From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Date: Thu Nov 07 1996 - 15:30:51 MST
Suresh Naidu wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, David Musick wrote:
>
> > Suresh Naidu said, "The government was as short sighted as can be, as usual.
> > But the businesses are still the ones who dumped the waste."
> >
> > I would correct this statement, to make it more accurate. It was *PEOPLE in
> > the businesses* who dumped the waste. There were certain, specific
> > individuals who dumped that waste, and the fact that they were business owners
> > has as much relevance as their skin or eye color to the fact that they were so
> > unethical that they would do such a horrible thing. These polluters are
> > highly unethical people who HAPPEN to be business owners as well. Being
> > business owners didn't *cause* them to be evil polluters. Capitalism doesn't
> > CAUSE people to be unethical. Yes, there are unethical people who trade in
> > the capitalist system who ALSO do very bad things, but to decry all of
> > capitalism and business because of the acts of a few assholes who fuck people
> > over is as stupid and irrational as being racist because one black guy attacks
> > you and steals your clothes.
>
> Capitalism encourages people to be unethical.
How so? Capitalism which is unresponsive to shareholders and consumers
may be, but it is not a corporations job to teach that. Corporations
tend to do background checks on new employees, and develop files on the
integrity of the individuals. I would not hire someone who had
demonstrated poor integrity in the past, as that person is also likely
to steal from or take actions which may damage the company.
The most unethical can be
> the most profitable, althought this is not always the case, it happens
> way too frequently. The amount of environmental damage one person
> can do when he doesn't have total control over a large organization is far less.
It took one drunk to cause the Alaska oil spill, and he wasn't an
executive either.
> On his own he could pollute a small piece of land, as the
> businessman he can destroy an entire ecosystem. Capitalism gives power to
> the unethical so they can do more damage.
>
> >
> > Suresh, you're over-generalizing, BIG-TIME! You're standing in the middle of
> > a battlefield, blowing away friend and enemy alike. "The enemies are humans;
> > shoot the enemies. All humans are enemies; shoot all humans" is the same as
> > "The bad people who pollute and fuck people over are business people; stop
> > them from committing their evil acts. All business people are evil; stop all
> > businesses." Both are examples of very bad logic. Yet this is exactly the
> > logic you are using.
> >
>
> The bad people who pollute and fuck over people are the ones with the
> most power in capitalism. That's a method of getting rich, forfeiting
> ethics in favour of profits. Thus, the ones who get power are the
> unethical ones. You may call it pragmatic, but I call it nasty. This is
> the logic I'm following: Profits can be earned by the nastiest methods
> possible, thus the unethical ones in society will accumulate the most
> money, and thus power.
Profits like that can only be earned in the short term. With free
communication like the internet, it is much harder to hide such events,
bringing ever more likely the swift retribution of a corporations'
consuming customers. WIth government in charge, spills are a matter of
"national security", and reporting such things is treason.
Look at all the nuclear and chemical wasteland in Russia. you probably
don't know about them, other than Chernobyl, but they are a whole lot
worse than ANYTHING that has ever happened in the west, and that was by
a PEOPLE's government.
>
> While I acknowledge that not all business people are evil, some are
> ignorant of the effects their number crunching has on other people, and
> some are trying to help, but don't know how to do it and remain
> competitive. It's very hard to be nice and
>
> > Check your thinking; you've got a bad meme in there somewhere, trying to take
> > over your mind.
> >
> > Find out what the REAL enemy is. It's not business. It's not even
> > government. There's something much deeper. And until you understand the real
> > sources of the world's problems, all your grand plans for society will be
> > misguided and ineffective.
> >
>
> Okay, can you tell me??? If I find it I'll let you know. I really wish
> there was some cabal of people (y'know, like the Roscrucians, Freemasons,
> Illuminati, Communists, Capitalists, Muppets, Extropians) making
> the world bad, then at least you could direct efforts to topple it.
>
> But I guess the fault lies with
> ourselves, and all the failings currently being human entails. This isn't
> something you can fight without indoctorination or massive dosages of
> Prozac(Television?).
>
> The
> reason I advocate anarchy is because I hope it will
> encourage the same principles of mutual aid that have helped us evolve to
> this point, so we can develop into a species that will take itself to the
> stars. <ahhh, starry dreamy eyes>
>
> (I hate vi)
>
> I know the real enemy is not big business. But they are a sore point in
> society. The real enemy is .... RICHARD SIMMONDS(sorry...I'll take my
> methadone). It sucks that people are sometimes rapacious, brutal and
> savage,but
> that's why we need to keep power imbalances from happening, so that
> nobody, regardless of how "benevolent", can dictate terms to anyone else.
> The last thing anybody wants is to have brutal people have power over you,
> so the only way to prevent this from happening is to minimize the absolute
> power anyone has over anybody else.
>
>
> Let's face it, any system would work if people were a bit "nicer".
You are starting to get it. Free market IS anarchy. How decent our
society is is only a matter of how decent its individual components
(i.e. people) are, as it is sthe same with corporations.
Monopolies of any kind only happen with government connivance and media
acquiescence.
If you join us in the fight to prevent both, you are on your way.....
Mike
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