Capitalism and democracy are not synonymous.

How can you be free when you live your life in debt?

The fact that you are able to benefit in some way by participating in a capitalist society does not mean that people have not been exploited in the process. You have a positive point of view because you choose to judge this way of life from within a bubble. If you stop for a moment and take a world view of cause and effect, you come away with a different picture.

Talk to a person who lives in a county whose economy has been decimated by indebtedness to the world bank. How much freedom and hope do they have for their future and their children's future? This is what makes it possible for companies like Nike to come in and employ children.

AHA! This thread has taken exactly that path I predicted: from child labour to politics to capitalism vs socialism debate!

On a serious side I think that this has been an intelligent and enlightening debate. There are genuine reasons why child labour still exists. But merely instead of quoting those reasons again and again, I think that world leaders need to take concrete action to eliminate poverty (one of the root causes). But will they eliminate poverty? Just think!

• Eliminating poverty will result in better standards of living in the third-world countries.
• If standards of living improve production costs will increase for the companies (labour costs and wages will increase).
• This will result in lesser profits.
• Therefore my contention is that: No western nation will lift one finger to remove poverty in the poorer countries. It is the responsibility of the third-world countries to see that they help themselves before pointing fingers. Charity begins at home.

• Kind of obvious really...
  Quote:

  If standards of living improve production costs will increase for the companies (labour costs and wages will increase). This will result in lesser profits.

  What about more efficient processes? You make it sound like this is a zero sum game. Labor is not the only production cost.
  Quote:

  Therefore my contention is that: No western nation will lift one finger to remove poverty in the poorer countries. It is the responsibility of the third-world countries to see that they help themselves before pointing fingers. Charity begins at home.

So what do you expect from western nations? Cargo containers full of gold? Classic economic supply and demand state that as a resource becomes scarce the cost goes up. Pull that sneaker factory out of an area and see what wages do. Shut down the call centers, stop the programmers, they are all just a plot by the evil western nations! Those are just jobs to keep people oppressed.

I am jealous of you so much BajaNick. You are a god compared to most post. You are the perfect man.
We are so alike, the only thing that separates us is an IP address. I am your your weaker friend that gets banned before you.
The Baja is ussualy victorious in the face of such humble oppsition as the thunder, but will though reveal thou secret and switch IP address's before police call at your neighbors door. I hate you baja nick for being me, for apart from your number you are so much like me. Blood TCP-Ip brothers till the end. Now fu to the world we rule.
HadesThunder and Baja are one, victorious army. Every flamer we make is one.

Thanks for the positive remarks and I can do a good english accent to.

You are free to make the decision to live in debt or make the decisions to not be in debt. I Believe that Capitalism and Democracy are sysnonymous. Without the freedom to determine your own economic wellbeing how can other freedoms matter? If everyone had to rely on the government for healthcare, schooling, and housing most people would live in squaler (I think thats spelled wrong) When individuals are allowed to persue their own way of life you have some that excel because they have the motivation, ambition, and intelligence to get where the want to be in life and you have some that are lazy, want something for nothing, sit at home all day complaining about how the evil corporations are keeping them down or the government or whatever excuse , and collect welfare while watching jerry springer.
Back to the child labor issue. Child labor is a symptom of Capitalism it is not the way of Capitalism even though it may seem to be, We are free to buy products made in those offending countries or not. I will not buy shoes made in china at all, I will only buy redwings and I try not to buy anything made in china at all.

Are the Capitalists exploiting the Communists or are the Communists biding their time, Building up their military, manufacturing, and technological base, and plotting to strike?

The most confortable trainers I have tried so far I would say is addidas. Nike fall apart on runs and Reebok give me blisters. The reason why companies like Nike exist is because their are some sheep out there who follow the trend, get broke then spend their entire lives paying back debts.
Why does every kid in UK and US want to be a gangster? If it was cool to be a pacificst then every company would be promoting Yago trainers.
Commerce is all in the mind. If you make a large enough percentage of population believe it is healthy to smear radioactive dust on your face, in Okay and Hello magazines they will do it/
The average person is dumb. A blind salesman could sell them a Scoda with an illegal muffler as a Lamborghini, so long as it looked the part, they would buy it.
I am so tired of people with fake marshal arts belts and fake cars that make a lot of noise but do not move to the noise. Instead of the olympics, why can there not be a tourney where everyone in the world gets to fight it out with whoever they choose. No rules. No bounds.

You are right in some sense. Capitalism offers more freedom. It also offers more tears. In capitalism you can say or think what you want so long as it is in favour of the state or is too idiotic to be either better or too inteligent.
If we narrow down the world to the wolves and the sheep, we are both vulnerable. Most of the sane of us seek each others riches, so there can be no peace.
We live, we fight, we die. In this age nobody conqueres empires. Empires conquer us through old age and time.

The fact that you believe something to be true does not make it so. A quick look at Webster's Dictionary will prove you to be mistaken.

Once again, you are choosing to view the cost/benefit of capitalism from within an enclosed environment. You are not taking a "world view" so to speak. My argument is not about "evil corporations" or any particular country or political system. There are some very wonderful companies run by very wonderful human beings. That does not change the fact that the very nature of capitalism, while providing benefits and opportunities, does so at a cost. The cost is to the environment , to people, and to natural resources. It encourages waste and gluttony in a world that can no longer afford these luxuries.

Freedom is an illusion. Absolute freedom - the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, to whoever you want is also known as anarchy.

That type of freedom is fine for one person living alone with no one else around. Once you add other people to the mix, you quickly learn that that type of freedom is incompatible with civilization. Suddenly what becomes important is the rights of the individual. My individual rights supersede your rights to do whatever you want - particularly when what you want includes things like harming me or my family. When you say that you value freedom, I believe you mean you value a society that upholds and protects basic human rights.

Capitalism by it's very nature is in direct opposition to the rights of the individual. In order for a business to survive it must reduce it's costs. Labor is the highest cost of doing business. A good businessman will do what ever is needed to lower these costs and compete effectively. Today, this often means moving your company to countries that don't value human rights enough to have legal protections for their workers and/or their environment. The only reason these laws exist at all in the US is because labor abuses were so bad at one time we were on the verge of revolution. Workers fought and died for these protections. But now a company can move across borders and roll back time because it appears all men are created equal only if they live in the right place.

Just some food for thought while you enjoy the cheap consumer goods this exploitation provides.

i live in the same place that bajanick does, so im more like him than you are.

hes mine.

get your own idol.

in England is it illegal for an adult to be intimite with a person under the age of 16.
IF a british person goes to anouther coutry, where it is illegal to be with a person of 14 or under, when that person returns to england, they will still be prosicuted for abuse...

its a law that tries to protect children in other countries who are not legally protected by there own government....

HOWEVER.... the british law does allow british companies to use child labour in other countries.....

how can there be a law to prosicute people for one form of abuse, but not anouther ?

Can someone explain to me how it is bad to practise child labour but ok to make your kids work in your store on week ends in america or how it is ok to pull your kids out of school during the harvest season?

What is so bad about child labour? The countries that practise it cant support an education system to begin with so what would all those kids be doing instead of working?

if you don't htink there is anything wrong with it, ship your kids off to India to work for pennies a day.

if you're not ready to do that, then there is obviously something wrong with child labour.

Of course a belief is an opinion.

I avoid buying cheap products like shoes and textiles from countries like China, Besides everytime I buy something made in China it either dosnt work or it breaks 2 weeks later.

Freedom is not an illusion, Dont take every example to the extreme to prove a point, thats not fair and whats wrong with anarchy anyway?