[Kghikeds]

Silicon Valley pops to mind, and all that arose out of it.

Most employers require their employees to assign all copyrights to it. However, Stanford University was an exception. Thus, employees who could financially gain from their own inventions, created Silicon Valley and some of the earliest break throughs in computer and information sciences.

[Qualarrizab]

Also:
http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/gdp/gdpmap.html

[Grieryaliny]

Originally posted by DaShi
Many moons ago, I made a thread asking to identify areas where capitalism failed. It was interesting but lacking. So I decided to take a look at it from the other angle. Rather than dwell on where it was ineffective, let's look at where capitalism shone. So let's hear some areas where capitalism was the best choice or even a good choice (this is not a thread about where communism could do better).

When you list something, please qualify how it was successful. Also, when. It may have not been successful in the past, but it may have become successful now or vice versa. The success of capitalism is the creation and pooling of capital and the specialization of labor.

[luspikals]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
... arose with the invention of agriculture. Once farmers could raise more food than they and their families needed, other folks were freed up to become soldiers, kings, and priests. Yes, but capitalism took that further. And it has created much more wealth.

[Gscvbhhv]

Capitalism gave every country a capital

[GOLAGLULT]

The blessing of communism wouldn't have been possible without capitalism showing up first.

*runs*

[Zavdpacq]

Originally posted by Barnabas
All countries which arent shitholes are capitalistic countries.

I actually thought the issue of the thread would be small state free market capitalism vs capitalism with an interventionist state that tries to guide the economy in order to achieve a higher level of development. The amazing thing is the amount of wealth that has been created dispite the massive failure of both free market capitalism and intertentionist policies.

[Anypeny]

Originally posted by onodera

You actually have to take other countries into account -- those that provide labour and resourses to non-****hole countries.
I doubt sweatshop workers and Niger delta tribes are very satisfied with capitalism. so, how many people are forced to work in sweatshops?
if they have better options then i suggest they take them.

if they don't, it means sweatshops are better than their other choises.

so perhaps awfull by western standards, it sill offers the best job a sweatshop worker can find.

[GECEDEANY]

i'm not saying conditions are great there, or that they shouldn't be improved.

i'm saying that major factories opening shop in places with little job options and a huge popuation, is not an evil thing. If the factories were not desperately needed - no one would show up for work.

The fact they need to be monitored and worker conditions should be regulated is of course true.

But it's not like someone is forced to go work in a factory by the evil corporation.

[Nemerov]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

so, how many people are forced to work in sweatshops?
if they have better options then i suggest they take them.

if they don't, it means sweatshops are better than their other choises. One of the oldest fallacies in the book.

The logic that if someone chooses to do something, it must be in their self interest to do that!

The thing is, whenever there is an element of fear, anger, addiction, desperation that kind of thing, rational decision making is thrown out the window.

It's like colonizing a country, getting the natives addicted to booze, and then they need to acquire money from the colonists in order to buy booze. The only way to get the money, is to sell their land or labor.
The thing is, the addiction to the booze, has not enhanced the quality of their life, so the decisions made based on that addiction, are not decisions made in self-interest.

But of course it's okay, because even if the natives refuse to get addicted to booze, the land can just be taken by force of arms.

If they choose surrender, then it must be in their self interest to surrender, right?
If they choose to die for their cause, it must be in their self interest to die, right?

Not really. There's no "right" there.

Only once people have a particular freedoms - freedom from desperation, can it be said that they are doing what is in their self interest.

When people go around making others desperate (by getting them addicted or pointing a gun at their head), then that is oppression, plain and simple.

[Wxrxnhar]

Originally posted by Elok
No, they're forced by evil circumstances. Works out about the same. Given the massive profits made by companies who employ sweatshop labor (they could afford to pay those workers at least ten times as much as they do, and still turn a profit), I don't see them as humanitarian. False. If the corporations had imposed on themselves an obligation to pay third world workers what you'd call a "decent" wage along with improving overall work conditions, then there woudn't have been an economic incentive to move the jobs overseas in the first place, as it would have been cheaper to continue on with the manufacturing infrastructure already existing in developed countries. Instead of the status quo where third world workers at least have a choice between subsistence farming and poorly paid manufacturing, they would have no choice at all. Does that sound more or less unfair to you?

[Gaxiciverfere]

lawyers/judges

from the beginning, and how > they make the rules and than charge everyone else exorbitant amounts of money on interpreting them, a capitalistic success story, under other systems they would not be rewarded so amply, and be protected so vigorously as under this one...

[8Zgkdeee]

When people go around making others desperate (by getting them addicted or pointing a gun at their head), then that is oppression, plain and simple. yes I can see how it can be easy to get addicted to sweat-shops

Come on. This 18 century colonialism talk is unrealistic.

You wanna talk about companies bribing governments and abusing their power to keep the working conditions low - I'll agree that it is bad.

But there is no sense in blaming Nike for desperation in 3rd world.

[illetrygrargo]

...and yet the welfare state (even if we suppose it's entirely anathema to capitalist society rather than a mere practical feature) could never have come into being had it not been for capitalism creating the wealth that the welfare state redistributes. Couldn't that be called a "success"?

[mikaelluioy]

Originally posted by Darius871
False. If the corporations had imposed on themselves an obligation to pay third world workers what you'd call a "decent" wage along with improving overall work conditions, then there woudn't have been an economic incentive to move the jobs overseas in the first place, as it would have been cheaper to continue on with the manufacturing infrastructure already existing in developed countries. Instead of the status quo where third world workers at least have a choice between subsistence farming and poorly paid manufacturing, they would have no choice at all. Does that sound more or less unfair to you? I understand the economics, thank you. I'm not that dense on the subject. I'm sure the people who employ sweatshop labor use exactly that logic, selling feces as food to a starving man. It wouldn't be legal for them to treat people in America that way, so they subcontract it out, mistreat some foreigners instead. Out of sight, out of mind. I'm talking morals, not economics or law, and treating people like total crap is immoral even if they're used to being lower than crap.

[Anaerbguagree]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

so, how many people are forced to work in sweatshops?
if they have better options then i suggest they take them. Communism

[foI3fKWv]

Originally posted by Blake


One of the oldest fallacies in the book.

The logic that if someone chooses to do something, it must be in their self interest to do that!

The thing is, whenever there is an element of fear, anger, addiction, desperation that kind of thing, rational decision making is thrown out the window. I think you are going in the right direction here, but I think specifically they are afraid, not addicted. They aren't forced to work in sweatshops, but they have no other options because they are taken advantage of. If they try to change that they will suffer for it, in the way of jail, poverty or maybe death.

[agildeta]

Originally posted by DaShi
Many moons ago, I made a thread asking to identify areas where capitalism failed.
link please.

[Gideleb]

I've met the people. I don't trust them.

[ROYMANgo]

Originally posted by Kidicious


People act in their own self-interest. That's all they have the capacity to do. Are you some kind of rational choice fanatic? People don't act rationally all the time, and also not always in their interests. That's just a myth and happens when you try to take rational choice models as ultimate explanations for all human behaviour, which they aren't. They are tools to provide explanations in certain environments, nothing more.