The G8: What the hell is going on here?
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Serious Paul
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The G8: What the hell is going on here?
After reading a bunch of headlines like this, I want to know what is the G8 doing that makes 30,000 people want to get out on the streets? Can anyone help me?
Capitalism
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
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FlakJacket
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What always gets me is the whole protesting and security hoopla that they go through every year. The Germans have built a twenty million US dollar fence around the current meeting site and that's not taking into account any other costs like police overtime etc. Why not just hire a cruise ship or giga-yatch, surround it with a aircraft carrier battle group and then park them out in the middle of the Atlantic? Problem solved.
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Serious Paul
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Salvation122
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I know it's all cool according to the neo-classical economists, but personally, I think that our ever-gluttonous lifestyle demands higher quality products at the lowest price possible. This means that we put the pressure on the manufacturers to take shortcuts. I guess what bothers me is that with a slight increase of the price of our consumption, the conditions of the unfortunate brown people increases so dramatically, that I don't mind paying $5 extra for my shoes, or 20 cents extra for a hamburger, you know? I know there are a lot of people who would rather see markets work more purely, and without an intervention like that, but eventually, our shoes, which are now made in China, will be made by another country where worker rights and working conditions are shit, when China start to get some proper working conditions, because good working conditions means that our shoes become $5 more expensive. There's something perverse to that, in my opinion. To each his own, of course, but I can't get behind that, though I wouldn't know how to protest against that accurately or effectively.Salvation122 wrote:Working eighteen hour days in a factory for $2 an hour still beats the everliving hell out of subsistence farming.
Of course they were. Everyone can go live off the land, if they want. They're not in concentration camps (mostly).According to you and a bunch of other white people. It's not like those people were ever given a choice in the matter. That's the issue.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
No, actually. I have a problem with how high those prices are already. And since shoes, for instance, are already way above what I consider an ideal price, I'm not convinced that a $5 increase in price would actually be good for the impoverished people making them, even in the perfect-for-the-sake-of-argument case where they recieve it directly in the form of wages or benefits.I guess what bothers me is that with a slight increase of the price of our consumption, the conditions of the unfortunate brown people increases so dramatically, that I don't mind paying $5 extra for my shoes, or 20 cents extra for a hamburger, you know?
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
Well, you'd be right, of course, because there are no garuantees that those extra $5 will ever end up in the hands of poor and unfortunate brown people. In fact, it's most likely it won't. But that, to me, adds to the shittiness of the situation. And that shitty situation isn't because of globalisation, but globalisation was one of the things that lead us here, unfortunately.
I was thinking also because, if things are already overpriced (relative to my willingness to pay for them), then raising the price further necessarily decreases the amount people will buy. Which means fewer people working fewer hours to make them.Well, you'd be right, of course, because there are no garuantees that those extra $5 will ever end up in the hands of poor and unfortunate brown people.
That and once the price of their labour goes up, there's no particular reason for companies to employ them, since labour at higher prices was already probably availalble much nearer the destination of goods. After that it's back to subsistence farming, and with no choice in the matter.
It is, in a sense, the window that exposes us to shitty things. (And yet nobody protests at National Geographic magazine for poverty among its subjects.) I gather that the protesters are so angry with the system that shows them a shitty situation, and shows little interest in solving it - primarily because economic systems are not the sort of entities that can do things like "show interest" - through simplistic reasoning, like "if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem." The protesters, of course, are thus part of the problem.And that shitty situation isn't because of globalisation, but globalisation was one of the things that lead us here, unfortunately.
There is then a need to guard against a temptation to overstate the economic evils of our own age, and to ignore the existence of similar, or worse, evils in earlier ages. Even though some exaggeration may, for the time, stimulate others, as well as ourselves, to a more intense resolve that the present evils should no longer exist, but it is not less wrong and generally it is much more foolish to palter with truth for good than for a selfish cause. The pessimistic descriptions of our own age, combined with the romantic exaggeration of the happiness of past ages must tend to setting aside the methods of progress, the work of which, if slow, is yet solid, and lead to the hasty adoption of others of greater promise, but which resemble the potent medicines of a charlatan, and while quickly effecting a little good sow the seeds of widespread and lasting decay. This impatient insincerity is an evil only less great than the moral torpor which can endure, that we with our modern resources and knowledge should look contentedly at the continued destruction of all that is worth having. There is an evil and an extreme impatience as well as an extreme patience with social ills.
Well, since I know at least one person who's liable to be in Germany protesting right now (assuming he hasn't gotten his ass deported or jailed again), let me try to summarize his views:
He's pretty much there to protests corporations going into countries filled with poor brown people, employing them for $5 US a day, with just the barest of nods towards safety-standards or worker's rights. Which is part of what allows us to have the luxurious lives we have. Not necessarily a good point, mind you, but a point none-the-less.
Of course, the G8 summit attracts weirdoes like a black hole, so it's not /just/ anti-capitalist demonstrators there. There will be people protesting against every real or imagined problem with... anything, really. Iraq is a popular issue as well.
He's pretty much there to protests corporations going into countries filled with poor brown people, employing them for $5 US a day, with just the barest of nods towards safety-standards or worker's rights. Which is part of what allows us to have the luxurious lives we have. Not necessarily a good point, mind you, but a point none-the-less.
Of course, the G8 summit attracts weirdoes like a black hole, so it's not /just/ anti-capitalist demonstrators there. There will be people protesting against every real or imagined problem with... anything, really. Iraq is a popular issue as well.
Geneticists have established that all women share a common ancestor, called Eve, and that all men share a common ancestor, dubbed Adam. However, it has also been established that Adam was born 80.000 years after Eve. So, the world before him was one of heavy to industral strength lesbianism, one assumes.
-Stephen Fry, QI
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FlakJacket
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Yeah, but that's not really the corporations fault is it? It's the responsibility of the national government to pass employment or minimum wage laws if they want to. Not like all the local employers are treating their employees like kings whilst only the evil international ones treat them that way. And on the point of $5 US a day, for us certainly for us that would be slave labour but what's the average daily wage for that country? It's called the developing world for a reason. And it's not like anyone's holding a gun to their heads to make them take the job anyway.TLM wrote:He's pretty much there to protests corporations going into countries filled with poor brown people, employing them for $5 US a day, with just the barest of nods towards safety-standards or worker's rights. Which is part of what allows us to have the luxurious lives we have. Not necessarily a good point, mind you, but a point none-the-less.
Edit: I know that you're just paraphrasing your friend's beliefs TLM so I'm not really asking you for answers so much as everyone.
The 86 Rules of Boozing
75. Beer makes you mellow, champagne makes you silly, wine makes you dramatic, tequila makes you felonious.
75. Beer makes you mellow, champagne makes you silly, wine makes you dramatic, tequila makes you felonious.
My best guess is that it's an attempt to get the G8 to say "Bad! Naughty international corporations! No taxbreak!" Or something along those lines. I keep telling him that making them break out the riot police and ship in over a thousand more cops isn't going to work, but...
Geneticists have established that all women share a common ancestor, called Eve, and that all men share a common ancestor, dubbed Adam. However, it has also been established that Adam was born 80.000 years after Eve. So, the world before him was one of heavy to industral strength lesbianism, one assumes.
-Stephen Fry, QI
-Stephen Fry, QI
