The problem of foreign aid is not remotely limited to US foreign aid or even to government foreign aid. The capacity of any purchaser of any mineral to affect the wages of those mining the mineral is way more limited than folk seem to imagine. The employer has a much bigger say, but even with the best will in the world, it is hard to pay…
The problem of foreign aid is not remotely limited to US foreign aid or even to government foreign aid. The capacity of any purchaser of any mineral to affect the wages of those mining the mineral is way more limited than folk seem to imagine. The employer has a much bigger say, but even with the best will in the world, it is hard to pay folk much above their productivity as a persistent pattern and stay in business. Miners in Western countries are paid way more because they, and the institutions they are embedded in, are way more productive, not because some benefactor transfers resources to them.
The reason why Musk and other billionaires employ both child and adult slaves is because that is the only way for them to become and stay billionaires. It's just pure evil. The entire monetary system that allows there to be billionaires and slaves at the same time is just evil.
You do realise you are talking to an Australian? Much of our exports consist of highly paid miners digging stuff out of the ground and exporting it around the world. They are highly paid because their skills, and the institutions they are embedded in, means they are highly productive.
The notion that poorly paid workers is necessary for great wealth is nonsense on stilts. The concentration of billionaires is highest where the numbers of highly workers are greatest. (China and India have lots of poor people but they also have middle classes that number in the hundreds of millions.) You need to sell at a massive scale to create such wealth, which means lots of consumers able to buy such products.
You're not understanding my point. There is no reason for a billionaire to employ child slaves.
Also, India's middle classes are not comparable to Australia's. The standards of living are so completely different. A comparable middle class Australian family simply would not be able to live with the standards that a typical middle class Indian family does. The only perk is that the Australian middle class family in India would be able to afford domestic helpers there whereas in Australia they wouldn't, but the rest would be almost unbearable. By the time the standard got bearable/comfortable they would be in the class of what in India is considered rich.
If your point is that child slavery is wrong, well of course. But buying the products produced by child slaves and employing them are not the same. Even trying to arrange a boycott of such would be difficult, as cobalt is cobalt, whoever and however it is mined.
And the question is not whether the Indian middle class has the same standard of living of the Australian middle class, but whether they generate demand for goods and services at scale, which they do.
"The notion that poorly paid workers is necessary for great wealth is nonsense on stilts."
--- Capitalism depends on a perpetual underclass.
"The concentration of billionaires is highest where the numbers of highly workers are greatest."
--- Billionaires are multi-nationals. They don't belong to one place and their money certainly isn't tied to anyone country and it's tax system.
"And the question is not whether the Indian middle class has the same standard of living of the Australian middle class, but whether they generate demand for goods and services at scale, which they do."
--- Unfortunately they are starting to. But it's still pretty much concentrated to the upper middle class, which is essentially the wealthy class, in India.
As far as Elon Musk and his child slave operations in cobalt Congo, you can do the research. Cobalt is "at scale" the world over. It's in high demand all the time, found in many of the products and items we all use daily, and the multi-trillion dollar industry can certainly afford to pay it's miners a minimum of 100 US dollars per hour. Minimum.
Your first claim is just obviously false. Mass access to global markets has seen the greatest fall in poverty in human history. Mercantile societies created the first mass prosperity in human history.
Where billionaires live does actually tell us a great deal about which societies produce billionaires. Nor are they billionaires because of tax systems.
Wages vary enormously because how productive mines are per worker vary enormously. You can only pay miners first world rates if they have first world levels of productivity: which is a combination of their skills and the institutional structure of where the mines are.
Multinationals in developing countries typically pay higher wages with better conditions than do local firms because they sell into global markets, use better production and management techniques and can mobilise economies of scale.
Musk gets way more criticism than he used to because he allows X/Twitter to support dissenting views. This is so shameless than Tesla’s DEI scores abruptly worsened after his purchase of X/Twitter.
If Musk does not own the mining companies, they are not “his” slaves. In fact, the mining companies are mostly owned by Chinese companies. China has form when it comes to forced labour: ask the Uighurs.
"Your first claim is just obviously false. Mass access to global markets has seen the greatest fall in poverty in human history. Mercantile societies created the first mass prosperity in human history."
--- Well, mercantalism and capitalism are not the same thing. That said, access to global markets, fall in poverty AND capitalism's perpetual dependence on an underclass can all exist simultaneously. It's not either/or in this case but both/and. Though I do question the claim in the greatest fall in poverty in human history. This is still debated and not established as an irrefutable fact.
"Where billionaires live does actually tell us a great deal about which societies produce billionaires. Nor are they billionaires because of tax systems."
--- They live all over the place. It doesn't tell us about societies but about a worldwide economic system, capitalism.
"Wages vary enormously because how productive mines are per worker vary enormously... first world levels of productivity... Multinationals in developing countries typically pay higher wages..."
--- Not high enough. The child miners are living in poverty despite doing some of the world's most difficult work.
"Musk gets way more criticism than he used to because he allows X/Twitter to support dissenting views."
--- He blocks and cancels his critcs on X. Even Lemon's benign softball interview was blocked and cancelled from his platform.
:If Musk does not own the mining companies, they are not “his” slaves. In fact, the mining companies are mostly owned by Chinese companies. "
--- Then what are they waiting for? Both China and Musk have enough money to lift these child slaves and their entire families out of poverty. No excuses.
They are shameful. Their greed is pure evil.
Child slaves should not be mining for China, Musk or anybody. This is work that should be, and actually CAN be fully automated by now. The reason it's not is because it would disrupt greedy capitaist gains since humans make the best robots, the only bottleneck is manufacturing time, but not an issue since the production line is a billion+ "assemblers". Why have metal robots, high cost to manufacture, high energy costs, high maintenance, very very very high programming costs and exacting standards that might be nigh impossible to reach, high disposal costs, and unknown LoE. Humans are born from two cells and are 100% biodegradable with iterative programming they pay for and most importantly, errant logic loops dont fry the CPU.
Humans are not needed to do this type of labor anymore, but the cost of robotic labor would cut into the "income" of billionaires at the top.
Mercantilism is a policy approach. Capitalism is a silly, albeit popular, term for mercantile or commercial society.
Slavery, including child slavery, has been ubiquitous in human history, especially African history. The Western mercantile societies, led by Britain produced the only successful large scale campaigns against slavery. The Communist states re-instituted slavery through their labour camp systems.
No, the greatest lifting out of poverty in history is not in serious dispute, it is quite clear in the figures. Commercial societies produced the first mass prosperity in history. The CCP had to accept the re-instituting of mass commerce to break out of mass poverty.
Never said Elon Musk’s record is perfect. I find his suppression of open Substack links vastly irritating. Nevertheless, the enmity he attracts for allowing a wider range of views is obvious.
The underclass is largely useless for commerce, being neither good labour nor significant consumers. Hence them being such a small proportion of the populace in commercial societies. Indeed, their size and persistence has much more to do with dysfunctional state policies than anything else.
I go back to Australia having very highly paid miners and being very competitive. Child slave problems are about state dysfunction, not mass commerce.
"Slavery, including child slavery, has been ubiquitous in human history, especially African history. "
--- And? It's 2024. There is no excuse for slavery and poverty anymore. The fact that both exist shows exactly how evil this world is and how evil the billion to trillion dollar industries that use them are.
"No, the greatest lifting out of poverty in history is not in serious dispute, it is quite clear in the figures."
--- It is in clear dispute.
"Commercial societies produced the first mass prosperity in history. "
--- It produced mass poverty alongside prosperity for some.
"The CCP had to accept the re-instituting of mass commerce to break out of mass poverty."
--- The Chinese are majority poor.
"Never said Elon Musk’s record is perfect. I find his suppression of open Substack links vastly irritating. Nevertheless, the enmity he attracts for allowing a wider range of views is obvious."
--- What does that have to do with his use of child slaves in cobalt mines? So he allows people to use the n-word on X. Whoopity do! Muh freedom of speech! There are real issues out here like slavery in 2024.
"The underclass is largely useless for commerce, being neither good labour nor significant consumers... I go back to Australia having very highly paid miners and being very competitive. Child slave problems are about state dysfunction, not mass commerce."
--- Wrong. We are living in a digitized, globalized, stateless capitalist economy. And that economy depends on slaves.
Classic example of a leftist lost in their subjective-emotive confirmation biases (echo chamber) and hatred of the middle classes on systematic, objective thought. Your cherry picking of data to fit your narrative is absurd.
The problem of foreign aid is not remotely limited to US foreign aid or even to government foreign aid. The capacity of any purchaser of any mineral to affect the wages of those mining the mineral is way more limited than folk seem to imagine. The employer has a much bigger say, but even with the best will in the world, it is hard to pay folk much above their productivity as a persistent pattern and stay in business. Miners in Western countries are paid way more because they, and the institutions they are embedded in, are way more productive, not because some benefactor transfers resources to them.
The reason why Musk and other billionaires employ both child and adult slaves is because that is the only way for them to become and stay billionaires. It's just pure evil. The entire monetary system that allows there to be billionaires and slaves at the same time is just evil.
You do realise you are talking to an Australian? Much of our exports consist of highly paid miners digging stuff out of the ground and exporting it around the world. They are highly paid because their skills, and the institutions they are embedded in, means they are highly productive.
The notion that poorly paid workers is necessary for great wealth is nonsense on stilts. The concentration of billionaires is highest where the numbers of highly workers are greatest. (China and India have lots of poor people but they also have middle classes that number in the hundreds of millions.) You need to sell at a massive scale to create such wealth, which means lots of consumers able to buy such products.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires
You're not understanding my point. There is no reason for a billionaire to employ child slaves.
Also, India's middle classes are not comparable to Australia's. The standards of living are so completely different. A comparable middle class Australian family simply would not be able to live with the standards that a typical middle class Indian family does. The only perk is that the Australian middle class family in India would be able to afford domestic helpers there whereas in Australia they wouldn't, but the rest would be almost unbearable. By the time the standard got bearable/comfortable they would be in the class of what in India is considered rich.
If your point is that child slavery is wrong, well of course. But buying the products produced by child slaves and employing them are not the same. Even trying to arrange a boycott of such would be difficult, as cobalt is cobalt, whoever and however it is mined.
And the question is not whether the Indian middle class has the same standard of living of the Australian middle class, but whether they generate demand for goods and services at scale, which they do.
"The notion that poorly paid workers is necessary for great wealth is nonsense on stilts."
--- Capitalism depends on a perpetual underclass.
"The concentration of billionaires is highest where the numbers of highly workers are greatest."
--- Billionaires are multi-nationals. They don't belong to one place and their money certainly isn't tied to anyone country and it's tax system.
"And the question is not whether the Indian middle class has the same standard of living of the Australian middle class, but whether they generate demand for goods and services at scale, which they do."
--- Unfortunately they are starting to. But it's still pretty much concentrated to the upper middle class, which is essentially the wealthy class, in India.
As far as Elon Musk and his child slave operations in cobalt Congo, you can do the research. Cobalt is "at scale" the world over. It's in high demand all the time, found in many of the products and items we all use daily, and the multi-trillion dollar industry can certainly afford to pay it's miners a minimum of 100 US dollars per hour. Minimum.
Your first claim is just obviously false. Mass access to global markets has seen the greatest fall in poverty in human history. Mercantile societies created the first mass prosperity in human history.
Where billionaires live does actually tell us a great deal about which societies produce billionaires. Nor are they billionaires because of tax systems.
Wages vary enormously because how productive mines are per worker vary enormously. You can only pay miners first world rates if they have first world levels of productivity: which is a combination of their skills and the institutional structure of where the mines are.
Multinationals in developing countries typically pay higher wages with better conditions than do local firms because they sell into global markets, use better production and management techniques and can mobilise economies of scale.
Musk gets way more criticism than he used to because he allows X/Twitter to support dissenting views. This is so shameless than Tesla’s DEI scores abruptly worsened after his purchase of X/Twitter.
If Musk does not own the mining companies, they are not “his” slaves. In fact, the mining companies are mostly owned by Chinese companies. China has form when it comes to forced labour: ask the Uighurs.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara
"Your first claim is just obviously false. Mass access to global markets has seen the greatest fall in poverty in human history. Mercantile societies created the first mass prosperity in human history."
--- Well, mercantalism and capitalism are not the same thing. That said, access to global markets, fall in poverty AND capitalism's perpetual dependence on an underclass can all exist simultaneously. It's not either/or in this case but both/and. Though I do question the claim in the greatest fall in poverty in human history. This is still debated and not established as an irrefutable fact.
"Where billionaires live does actually tell us a great deal about which societies produce billionaires. Nor are they billionaires because of tax systems."
--- They live all over the place. It doesn't tell us about societies but about a worldwide economic system, capitalism.
"Wages vary enormously because how productive mines are per worker vary enormously... first world levels of productivity... Multinationals in developing countries typically pay higher wages..."
--- Not high enough. The child miners are living in poverty despite doing some of the world's most difficult work.
"Musk gets way more criticism than he used to because he allows X/Twitter to support dissenting views."
--- He blocks and cancels his critcs on X. Even Lemon's benign softball interview was blocked and cancelled from his platform.
:If Musk does not own the mining companies, they are not “his” slaves. In fact, the mining companies are mostly owned by Chinese companies. "
--- Then what are they waiting for? Both China and Musk have enough money to lift these child slaves and their entire families out of poverty. No excuses.
They are shameful. Their greed is pure evil.
Child slaves should not be mining for China, Musk or anybody. This is work that should be, and actually CAN be fully automated by now. The reason it's not is because it would disrupt greedy capitaist gains since humans make the best robots, the only bottleneck is manufacturing time, but not an issue since the production line is a billion+ "assemblers". Why have metal robots, high cost to manufacture, high energy costs, high maintenance, very very very high programming costs and exacting standards that might be nigh impossible to reach, high disposal costs, and unknown LoE. Humans are born from two cells and are 100% biodegradable with iterative programming they pay for and most importantly, errant logic loops dont fry the CPU.
Humans are not needed to do this type of labor anymore, but the cost of robotic labor would cut into the "income" of billionaires at the top.
What a sick, depraved, immoral system.
Mercantilism is a policy approach. Capitalism is a silly, albeit popular, term for mercantile or commercial society.
Slavery, including child slavery, has been ubiquitous in human history, especially African history. The Western mercantile societies, led by Britain produced the only successful large scale campaigns against slavery. The Communist states re-instituted slavery through their labour camp systems.
No, the greatest lifting out of poverty in history is not in serious dispute, it is quite clear in the figures. Commercial societies produced the first mass prosperity in history. The CCP had to accept the re-instituting of mass commerce to break out of mass poverty.
Never said Elon Musk’s record is perfect. I find his suppression of open Substack links vastly irritating. Nevertheless, the enmity he attracts for allowing a wider range of views is obvious.
The underclass is largely useless for commerce, being neither good labour nor significant consumers. Hence them being such a small proportion of the populace in commercial societies. Indeed, their size and persistence has much more to do with dysfunctional state policies than anything else.
I go back to Australia having very highly paid miners and being very competitive. Child slave problems are about state dysfunction, not mass commerce.
"Slavery, including child slavery, has been ubiquitous in human history, especially African history. "
--- And? It's 2024. There is no excuse for slavery and poverty anymore. The fact that both exist shows exactly how evil this world is and how evil the billion to trillion dollar industries that use them are.
"No, the greatest lifting out of poverty in history is not in serious dispute, it is quite clear in the figures."
--- It is in clear dispute.
"Commercial societies produced the first mass prosperity in history. "
--- It produced mass poverty alongside prosperity for some.
"The CCP had to accept the re-instituting of mass commerce to break out of mass poverty."
--- The Chinese are majority poor.
"Never said Elon Musk’s record is perfect. I find his suppression of open Substack links vastly irritating. Nevertheless, the enmity he attracts for allowing a wider range of views is obvious."
--- What does that have to do with his use of child slaves in cobalt mines? So he allows people to use the n-word on X. Whoopity do! Muh freedom of speech! There are real issues out here like slavery in 2024.
"The underclass is largely useless for commerce, being neither good labour nor significant consumers... I go back to Australia having very highly paid miners and being very competitive. Child slave problems are about state dysfunction, not mass commerce."
--- Wrong. We are living in a digitized, globalized, stateless capitalist economy. And that economy depends on slaves.
Classic example of a leftist lost in their subjective-emotive confirmation biases (echo chamber) and hatred of the middle classes on systematic, objective thought. Your cherry picking of data to fit your narrative is absurd.