faetal on 18/7/2012 at 14:48
Capitalism works best when it is tightly regulated. Without regulation, it merges and consolidates, there is less competition to drive innovation and quality. A good analogue for this is an ecology study I did as an undergrad. Three environs (field, field edge, heath) were measured for both signs of rabbits (scratch marks, droppings) and number of plant species. There was a very high positive correlation between the areas with high rabbit activity and plant species diversity. In the rabbit populated areas, grazing on abundant plant species created space for other species to thrive, but without the grazing, there was a more homogeneous selection of abundant and weedy, opportunistic species. The less freedom businesses have to grow, spread and take over, the more diversified and strong products and services become.
jay pettitt on 18/7/2012 at 14:52
We need giant economic rabbits.
faetal on 18/7/2012 at 15:29
Or a government which isn't completely the under the influence of the super-wealthy.
caffeinatedzombeh on 18/7/2012 at 17:37
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Still, looking forward to private firms bringing 'efficiency' in all sorts new and exciting ways to other parts of public life - like health provision and policing. What could possibly go wrong?
You do know who all that policing is being outsourced to don't you? (yes, G4S)
jay pettitt on 19/7/2012 at 17:36
Quote Posted by N'Al
Seriously, it's difficult to take you any way seriously when...
[video=youtube;2BvUGiG893U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BvUGiG893U[/video]
They have a song \o/
Nicker on 19/7/2012 at 18:18
That is just so wrong on so many levels. The painfully earnest furniture store vocals - the red, white and black swirling, abstract swastikas - the bloody stain oozing over the globe...
G4S may have my back but they can't stop me sticking these red hot knitting-needles in my ears.
heywood on 20/7/2012 at 07:49
I think the Olympics, the summer games in particular, have gotten too big to manage and you have to be a bit crazy to host the games. According to (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over_the_2008_Summer_Olympics) Wikipedia, it took £3 billion and 110000 police to cover Beijing alone in 2008, and China also had 1.4 million security
volunteers.
Unless you're China with unlimited resources and authoritarian power to throw at the endeavor, the cost pressure must be enormous. The market for hosting the games is very competitive and every city wants to put forward the most attractive bid they can afford. Organizers have to estimate the costs of things they've never done before and they can't be conservative if they want the most competitive bid. So they accept huge cost risk and then struggle to contain cost and maintain a positive ROI. And unlike typical big government contracts and public works projects, they actually have to deliver by a hard deadline.
Also, some cock-ups are to be expected just due to lack of experience. The Olympics haven't come to town since 1948, and preparing for and hosting the Olympics is not a vocation where a set of experienced workers follow the Olympics around to a new location every two years. Every host country wants to employ their own workers. So aside from the governing bodies and some select professionals, everybody is doing it for the first time every time.
june gloom on 21/7/2012 at 04:43
Heh, "volunteer" in China probably means "help or disappear."
Yakoob on 22/7/2012 at 00:29
Quote Posted by Sg3
I was a bit puzzled at the suggestions I've read here that companies aren't always trying to screw their workers. Then I realized that all of the people suggesting that must never have worked on the factory floor, fast food counter, or other low-paid "grunt" positions. At least, not in the last fifteen years.
In every such job I worked, we were expected to continually work faster, without being paid more. (In fact, compared to inflation and cost of living increases, we were continually being paid less.) "We need to increase our production and decrease our mistakes," we were told in one company meeting. (And by "our," of course, they meant "your.")
If that has been your experience in workplace every time, I feel really bad for you. There's definitely a lot of grueling and exploitative employers in every industry, I think that suggesting "companies [are] always trying to screw their workers" is an over-statement.
In my freelance web designing, I definitely had a fare share of clients who wanted me to make them a huge and flashy website for pennies, and would constantly come back complaining or throwing extra features at me that weren't in the spec, expecting free labor. But then contrast that with my current employer, who genuinely cares about me and looks at me as more of a team-member than just a resources to exploit, up to a point of agreeing for a very steep raise because I choose to live in more expensive LA rather than Arizona where they are located.
Except the independent film industry, where everyone just wants to bleed you dry in any way they potentially can or get 12 hours of free unpaid labor out of you with the biggest bullshit smile on their face.....
Sg3 on 22/7/2012 at 10:02
Quote Posted by Yakoob
If that has been your experience in workplace every time, I feel really bad for you.
Yes, and also that of everyone I know who has worked in such places. Your experience with web design is an altogether different one, because web design isn't a "low-paid grunt" position. Not like working on an assembly line or cheap restaurant kitchen.
You're right about my original statement being a bit of a generalization. Still, I think that the people who've posted in this thread to take the side of the corporations are being more than a bit naive. If they worked at some minimum-wage unskilled jobs for a few years, they might see things a bit differently.
