Re: Starbucks to close 600 stores

"alan" <in_flagrante@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:brfbk.3313$vn7.1786@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Jack Denver" wrote
[...]
> The
market is Darwinian and it picks off the weakest members of each species selectively. This is all capitalism in action and is a good thing.

A "Darwinian" market picking off the weakest members? Yes, that's a form of capitalism --- but is it really a good thing? When formerly self-sustaining (but competitively weak) corn producers in Mexico are "picked off" by North American agri-business and are forced into the cities to work in maquilladoras for large American companies, is this a good thing? I suppose that for the stronger members of the Darwinian market, it's a great thing --- no more competition in agriculture and a cheaper labor force for manufactured goods.

[...] The alternative is an economy where the factories produce and shops sell goods that nobody wants just so that workers get to keep their lifetime jobs.
Those are the only alternatives? An unbridled, every man for himself aggressive capitalism or a stereotypically poorly planned socialism? Come on, Jack --- neither one is workable and neither one is acceptable. Capitalism does not need to be an unregulated Darwinian field of combat, where victory indicates virtue and where the "picking off" of "weaker members" is a good thing.

The anarchists who are proposing a Global Day of Action Against Starbucks might as well demonstrate against the setting of the sun or the changing of the seasons. We have seen a lot of change in our lifetimes and we are going to see more and more of it, so get used to it.

Right --- don't complain, don't act, that's the way things are --- don't rock this sinking boat . . . just shut up and take it, eh? "Darwinian" forces are at work, after all .....

No one expected lifetime employment at Starbucks anyway - most of the employees were just passin' thru. GM is another question but if anything, its employees had too much protection for their own good - if the UAW had been a little less maximal in the past, it might still have more members.

I'd say the UAW's decline in membership has to do their not having been maximal enough. They were picked off by stronger, unregulated business interests ----- but I suppose that's a "good thing", isn't it?
--
alan

This is not the place to debate capitalism vs. socialism, free trade vs. no free trade. The ostensibly Marxist China has chosen to embrace free trade and capitalism as being the best in the long run for all including the workers and peasants as a whole, so maybe it's time for Western leftists to update their views on this subject as well . There's no doubt that there are individuals who are "losers" in the capitalist/free trade game but if you focus only on the losers and ignore the "winners" then you will draw the wrong conclusions, as you have.

.

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  • Re: Starbucks to close 600 stores
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  • Re: Starbucks to close 600 stores
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