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LIBERTYBLOG:
MUSINGS DURING AN ERA OF DECREASING LIBERTY

Watch this Video "How Capitalism Exploits Us" and Try Not to Cringe

6/25/2017

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Tom Woods Liberty Classroom
So let's look at this logically. If people worked half as much and machines produced twice as much, there would be no increase in production.

That means the same amount of people with computers, flat screens, etc. today would be the same number that have them 10 years from now.

There is still a large portion of the world that doesn't have all the gadgets we in the US take for granted. What about them? It's the increase in productivity that lowers the price of things, which raises the standard of living for everyone. Plus with a growing population, and only a set amount of production, over time the supply will be the same but the demand will increase. People that can afford the luxuries now won't be able to afford them because the limited supply will cause the price to increase.

While it may allow people to work less, they'd be able to buy less. And if they want to buy the same amount, they'd have to work more.

Besides, under capitalism people can start their own business without hiring any employees, while paying each other however they wish. This can all be done under capitalism. No one is forcing someone to be an employee. The employee is ALWAYS free to walk away under capitalism, not so under communism.

Let's not forget that it's the employer that makes the employee more productive than he would be on his own. The employer takes the risk, while employees don't. Employers put up the money, usually from making sacrifices that most employees aren't willing to make. If people could simply join together and compete with employers, why aren't they? There's nothing stopping them. This video doesn't attempt to solve this mystery.

Taking this to its logical conclusion if a few people could join forces together and compete with the greedy capitalists, all they'd have to do is take a tiny portion of all the "extra money" the employers were keeping for themselves and reduce the price of goods sold. That would give them an edge over their greedy competitors, and they'd put the greedy people out of business. The people that produced this video don't understand that it doesn't work like this. If it did, any handful of people could put these corporate giants out of business, which is harder than this video purports. But the employers use their resources to increase the productive capacity of its employees, which is one of the reasons why they make more than the employees.

Capitalism 'exploits' workers by providing the best opportunity available to them and 'exploits' customers by striving to provide them with the best value. And both cases are voluntary.

​It is nearly impossible NOT to comment on this video. One of my favorites:

There was "incredible abundance" 200 years ago? Really? Someone tell the Irish and all of the other immigrants trying to get to the US due to the scarcity of land, food and freedom. Or read the account of Lewis and Clark, and the Native American tribes they encountered that were constantly on the brink of starvation. Scarcity is artificial? Really? In a world of finite resources, scarcity will always be with us. "Greed" is the wrong term and the wrong concept. The real concept to be considered is "self interest". Self interest IS a fundamental aspect of human nature. People the world over will in general act to further their own self interest. Free market capitalism harnesses this phenomenon by ensuring that, when a person acts in his own self interest, he/she only benefits if he provides something of value to someone else through voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. The places in the world that have considerably reduced scarcity are based on free market capitalism. I do agree that inflation of the money supply is a crime perpetrated by governments and central banks to steal money from people, mostly the poor who are not able to invest at a rate above inflation. The rest of this video is Marxist bullshit. If you want to see what scarcity looks like, tell people that they don't have to produce anything to earn a living, but instead merely ask them to "give".
What did you think of the video?

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  • LibertyBlog
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