| the2real4mafol said: You make a very clear case but I somehow feel the exploited generations of workers in the industrial revolution can't be brushed aside so easily. Thats one of the main areas socialists concern themselves with. But the thing is, these people were heavily exploited and despite how great you claim a free market to be, most workers couldn't escape exploitation otherwise they would of starved. It took a long time for the poorest to have any benefit from the new industry at all. In the mean time, most workers were abused and beaten by their boses to put fear into them to prevent collective bargaining in unions. They were overworked into an early grave and work and live in the worst conditions. I guess free markets allow for that, but is it really acceptable? I don't think it is. There will be always be a financial divide, I admit that but my problem is that why should someone become homeless because the person giving the jobs at their factory for example is being stingy and would rather pocket the profit for themselves rather than pay their workers properly and maybe hire more (and take a small but healthy profit)? In a modern context, neo-liberalism has allowed such problems as said above to happen on a global scale by outsourcing industry. To be honest, the big brands could make their goods anywhere they like but no they have to exploit cheap labour! Even though they would profit in an industrialised country anyway. Not as much but still, just shows how greedy it is But it's the same in every country that has or is going through industrialisation. Workers are treated like crap and paid like it's almost slavery rather than work. The environment is neglected big time and so on. From what i've learnt in history, free markets are just like car salesman. You just can't trust them. Unfortunately, government is no better. I spose it's not talked about much, but property rights are as abused as worker rights really. Anyway, I would like to see what you described as actually working. But i'm not sure if there is any cases of such of thing working like that |
We must recall the conditions before industrialism, though. Were these people less or more likely to starve under industry or before industry? Was destitution greater before or during the industrial revolution? You (and the socialists of that time) speak of poverty as if it were something new to the world brought into the world with feudal lords and then catalyzed by the bourgeois. The natural state of man is destitution. It is only through maximum production that man can quickly change that nature. This is precisely why the industrial revolution led to huge growths in population. People were able to take care of themselves and live longer, not less. Socialism doesn't get rid of exploitation, either. It just replaces the exploiters with different ones. Again, the great socialist question: who, whom?
Free markets do not allow for beating people. That is a form of aggression and if the person who is beaten doesn't act in self-defense because he is too weak then either government or a private law enforcement organization (depending on whether or not you believe government should exist) will deal with this aggression. In the industrial revolution, government ignored the use of force and aggression, which made it essentially useless and that would've been where political power and action should have concentrated, having government interfere when force was used. This would mean to either have government enforce the law, or to remove it entirely so that private entities could. If people are beaten that is a failure of government, not the market.
In a free-market it is risky to have employees who cannot take care of themselves. With further specialization, as we see today, it is even more risky. You forget, the industrialist needs his workers just as much as his workers need him. Without healthy, mentally stable, and fit workers -- productivity declines, and the total revenue he recieves personally declines (assuming he is greedy.) So it is for his own personal gain that he would take care of his workers (if he is able to do so, while still maximizing profits for the company as a whole.) We saw this with Ford, who turned his producers into his consumers with high productivity decreasing prices, and higher wages all working to increase demand. Both supply and demand grew, and new product was created, reducing total destitution. Despite what socialists might believe, labor is a commodity, and like everything else it has an equilibrium price. If the person selling his or her labor does not like the price he or she gets, then he or she will try a different occupation or not work for that employer. This is an incentive for the employer, who needs workers, to pay them the equilibrium price.
