It’s been a theme lately. But it needs to be said explicitly.
If you don’t trust the private sector or the people that make it up, why would you trust the people in government?
See the whole thing here at Coyote Blog.
But for now, the money line:
I tell folks all the time – I don’t trust private actors any more than the people in government. What I trust more are their incentives and the tools I have for enforcing accountability on them.
CEOs are bloodthirsty slave drivers and the corporations they run are soulless contraptions that exploit the masses:
Morrisville, N.C. —Yuan Yuanqing, chairman and chief executive officer of fast-growing Lenovo, has not forgotten his roots nor has he overlooked the efforts of the people who have helped make the company the world’s No. 2 PC maker.
Having started at the bottom in Lenovo’s food chain as a salesman peddling PCs across parts of China from his bicycle and risen to the company’s top position, Yang decided to share a $3 million bonus he received for Lenovo’s increasing success with junior-level employees.
After being paid the bonus last month, Yang decided to present what has been called a “Yuanqing special award” – a check worth on average about $300.
I often hear how capitalism is a system that rewards the greedy. That by use of it, corporations enslave their workers, funnel money from the poor and working class to the rich. The continuous chants against the system grew especially loud during the growth of the #OccupyWallStreet movement.
To be sure, there are people in this world that have “more.” There are folks who have become very wealthy at the same time other folks struggle to put food on the table or a roof over their head. And it’s tragic. However, when faced with conditions of inequity, it’s an easy escape to simply fall back and blame the system. Even our President falls victim to that trap. He’s continually castigating the wealthy, railing against the system and calling for capitalists to distribute their wealth.
We Support Individual Liberty
The concept of individual liberty, the idea that there are certain rights that flow to each of us from either the divine or form nature, is fundamental to the concept of the market. It is the bedrock that forms the basis for the system that best produces optimal results. When a man is free he will labor for his own self-interest, he will trade with another in order that his lot becomes better than it otherwise might have been. From the concepts of liberty and inalienable rights comes the concept of the right to property. It is where these values, these beliefs are most held in high esteem that we find the society rich and successful.
And so it must be that we protect the right of liberty and of property. That when one man produces wheat, that wheat is his own. To keep, plant, eat, hoard trade or sell. If a man becomes skilled in building a house, the property that he acquires as a result is his to dispose of as he desires. In order to protect that liberty, that property, we erect and enact laws preventing fraud and abuse.
And where those cases involving fraud are found, they are properly seen as diametrically opposed to liberty, to the rights of property; to capitalism itself. The unlawful seizure of another man’s labor that is the OPPOSITE of capitalism. It is NOT the desired state of it.
Wage Theft In North Carolina
When two individuals enter into agreement, or contract, we expect that contract be enforced. If you agree to sell me milk in exchange for money, I expect a gallon of fresh milk and you the appropriate sum of money. Perhaps I trade you corn for your milk. You would properly expect me to provide a bushel of corn. Should either of us try to break that contract, say I by adding stones to the wheat basket or you by adding water to the milk, we would be perpetuating fraud. We would be acting AGAINST the tenants of capitalism, of individual liberty.
And milk and corn are not the only commodities that are available to us to trade. We are also able to trade our labor. Commonly we call this a job. We agree to trade our labor, our expertise our skills in exchange for compensation. So it is that when one of us breaks that bargain, that contract is broken and again, fraud has been perpetuated:
WASHINGTON — – For nearly a year, unemployed home health worker Leslie Gilbert of Grand Rapids, Mich., has fought to get more than $400 in unpaid wages from her former employer.
After months of promises that the money would be in her “next paycheck,” Gilbert filed a complaint in October with the state. Officials told Focus Care Home Health of Southfield, Mich., to either pay Gilbert by June 1 or face a formal hearing.
Gilbert still doesn’t have her money.
I can see the protests in the street, “Corporations are evil and greedy! Capitalism is the root of all evils.” But this isn’t a fair account of the market, a free exchange of commodities or an example of freedom, or of liberty.
With all the talk about corporate greed and abuse and the failings of capitalism, I think it’s important to point out that not everything done in the name of wealth accumulation is “good and great” to the capitalist. There still is the explicit expectation that law and order rule the day. That contracts are acknowledged. That there be enforcement of those contracts. That property rights exist. And again, that the protection of those rights is guaranteed by the state.
There are bad actors in capitalism.
I’ve reflected on the discovery of free markets o the part of Broadway and the airlines. I can’t help but feel that the attitude of the Liberal is to rejoice that the Arts will enjoy increased revenues to further their artistic causes while the same activity by the airlines will be reviled as further evidence of corporate greed.
Ugh.
If you wanna graduate level course in “Impacting Corporate Greed”, just read the following:
Bowing to customers’ anger and confusion over its move to divide its streaming and DVD video offerings, Netflix is reversing itself, snuffing the plan to offer DVDs by mail via a new service called “Qwikster.”
Why did Netflix do this?
The decision to split the services was wildly unpopular among Netflix subscribers. Reacting to the announcement on Facebook, a customer named Willie Williams summed it up in a way that 1,877 people agreed with:
Individually your DVD and steaming services do not offer enough to justify their expense. As a bundled service they supplement each other and provide the value that made Netflix wonderful. DVDs allowed you to view newer releases in a fairly timely manner. Streaming allowed for viewing of the older catalog of movies that come up when you think of it but might not be worth waiting for to arrive in the mail….
By separating these services I fear you are weakening Netflix as a service and subsequently the brand. Together these services made Netflix a success, separated you lack the availability and pricing of your competitors.
Corporations have no power if they don’t produce stuff you don’t want.
6 months ago I was involved in a head on collision as I attempted to turn left onto the Inter-State near where I live. I suspect that the little college girl was texting right as she managed to miss the first car in front of me turning left and hit me, the second car. However, I can’t know for sure. I was lucky that night and walked away from the wreck. Because I suffered no injuries and her insurance eventually covered my car I didn’t press charges or bring suit; I haven’t seen her since. In fact, I’ve waited this 6 months to say anything about it on anything resembling “social-media” in the event some consequence of that accident made itself known.
There is an organization that measures such things. And, in fact, they place a dollar value to those brands as well. Anyway, the latest list is out and the winner is:
Apple
In a study released Monday by Millward Brown, a market-research arm of London advertising giant WPP, Apple AAPL +0.50% was listed as the world’s most valuable brand, with an estimated value of more than $153 billion.
And how do they determine this list?
…calculations are based on an analysis of financial data combined with “consumer measures of brand equity.”
They use how well consumers feel they are served by the corporation.
In so far as companies are “greedy” and “capitalists”, they can’t succeed unless they build and sell something that people want. And the most successful of those corporations are exactly those corporations that do the best job at making the best products.
The rich; they are reedy pigs!
And the corporations they run; just mechanisms to take money from the poor and give to the rich!
They take from those who have little and give to those that have much!
Right?
Nope.
The latest word on the streets is that “Big Business” had it’s best week ever.
American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.
And the Left is pissed. Very pissed.