• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Were we better off before industrialization?

Well, were we?


  • Total voters
    53
Not if they lived through the Revolution.

Why is that? They survived a war of independence and had a new country of their own with vast resources and basically no law or limits. Frontiersmen and pioneers had the in ultimate freedom.
 
That's an awesome position.

Sure, I know you are hungry and here is a whole loaf of bread. Oh, you can't have it, you can just have enough so that you don't die. Sure, you'll suffer, probably get sick and die but at least I'll get some work out of you first.

People are just animals so why treat them any different right? As long as you got lucky, **** everyone else!! WOOHOO!!!!

No, you don't get it. People are going to get paid according to what they produce. They take those jobs because they can get more than they were getting as subsistence farmers. If you want them to get food then give them food. Don't tell me that it's the employer's job to feed them. If you feel bad then YOU do something about it. Don't put the responsibility on someone else and then make them feel guilty about not doing something that you feel they should.
 
No, you don't get it. People are going to get paid according to what they produce. They take those jobs because they can get more than they were getting as subsistence farmers. If you want them to get food then give them food. Don't tell me that it's the employer's job to feed them. If you feel bad then YOU do something about it. Don't put the responsibility on someone else and then make them feel guilty about not doing something that you feel they should.
No, YOU don't get it. People will do unbelievable things when they are desperate and people who take advantage of that need to be stripped of their ability to own, run or manage a business, as punishment. Let me put it this way, if YOU wouldn't do the job for the pay then you are taking advantage of another human for your own personal greed.
 
In the real world I think it is moral for a people to interdict upon the market if they must to raise the standard of living and the work environment. Also some people in sweatshops are structurally unemployed from their traditional employment, women and children also tend to be victimized.

Purchase of items from these places is immoral, who cares if you have to pay 50c more for a pair of slippers made by manual female labor from djibouti. It increases the standard of living of the workers drastically as many of these products are sold internationally for dozens of times the price anyways. Markets be damned. We have governments that must represent even their poorest peoples and have some influence on the economy to account for it.
 
No, YOU don't get it. People will do unbelievable things when they are desperate and people who take advantage of that need to be stripped of their ability to own, run or manage a business, as punishment. Let me put it this way, if YOU wouldn't do the job for the pay then you are taking advantage of another human for your own personal greed.

They are desperate because being a subsistence farmer sucks and basically anything is better. Let's be glad that sweatshops give them an option. Then they can accumulate wealth and raise their standard of living much quicker than they are now.
 
Yes, I'm sure the common sweatshop wage usually illegal and based off of the lowest possible production price for a good out of no consideration for the living cost of the worker which has gone up as global food prices actually allows them to accumulate wealth.

Sure...:roll:
 
Yes, I'm sure the common sweatshop wage usually illegal and based off of the lowest possible production price for a good out of no consideration for the living cost of the worker which has gone up as global food prices actually allows them to accumulate wealth.

Sure...:roll:

The cost of labor is independent of the cost of living. The cost of labor depends on the scarcity and demand for that labor.
 
Yes, your point?

So don't blame the company for not paying a living wage. They don't produce an arbitrarily defined living wage, so of course they're not going to be paid that.

Again your point? What do you think of minimum wage is?

Minimum wage is a distortion in the market. I'm just telling you that people work for the wages that they do in the condition that they do because they aren't very skilled and because so many people can do their jobs.
 
They are desperate because being a subsistence farmer sucks and basically anything is better. Let's be glad that sweatshops give them an option. Then they can accumulate wealth and raise their standard of living much quicker than they are now.
Either you are really ignorant of farming or you're just flatly disingenuous.

Sweatshops do not allow for the accumulation of wealth because as the definition of the name implies, you don't get paid ****. The pay allowed you to live in poverty. It would have been a rare thing in the early 20th century to find someone leaving the farm to go work in a sweat shop unless the farm was sold/repossessed. In other words, out of desperation. The majority of sweatshop workers were immigrants that had no farm in the USA to begin with.
 
So don't blame the company for not paying a living wage. They don't produce an arbitrarily defined living wage, so of course they're not going to be paid that.



Minimum wage is a distortion in the market. I'm just telling you that people work for the wages that they do in the condition that they do because they aren't very skilled and because so many people can do their jobs.
Paying an honest days pay, for an honest days work, does not insure that wage will be one that meets ones expectations. So they should strive to improve on their situation, and move up to a better job. they use to call that incentive.
 
The cost of labor is independent of the cost of living. The cost of labor depends on the scarcity and demand for that labor.
True, when the market is flooded with workers SOME employers took advantage of this situation to pay less than is reasonable, in conditions that were unsafe. Why do you think laws popped up to end such practices? Because it is inhumane to take advantage of your fellow man in such a fashion. Funny how this is exactly what corporations (including American corps) do in developing countries. If it's morally wrong for our society then isn't it wrong for American companies to do it outside the USA? This is a good indication that large corporations in general have no morality and therefore need to be regulated to prevent them from doing immoral things to humans and the planet.
 
So don't blame the company for not paying a living wage. They don't produce an arbitrarily defined living wage, so of course they're not going to be paid that.



Minimum wage is a distortion in the market. I'm just telling you that people work for the wages that they do in the condition that they do because they aren't very skilled and because so many people can do their jobs.

Therefore it's OK to **** on them for your own gain. Got it.
 
Either you are really ignorant of farming or you're just flatly disingenuous.

Sweatshops do not allow for the accumulation of wealth because as the definition of the name implies, you don't get paid ****. The pay allowed you to live in poverty. It would have been a rare thing in the early 20th century to find someone leaving the farm to go work in a sweat shop unless the farm was sold/repossessed. In other words, out of desperation. The majority of sweatshop workers were immigrants that had no farm in the USA to begin with.

I was mostly thinking of 18th century Britain. People left their farms (unless forced by act of Parliament, which was rare) because there was a better opportunity in the city. Subsistence farming is like the worst form of life there is.
 
Therefore it's OK to **** on them for your own gain. Got it.

No. It's okay for me to offer whatever wage I want and for people to accept or refuse that wage accordingly.
 
True, when the market is flooded with workers SOME employers took advantage of this situation to pay less than is reasonable, in conditions that were unsafe.

Define reasonable.

Why do you think laws popped up to end such practices? Because it is inhumane to take advantage of your fellow man in such a fashion. Funny how this is exactly what corporations (including American corps) do in developing countries. If it's morally wrong for our society then isn't it wrong for American companies to do it outside the USA? This is a good indication that large corporations in general have no morality and therefore need to be regulated to prevent them from doing immoral things to humans

Those laws came about because of a lack of understanding of economics. I want our laws repealed about wage requirements.

and the planet.

Better property rights would protect the environment.
 
The only societies I could say were better of before industrialization were peaceable native peoples. I am not trying to imply that they all were.

People native to where? We all descend from 'native peoples' you know. :cool:

You aren't speaking of 'The Noble Red Man' are you? ;) I wouldn't think that someone as highly educated as yourself would subscribe to those sort of stereotypes... :roll:
 
I was mostly thinking of 18th century Britain. People left their farms (unless forced by act of Parliament, which was rare) because there was a better opportunity in the city. Subsistence farming is like the worst form of life there is.
As I suspected, you don't know the first thing about farming nor subsistence farming.

When did we start talking about Britain in the 1700s? Oh, when you needed to wiggle in a debate. :roll:
 
No. It's okay for me to offer whatever wage I want and for people to accept or refuse that wage accordingly.
:beam: nevermind. I'm done with debating you.
 
People native to where? We all descend from 'native peoples' you know. :cool:

You aren't speaking of 'The Noble Red Man' are you? ;) I wouldn't think that someone as highly educated as yourself would subscribe to those sort of stereotypes... :roll:

Its not a stereotype, especially when I clarified in my post that there were 'some' peaceful natives people, not that they all were. I made that clarification to prevent posts like yours.
 
:beam: nevermind. I'm done with debating you.

Yup, you are the best. Your intellect is so far above mine that debating with me just makes you stupider. :roll:
 
As I suspected, you don't know the first thing about farming nor subsistence farming.

When did we start talking about Britain in the 1700s? Oh, when you needed to wiggle in a debate. :roll:

Look at the OP. Peasants? Tied to the land? That's Europe in the 18th century.
 
No. It's okay for me to offer whatever wage I want and for people to accept or refuse that wage accordingly.

It's not okay, in the twenty first century representative action in the past accounts for the living wage nowadays. If you want to return to fundamentalist capitalist economics please take your time machine and leave your ideas out of this century, they have been dead for decades and only exist under governments where there is little democratic representation for a reason. Unfortunately you may not be able to deal with ideals of democracy.

Those laws came about because of a lack of understanding of economics.

That your trying to say is they came about in a lack of consideration for your fundamentalist ideals, your assertion that the writers of these laws were 'ignorant of economics' comes straight from a dung pile. Did you own a plantation in your past life?
 
It's not okay, in the twenty first century representative action in the past accounts for the living wage nowadays. If you want to return to fundamentalist capitalist economics please take your time machine and leave your ideas out of this century, they have been dead for decades and only exist under governments where there is little democratic representation for a reason. Unfortunately you may not be able to deal with ideals of democracy.

So wages didn't rise before government intervention? Really? Where's the proof?

That your trying to say is they came about in a lack of consideration for your fundamentalist ideals, your assertion that the writers of these laws were 'ignorant of economics' comes straight from a dung pile. Did you own a plantation in your past life?

That was a low and terrible argument. It ignored all the lessons of classical economics.
 
That your trying to say is they came about in a lack of consideration for your fundamentalist ideals, your assertion that the writers of these laws were 'ignorant of economics' comes straight from a dung pile. Did you own a plantation in your past life?

You have a repeated theme of labeling, or inferring, that those who disagree with your (more liberal) point of view, are nothing more than oppressive racist overseers... :rolleyes:

I advise you to tread carefully with your suppositions. :cool: They easily could escalate.
 
Back
Top Bottom