ImJustBayuum said:
@bolded There is and always will be a differential market.Why? Because there is something called VALUE. Value is not just about quality labour. For example, Low valued, overpaid labour can still produce products that sells at a premium because a lot of customers see value in them, and still make more profit than selling at low cost. Their quality may not be premium, but their prices certainly are. These companies set their prices according to maximum value instead of the old price setting "cost + mark-up" where the lower the cost the higher the profit. Consumers are not naive to base their buying decisions on cost only, even in this tough economic environment. Is it wrong to challenge these bigwigs to seek more value, innovative products instead of just slashing labour or attacking the minimum wage legislations. |
Yes, yes it is wrong, because they are doing that. It just doesn't always succeed and is hard to do.
The differential market practically doesn't exist because there aren't enough people in it anymore.
Let me ask you a question, have you ever tried to buy American?
Shit ain't made in america anymore because the companies that DID make american made products have all basically gone out of buinsess... If you were trying to buy american you'd know that as you see the brands go out of buisness and the buy american websites getting sparser and sparser in content.
It's not that companies "didn't want" to do it. The market just isn't there.
While people talk a good game, and are willing to hold up some signs.... nobody is willing to make any real sacrifices to achieve their goals.
If you want to pay your workers high wages and give them good plans you HAVE to be better then everyone.... and not in perceived value but in ACTUAL value.
Hell, look at the History of Ben and Jerry's... still leftwing in message, but their workplace treatment numbers have STEADILY declined because despite having some amazing icecream, people are less and less willing to pay for it... and no amount of new flavors is changing that.
That's why Ben had to sell out to a big corporation. (Or was it jerry, i forget, one of them i believe left before.)
Your dead wrong when you say the oppurtunity is out there... because the corporations DID try and had been for a long time, then somewhere in the middle of the Clinton presidency these products just disapeared, and if you hadn't noticed, it was right about the same time people were talking about how big wal-mart was becoming and how wal-mart was killing mom and pop stores with it's low prices made from overseas products.
Except it wasn't Wal-mart killing them, or the american worker.
It was the American Consumer. If the differential market was big enough to be serviced it would be.
If not by a major corporations, then by niche corporations, they used to exist in huge numbers producing american made good's in factories made by americans paid good wages, some still do, but very few.
They've all died off because that marketshare has died off.
I know, because I've actually tried to buy american before, and buy better valued products that let their workers live better lives. It's something I picked up from my dad, who won't even use the self checkout lines at Grocery stores and home depots because as he rightfully says "They steal jobs from cashiers."
Hell 9 times out of 10 he won't even use an ATM, or an ATM card for thse reasons.
His kind if few and far between though, and we're the worse for it.
Corporations live only to service the market and it's customers and make sales. Corporations, espiecally in this age where i can find out where nearly every product a company sells is made... are nothing more then a reflection on our society.
Corporations that are "evil", are largely evil because we WANT them to be. All the advantage of exploited labor but with the added benfit of getting to be upset about it, because we can blame the evil corporations without taking any stock about what we actually buy and how it effects the ecosystem.
I mean how many people complain about evil corporations but use an Iphone that was made in a factory in China where people are forced to work 16 hour shifts (including children), and crammed into rooms on cots in the dozens to sleep acting practically like slaves?
Actions speak louder then words, and in reality... protests are nothing but words.
