority of the population moved into the cities out of necessity. Farmers were no longer subsistence farming and were instead being forced into a competitive market by large-scale state and corporate-sponsored farm projects, which undermined the ability of the individual farming community to live, and created a migration to urban city centers. This mass of cheap, unskilled labor pushed to state to accommodate them all with cheap living standards, and appealed to international business as an unexploited workforce with no rights, no will, and low expenses. And so today, you have masses of Chinese working unbelievably terrible jobs that they also live at, constantly indebted to their employers, with no hope in life beyond survival. In Indonesia, a major American shoe company's factory burned down and left the workers with no job, no money, no compensation, as the owner skipped the country, and is now completely unaccountable even though the company owed a year of wages. Etc etc etc. Globalization is fine in that you're trading a shitty rural lifestyle with a shittier urban lifestyle, but by no means is the average person's life improving from it- economies are being subjugated to the interests of more powerful economic interests and governments bending to the will of these international corporations in order to provide for their state and people. As an analogy, this is taking the slave off the boat- yea, they're doing better than they were in tribal Africa, but how much better is slavery? They may live better off now, but at what price? Chinese factory workers aren't committing suicide in large numbers for no reason. There hasn't been an inward pro-national, communitarian response by many nations in the world for no reason, and there hasn't been an anti-globalization rebellion by South American nations for nothing. Are life standards improving? That's a very subjective measure. Is the average person now being fed more, have more wealth, etc? Yes. Are their lives better? Not at all. We measure their "improvements" based on what we in the West consider as benchmarks for well-being: wealth, property, and stability. We do not measure such things as community well-being, individual happiness, and life satisfaction. While the former may be better now than ever before, the latter is at the same place, if not worse. In a world dominated by capitalism, it's no wonder that we measure the "improvements" of nations and cultures and people by how capitalistic they are, how their stake in capitalism is doing.

Globalization is the process by which a western person has their wages drop so they cannot buy a game they wanted, whilst a man in India can finally afford to buy enough food for his family.

[QUOTE=JustExtreme;40581517]And capitalism has nothing to do with countries becoming mass manufacturers of consumer goods and being driven to; - producing clothing as cheaply as possible - paying as low wages as possible - paying as low material costs as possible - adopting as little safety measures and auditing of premises and equipment as possible and many more all in order to amorally feed the profit motive of large corporations and the greed of mass consumerism?[/QUOTE] And planting a flag in the ground that says "Socialism" will instantly and immediately solve all our problems and wouldn't require any regulations or maintenance to keep running smoothly.

Never said that.

[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40581861]Globalization is the process by which a western person has their wages drop so they cannot buy a game they wanted, whilst a man in India can finally afford to buy enough food for his family.[/QUOTE] And also the process by which a western person's goods lower in price, but a Chinese man's hours are increased and pay cut. You and I already had this discussion, and it ended not on this discussion, iirc.

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;40581210]The wages of capitalism and globalization, folks.[/QUOTE] While you could easily argue that this accident is a sad reflection of a working space in which profit motives and convenience superseded ensuring workers safety, a essentially trade-union related issue, accusing globalisation isn't where the anger should be placed. Globalisation in an abstract sense is as fundamental to the saner versions of socialism as is it is to contemporary capitalism. It's a leveling force, albeit a slow one. [editline]10th May 2013[/editline] The only opposition to globalisation that isn't a complaint of the capitalist baggage it carries (and not the actual increase in worldwide connectivity) seems to me to be a nationalistic sentiment which borders on fascism

[QUOTE=Lonestriper;40582111]While you could easily argue that this accident is a sad reflection of a working space in which profit motives and convenience superseded ensuring workers safety, a essentially trade-union related issue, accusing globalisation isn't where the anger should be placed. Globalisation in an abstract sense is as fundamental to the saner versions of socialism as is it is to contemporary capitalism. It's a leveling force, albeit a slow one. [editline]10th May 2013[/editline] The only opposition to globalisation that isn't a complaint of the capitalist baggage it carries (and not the actual increase in worldwide connectivity) seems to me to be a nationalistic sentiment which borders on fascism[/QUOTE] Yes. I guess that we leftists should spell out Neoliberal globalization is what's always under the microscope here.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/LMv93Gj.jpg[/img]