Tresy Kilbourne wrote:

>I said he wasn't a *shill* for capitalism. Nuance, nuance. Words matter.
>Also, as Noam reminds his listeners, the truth value of a statement does
>not depend on who's uttering it.

Provided we are speaking the same language. That is not the case here,
according to my dictionary "shill" is not a word.

>Paying lower wages and overworking your employees may be the only
>feasible short-term strategy for competing with larger businesses, but
>it's hardly efficient, any more than is redlining your 4-cylinder car to
>outrace a V-8.

Denends who's paying for the motors? You are right in the wider sense, but
the capitalist is not, cannot be concerned with the wider social costs,
only the bottom line.

Paying lower wages and overworking your employees would only have an
adverse effect on the bottom line if the labour market was not massively
skewed in favour of the buyers of labour. If unemployment were lower
employees would be in a position to demand better wages and conditions or
take up another job. That is not case for any but a few (and their days are
numbered) in today's world. So bad conditions are the most efficient
strategy, in fact the only VIABLE strategy in every way that counts.

Consider: if your competitor pays lower wages than you then his cost of
production is lower - he can then undercut your price - nobody buys your
brand so you must do the same or go out of business.

The logic is implacable, but in case you're not convinced by logic alone
just look around you - the proof is in the pudding.

>But on your larger point, I don't see where the
>disagreement is.

On the larger point (sentimentality over small business) there is no
disagreement, I said that. I was just quibbling over your generalisation
that big corps are more efficient. The logic behind this assertion is
reasonable, but is not the logic of capitalism.

As you pointed out to me when I made the same mistake on the issue of
intellectual property:

        "...if we live in a society governed by one set of (capitalist)
        rules, it's not unreasonable to expect those rules to be, shall
        we say, symbiotic, and within that framework, defensible."
        (4 Jun 1997)

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tasmania