Chuck0 wrote:
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>> I don't get why this seems so implausible to Chuck. I don't think
>> there would be any problem producing and distributing "high" tech
>> in a socialist world. Here's my (personal) take on this: when my
>> daughter was born, her kidneys didn't function. She was in
>> intensive care for six weeks. Most of the equipment that kept her
>> alive--the ventilator, the IV tubes, the peritoneal dialysis
>> equipment--was made out of plastic. She is now a happy 13-year
>> old girl who watches (too much?) Court TV and wants to get A's
>> in junior high so she can be a lawyer when she grows up.
>>
>> If you said to me, look, you can do a shift a week in the
>> plastics factory to produce the equipment that saved your
>> daughter, or we can shut down the factory and other infants
>> with kidney problems will die, you wouldn't need to strong
>> arm me. I'd be there. So would everyone else in my family.
>>
>> Why is it so hard to believe that people will want to do things
>> for the common good, especially when they see the positive
>> results in their own lives? Is our conception of human
>> nature so stunted by the capitalist ideology of self-interested
>> individuals that leftists can't imagine how people would
>> be happy and willing to work for the benefit of one another?
>
>
> This doesn't seem implausible at all to me. I think that people with
> health problems and other basic needs will have lots of motivation to do
> the things required to maintain the stuff for their health needs. And I
> think that family, friends, and unrelated people would be willing to
> help out. I'd be willing to spend a few hours a week doing things to
> make sure that my neighbors have things for their health needs (as long
> as that is for people who haven't made lifestyle choices, such as
> smoking, which have ruined their health).
>
> On the other hand, this kind of decentralized mutual aid is NOT going to
> translate into a society of people spending their lives in factories--no
> matter how nicely they are run--to keep some kind of Western consumer
> lifestyle going. I view human nature as being pretty positive, but I
> maintain that free humans aren't going to engage in the kinds of
> sacrifice to keep post-industrial capitalism going like much of the left
> thinks they will.
>
> Chuck0
Have a look at what really happens when capitalism fails and factories close. -joan
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20030730-1330-factorytakeovers.html In Argentina's economic hard times, workers take over idled factories
By Alan Clendenning ASSOCIATED PRESS 1:30 p.m., July 30, 2003
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – When Cristalux SA went out of business three years ago, some 300 workers lost their jobs producing glassware strong enough to be hurled against a wall without breaking.
Vandals destroyed assembly line machinery in the company's abandoned factory, huge glassmaking ovens were carted away and rain started leaking through the roof.
But after the country's economy entered a Great Depression-style slump and no buyers emerged for the plant, a group of former employees joined a trend taking hold in Argentina by forming a cooperative and starting production again at their old workplace.
The Cristalux workers figured they had nothing to lose. Job opportunities evaporated after Argentina's economy fell apart in 2001 and contracted 11 percent last year, leaving one out of every six Argentines unemployed and more than half the country in poverty.
Across this nation of 37 million, at least 10,000 laid off workers have reopened their bosses' failed businesses over the last two years.
"They're not getting rich, but they are starting to make enough money to get by," said Hector Garay, who leads an association that advises 22 reopened cooperative businesses employing 2,000 workers.
The government has helped the worker-run companies by passing a law giving employees the right to control the bankrupt businesses through cooperatives or state ownership.
Argentine workers now running the enterprises are churning out products as diverse as toilet paper, umbrellas and auto parts. One cooperative took over a bankrupt slaughterhouse; another reopened a debt-laden pizzeria.
The glass workers had no functioning modern equipment in the wrecked factory, but decided to start from scratch making everyday glass plates, bowls and water cups used by most blue-collar Argentine families. The company's former sales manager helped design the products and line up clients.................
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