To think that capitalism is shit?

[malificent7]

Just reading about the clothing sweat shops in Leister where sewing machinists are paid as little as 4.50 an hour and packers £3 an hour. Meanwhile the owner of Boohoo is a billionaire. Plus fast fashion is highly polluting.
This is just one industry. How come so many of us are willing to work for rich capitaliats while we scrape by?
Capitalism is shit isn't it?

Wonder if a capitalism hating, virtue signalling leftie has a come back for this. Surely not.
What a ridiculous post.
As others have observed, it's not one thing or the other.
Unfettered capitalism or communism is shite.
Wanting to prevent the worst excesses of capitalism doesn't make me a "capitalism hating, virtue signalling leftie" but if it makes you feel better to chuck daft epithets about rather than address actual issues then enjoy your Daily Mail island world.

In addition, I don't think we have capitalism at the moment, where people are rewarded for risking capital.

I disagree.

It's just not their capital they risk.

You whose husband joined the Communist Party
Wow .

Years ago he would be locked up and rightly so .
Its the Communists tearing down statues, inciting violence you Red.

I suggest everyone pining for a communist future goes and reads up on China under Mao.

Capitalism isn't great, but a well-run democracy should be able to contain the worst excesses. Communism is never democratic at the country scale, and you end up with labour camps, thought crimes and other delights.

Of course the Boohoo top team know about the sweatshops. It's the entire basis of the business. Good on the Sunday Times exposing this. I'd say the local politicians knew too but were too chicken to do anything about it.

So why is it only Boohoo I'm seeing talked about all over the news, and on this thread and others like it? Why isn't anyone talking about the local politicians whose job it is to know what's going on in their wards and their constituencies? If the local politicians did know, but did nothing, why isn't the Sunday Times exposing that too?

*Nothing to do with customers not wanting to pay proper prices, eh.

Newsflash. If people want dresses for a fiver, obviously the worker's conditions will be shit. Same with a chicken sandwich for a pound 🤷🏻

Customers are in fault in here too.*

It is not that simple.

The assumption that if people were willing to pay more for clothes the money would feed down to people making them seems like common sense, but it just doesn't work. Luxury goods market is a stark example that the big fish simply do not want to pay their workers and higher prices do not equal better pay/conditions for workers. I read somewhere that for luxury goods and perfumes the average margin is around 80%.

I do not believe that Boohoo owners did not know what was going on in those factories, I also do not believe that the employees would have seen fair wages if their clothes were more expensive.

I grew up in the most communist country of them all behind the iron curtain and I can say with conviction: Capitalism is shit.

Yes, communism was not all rosy. No public freedom of speech, censored books, state-controlled media, often shit housing, food shortages, etc. But: nobody starved, children were taken care of - free or nearly free daycare, excellent education standards, loads of dirt-cheap extracurricular activities delivered to a high standard, free higher education with students being housed for free and paid a stipend, free medical care, etc. Women as a rule had jobs and financial independence (not a single housewife in my family for four generations)! Yes, there were problems even in good areas such as medical care and education, but these are not unique to communist countries.

My life was that of a completely average family in a completely average provincial town. Not a diplomat in sight. I had my share of queues, grim housing, bad roads and vitamin deficiency. But never did me or anyone in my family had to fear hunger or homelessness or unemployment. The industry also did not manufacture tons of shit that nobody needs and that destroys the planet (e.g. ugly £5 dresses). My family members worked in meaningful jobs that clearly contributed to society and not for companies that peddled the aforementioned shit that nobody needs.

Consider this simple fact (and yes, I am aware of stalinist repressions and the horrors of collectivisation): In 1917 the overwhelming majority of people in what was to become the USSR were illiterate. Not just uneducated. Illiterate. Then compare this with the economic and social development of the same 30 years later in 1947. It has now been 30 years since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. What have these 30 years of capitalism delivered in terms of economic and social development?

And who knows how different things could have been if it were not for the cold war.

Right now, I find myself in the West resisting capitalism just as my parents were resisting the grimmer aspects of communism in their youth.

We are conditioned to think that success means money and the more money we have the more we can buy. And the happier we'll be. It's a vicious circle.

A socialist society is just a dream which will never happen.

People are selfish and greedy and that will never change.

Depressing but true.

The industry also did not manufacture tons of shit that nobody needs and that destroys the planet (e.g. ugly £5 dresses)

Maybe not but industry certainly in East Germany was an enviromental disaster with appalling pollution.
Also you make the point of Stalin’s wonderful achievements in wiping out illiteracy.
Well maybe all the peasants he wiped out in famines would’ve preferred to be sliced albeit illiterate.
I’m sure there are things from the Third Reich that could be praised but they certainly don’t begin to make up for all the atrocities.

‘alive’ not ‘sliced’

I'd love to know what alternative you'd suggest OP.

Hopeforall, environmental disasters are not unique to Soviet countries. Have you been to the Niger delta recently? Seen the stats on premature deaths attributable to air pollution in the UK? Deepwater Horizon?

The fate of peasants that you say Stalin wiped out is less than clear-cut. I suggest you do some reading on the peasant life in Russia under the tzars. Things like life expectancy, child mortality, etc. Again, I am not saying Stalin is all great. But let's not pretend that capitalist systems do not kill people on a mass scale (transatlantic slave trade, anyone?).

This whole 'well i lived in a communist country and bla bla' thing is just nonsense though isnt it? they lived in societies that came straight out of peasant societies and war to become some of the most developed around. The whole point of communism (much as I dislike it) is that capitalism has to develop first. Its no use pointing at post civil war russia or post war eastern europe and saying 'thats communism', because by definition it isnt.

We've had an alternative in this country. The 1945 socialist government was also the UK's most succesful government.

@Hingeandbracket

Wonder if a capitalism hating, virtue signalling leftie has a come back for this. Surely not. What a ridiculous post. As others have observed, it's not one thing or the other. Unfettered capitalism or communism is shite. Wanting to prevent the worst excesses of capitalism doesn't make me a "capitalism hating, virtue signalling leftie" but if it makes you feel better to chuck daft epithets about rather than address actual issues then enjoy your Daily Mail island world.

Right on cue, so predictable.

@user1471565182

This whole 'well i lived in a communist country and bla bla' thing is just nonsense though isnt it? they lived in societies that came straight out of peasant societies and war to become some of the most developed around. The whole point of communism (much as I dislike it) is that capitalism has to develop first. Its no use pointing at post civil war russia or post war eastern europe and saying 'thats communism', because by definition it isnt.

Yep people’s lived experiences of a system are nonsense. We should listen to student politics and six form debate room arguments to form out political system.

Seen the stats on premature deaths attributable to air pollution in the UK
Is air pollution in UK as bad as industrial parts of the former GDR?

Again, I am not saying Stalin is all great
Would you think it reasonable if people pointed out benefits of Hitler?

Just proven my point there really, havnt you.

That cold war 'victory' is starting to look very hollow now indeed.

Hopeforall, maybe you should ask yourself about Hitler. I do not understand why you are forcing me to compare Stalin to Hitler. Would it make sense that I ask you to compare Trump to Hitler? Of Boris Johnson? Or Teresa May? Or G W Bush? Would you find it reasonable to point out the "benefits of Hitler" if you see the benefits in the capitalism system that is supported by Trump? What exactly is the point?

And I do believe that focusing the blame for a particular set of atrocities on one individual is a mistake. Neither Stalin nor Hitler or Trump or Bush or May or King Leopold of Belgium were single-handedly responsible for the atrocities that happened when they were in power. The analysis needs to be systemic and structural. Focusing on a single bad guy is red herring. Neither Stalin nor Hitler descended from heaven and single-handedly imposed their evil will on a completely innocent and unsuspecting population.

hopeforall I was talking about the economic benefits of nazism with somebody yesterday. People can do that you know, talk about these things removed from the hysterics.

I agree I'm anti capitalist. I think often people confuse capitalism with having consumer goods and leisure activities. I'm not sure what system would work. Some people do say we could have luxury communism. So wouldn't really change availability of goods just ownership etc. I'm not sure if that would work or how we could transition from profit to something else.

But actually I think the bigger issues with capitalism are the non consumer goods stuff. So : housing, the markets including non high St banking, privatisation of vital services and pharmaceuticals for example.

The thing is it is working as a system for people with lots of money and companies with political influence. So not sure where the imputus to change would gone from?

And as for the environment - it must really be the evil communists who are currently logging the rainforest, bleaching the Barrier Reef, sending tons of toxic waste for dubious recycling in the South-East Asia, digging dirty gold mines in Africa, evicting indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands in South America and creating whole trash islands in the oceans.

I live in Manchester, the home of fake goods these factories/sweatshops are rampant here too. The fake goods aren't all imported, many of my Asian friends mums would sew day & night & get paid for piece work, so 10p for each pair of trousers.

This industry isn't exclusive to Leicester or Boohoo it goes far beyond that. As well as Asian families, many immigrants, and anyone who can sew, do this work to earn a few extra pounds, in my area the material is dropped off at the house & collected as soon as your done. There's no way the authorities don't know this exists and has done for years.