Capitalism Saves Lives

Generali

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/fashion-chain-finance-safety-bangladesh-factories

Some of the world's biggest fashion chains, including H&M, Zara, C&A, Tesco and Primark, have signed up to a legally binding agreement to help finance fire safety and building improvements in the factories they use in Bangladesh.

Now you need to reward the companies that are soon this by buying their clothes and punish those that don't sign up.

TruckerT

"The move came on Monday, as the Bangladeshi government agreed to allow the country's four million garment workers to form trade unions without permission from factory owners, a major concession to campaigners lobbying for widespread reforms to the industry following the collapse of the Rana Plaza building last month that killed more than 1,100 people"

It's not Capitalism - it's Trade Unionism!

TruckerT

chewmylegoff

Isn't this just multinationals reacting to public anger (in Bangladesh) so they can continue to reap the benefits of the cheap labour available in third world countries? If capitalism proactively saved lives the disaster would never have happened in the first place as the companies involved would never have tolerated the idea of workers living in those conditions. It's good that they are responding to the situation but surely they are just doing what they should already have done?

TruckerT

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Isn't this just multinationals reacting to public anger (in Bangladesh) so they can continue to reap the benefits of the cheap labour available in third world countries? If capitalism proactively saved lives the disaster would never have happened in the first place as the companies involved would never have tolerated the idea of workers living in those conditions. It's good that they are responding to the situation but surely they are just doing what they should already have done?

The conditions in Bangladesh are probably similar to conditions in the UK one hundred years ago.

TruckerT

chewmylegoff

TruckerT wrote: »

The conditions in Bangladesh are probably similar to conditions in the UK one hundred years ago.

TruckerT

I expect that is more or less correct. If capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country it begs the question why they aren't so enlightened when moving their production overseas to lower their costs and increase their profits.

TruckerT

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I expect that is more or less correct. If capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country it begs the question why they aren't so enlightened when moving their production overseas to lower their costs and increase their profits.

Do you believe that capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country?

TruckerT

chewmylegoff

TruckerT wrote: »

Do you believe that capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country?

TruckerT

No. That was pretty much the point I was trying to make.

To qualify this, some capitalists were and are also philthantropists who engendered improvements but I don't believe that they made much of a difference to the course of history.

TruckerT

chewmylegoff wrote: »

No. That was pretty much the point I was trying to make.

To qualify this, some capitalists were and are also philthantropists who engendered improvements but I don't believe that they made much of a difference to the course of history.

Some will say that the people of Bangladesh are better off with the exploitation of capitalism than they would be without it.

But the people of Bangladesh should look very closely at the current collapse in the Western world of much of the capitalist theory about equal chances for all.

TruckerT

Generali

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I expect that is more or less correct. If capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country it begs the question why they aren't so enlightened when moving their production overseas to lower their costs and increase their profits.

Because Capitalists will respond to the T&Cs that their customers impose on them.

Supermarkets sell millions of free range and organic eggs, a choice that was basically unavailable when I was a kid. The reason isn't that a bunch of animal rights [STRIKE]nutters[/STRIKE] activists got on Tesco's case it was that people wanted to buy free range eggs.

Similarly, these companies are feeling (probably accurately) that there will be a big backlash from consumers who would rather not buy clothes made by people that died making them. They are responding to what they think the next move in the market will be.

As good capitalists, we now have the responsibility to support the companies that do the things we want them to do.

If you don't give a monkeys about Bangladeshi workers then buy the stuff that baby killers make, nobody is stopping you. The point is you have a choice and only you can change things.

CLAPTON

I'm unaware of a capitalistic country; I know many that are a complicated mixture of government interventionism, some small competitive free markets, some large cartels, some democracy, some media led irrational hysteria etc etc

Life in the first world has been transformed by democracy and our wealth such that we can afford to be choosy.

purch

TruckerT wrote: »

Do you believe that capitalists are responsible for the improvement in working and social conditions in this country?

It should be obvious that currently alongside appropriate regulation and proper checks and balances, Capitalism is the only viable system that can achieve this

In an ideal World we would hope an Economic and Social system could be devised that is fairer and more inclusive, but in recent history most alternative systems have been anything but, and have left the ordinary citizens in a far worse position, and a ruling elite with far too much malevolent power