In article <v1rJe.109925$Kp2.7738679@twister.southeast.rr.com>, Fester
<not@home.com> wrote:

"Sean C" <redhawk@burnspammersalive.com> wrote in message

To the extent possible, corporations, like governments, should be run
as democratically as possible, with workers either voting directly on
important issues or electing managers who will run the company on a
day-to-day basis. Why is democracy an appropriate system for running an
entity as complex and diverse as a large country, but not something as
comparatively simple as a corporation? Why should you have to check
your constitutional rights to freedom of expression, assembly or
religion at the door when you show up for work?

LOL! The reasons are quite simple. In a capitalist economy, a company
exists to make money! It is not the purpose of a corporation to
represent
the interests of it's employees, it is the purpose of a corporation act
in
the best interests of it's owners.

Capitalism starts with somebody anticipating a demand for some good or
service, and based upon that anticipation, someone invests money into
satisfying it, with the goal of making a profit. Before you buy an ear
of
corn, some farmer had to invest his money and labor into growing that
corn.
That farmer took a risk in the hope of making a profit. If he
anticipated
well, then somebody would indeed pay him more for that ear of corn than
it
cost him to produce. If he hires help at $5.00/hr, and realizes a profit
that is much more than he expected, he is under no obligation to pay his
helper more. Nor is he under any obligation to listen to his employee's
ideas on how to run a farm. He owns the means of production and he calls
the shots.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Now care to answer my question as
to *why* it should be this way, and why democracy is not a better
system for the mangement of businesses? Think about it. I think we can
agree that accountable democracy is a better system for government than
the totalitarian, top-down, centralized planning and lack of freedom of
the Soviet state. Why then is the corporation, with its totalitarian,
top-down centralized planning and lack of freedom a superior system
than accountable democracy for the running of large business entities?
The answer? It isn't.

Wal-Mart is known for abusing its market power to pay suppliers *less*
than the market value for their products, or mere pennies above cost.
Do a search for the $2.97 gallon jar of Vlassic pickles. Vlassic was
forced to deliver a gallon jar of pickles that could be sold for $2.97,
making only a few cents on each jar. Had they refused, a competitor
would have filled the gap, making its product more known, and thus more
desired, than Vlassic's. Complying, on the other hand, earned Vlassic
little money, and undercut the prices they could charge for their
products elsewhere, eventually forcing Vlassic into bankruptcy. Either
way they were fucked. If a corporation like Vlassic doesn't have the
power to negotiate better terms with Wal-Mart, how much less someone
with a high school education and few job propsects.

Wal-Mart is not a monopoly. Vlassic wasn't *forced* to sell at $2.97,
they
freely agreed to do so.

No, they are in fact forced by the ralities of competition to do so.

By
agreeing to sell a jar of pickles for $2.97, they prevent a competitor
from doing so and thus ensure that their product will be more widely
used and thus more widely demanded. That much is good. The problem is
that in the process Vlassic becomes a competitor against its own
products, which are sold at a higher price in supermarkets. Why pay
$2.97 for a pint jar of Vlassic pickles at the supermarket when you can
get a gallon at that price at Wal-Mart? The same logic would apply if
Vlassic allowed a competitor to sell that $2.97 jar of pickles. Why
would anyone pay $2.97 for a jar of Vlassic pickles at the supermarket
when you can buy a gallon of the competitor's brand at Wal-Mart for
$2.97. In short, Vlassic had a Hobson's choice to make and was damned
it if did and damned if it didn't.

Wal-mart used its power to make
Vlassic an "offer it couldn't refuse" and this is totally inconsistent
with a free market.

(And why the pity for Vlassic, another
non-Democratic, no-freedom-of-expression corporation?)

The fact that I think corporations should be reformed and businees run
in a more inclusive, democratic fashion does not mean I wish to see
businesses destroyed. I believe in an (essentially) free market,with
active participation in and checks and balances of from government,
labor and NGOs.

The same is true for
unskilled workers. They can sell their labor to other competitors. Or
better yet, they can acquire a skill, either while working at Wal-Mart,
at
another employer or at a school, and thus command a greater salary.

Few people can afford to go to school on Wal-Mart wages. Even if we
educated everyone, there simply aren't enough good-paying jobs to go
around, and some percentage of the population will have to work at
Wal-Mart, and another percentage will be unemployed.

The only thing
that changes is who gets to be a member of that population, and for how
long. The fact that people work for ***** wages in exploitive and
demanding jobs like at Wal-Mart is evidence that they *don't* have real
choices. Having a choice between Burger King and McDonalds as an
employer isn't a real choice.

Costco pays its senior check-out girls $40,000 a year and still makes a
healthy profit. Wal-Mart pays a max of $9 an hour in my area. I would
submit that perhaps the value of their workers' labor is perhaps a bit
higher than the omniscient "market" in it god-like infallibility
dictates.

First off, there is nothing infallible or "gawd-like" about the
marketplace.
As you noted, Vlassic showed it's falliblity and disappeared. Please
explain why anybody works at Wal-Mart. Could it be because they can't
make
more money working elsewhere? If they can make more elsewhere, then why
do
they work there? Does the fact that Costco pays its check-out girls
obligate Wal-Mart to do so?

That's exactly it. They work at Wal-Mart becasue they don't have a
choice. The available choices are just as bad or nearly as bad. So your
assewrtion that they can just go work somewhere else if they don't like
Wal-Mart, and thus have freedom, is patently false.

Nonsense. There are only a handful of professsions out there where the
skill set is such that an employer can't find someone, somewhere that
will work cheaper. Ever heard of off-shoring? There is no shortage of
plumbers, electricians or computer programmers in India who would be
happy to come here to work for far less than an American would. The
disparity in wages between Mexico and the US has lead to an exodus of
skilled workers from that country, but hasn't driven up wages in Mexico
to the point that most will feel compelled to stay and work at home. If
wages were driven by market forces, most jobs in Mexico would pay
enough to make it worthwhile not to cross the border into the US.
Serious economists have long recognized that wages are "sticky
downward" and often don't respond well to increases in demand for
labor.

Your example of off-shoring merely proves my point. Labor is cheaper in
Mexico, and so when NAFTA became law and the barriers to trade were
dropped
jobs flooded down to it (you know, Ross Perot's giant sucking sound).
The
reason that so many Mexicans cross the border into the US is because
there
are still many more workers than jobs in Mexico even with the migration
of
so much production to Mexico. As long as the number of workers far
exceeds
the number of jobs in Mexico the Mexican wages for unskilled labor will
not
rise. Labor, like any other commodity (including capital itself) is
governed by the interplay of supply and demand. In the US, we have an
artificially defined minimum wage, which means that unskilled Mexicans
can
make more her than they can there.

You missed the point entirely. Because of higher wages in the US, there
is a severe shortage of *skilled* laborers in Mexico.

There is *no*
shortage of unskilled labor. However, that shortage in supply has not
created an increase of wages such that more Mexicans will find it
desirable to remain and work at home, as laissez-faire enthusiasts
would assert.

Wages are sticky downward, and do not necessarily respond
well to to increases in demand, and tend to remain relatively stable
despite worker shortages. A good example is the fast food industry,
which has an enormous amount of turnover and consistent difficulty
attracting adequate numbers of workers, yet most fast food joints will
not pay wages sufficient enough to attract and keep workers.

I have
seen fast food joints where they *do* pay such wages, and where the
same people are at the job for years, and these people are highly
efficient at their jobs, making their increased pay well worth it for
the employer. Most, however, are too cheap to see the advantages of
retaining a well-paid, motivated workforce. Laissez-faire enthusiasts
assume the market is always rational. It isn't.