I think that the further the producer becomes from their product the lower the quality of the product will become
If you take some tools and you make your own house, you will do a good job because you want the best house for you and your family; the same will apply if you make a house for your sister/brother or a friend
The major flaw with this is even if your intentions may be better than those capitalist fat cats this person will not have all the skills if any which will produce a good quality house. Why do people go to a fancy restaurant? Mainly because it is good quality food that they either have no time to make or simply lack the skills to produce that which the restaurant offers.
If someone makes houses they will never have to live in then the quality of those houses will go down. Lets say we have a capitalist investor who is making houses in order to make a profit.
In order to make the biggest profit possible, because that is what the game of capitalism is about, then he wants to increase profit margins, by lowering costs. This lowering of costs will then have an effect on the durability and quality of the product
In the long run this is veeeery unlikely to happen. The way alot of company's/capitalist investor's get business is from presenting the experience they have. Do you really think they will be in business long if all there jobs end in poor quality yet charge high prices? You prosume that all companys will go this way. In fact it only takes one (and yes there is alot more than one in nearly every market in the economy today) but it only takes one to go the other way do a good quality job. I dont deny they will try to reduce costs, but only to stay efficient. Once you get this who do you really think will be getting the work? The company with a good background or the one that has had law suits pressed againist it in most cases? The thing is the reason why a company gets to do what it does and keeps on doing what it does to produce all this profit in the first place is to create a name for itself. Which means long term profits. On the other hand you have people out to make a quick buck, they do not get repeat business and go in most cases bankrupt.
In order to do this the investor might decide to use poorer, cheaper materials which won't last as long. He/she may hire craftspeople who are cheaper but provide lower standards of workmanship. They may have the houses built with minimum build quality for example they may put in less support or less insulation or less sound proofing. They may rush the work as well in order to turn a larger profit, quicker
So by playing this game of capitalism and trying to accumulate capital the person becomes distanced from the product that they are selling and therefore they become less accountable.
As the materials used become that of poorer quality price will also reduce, this is based on the fact that many other produces will offer the same good/sevice. It may so happen that this said market is a monopoly, in this case yes they could in thoery force a consumer to pay alot of little, but thats why there is no truly capitalist system in place. Mixed economys ftw!
Also they dont become less accountable as my above comments mention, they will need to keep a good reputation in the product they sell in order to competitive.
They become less accountable for a number of reasons:
1) they will not use the product themselves, so they care less about the quality of the product
If there is a issue with a product eg very bad quality or a fault it normally needs to get mass recalled, in my view this kinda does mean companys have a big stake in the goods/services they are selling as if they are faulty/very poorly done it will get a bad name, eg long term unikley to get repeat business. Also it costs a hell of alot to recall the goods/products, or redo a service, it could easly wipe out most of the profits they were going to make meaning they have again a big stake in it.
2) they will not have to see the end user of the product face to face so will never have to see the grief of the housebuyer when their poorly built house falls down; this is why you get call centres instead of getting to speak to the CEO...he is busy sunbathing in the bahamas with the profits from your purchase of his poor quality goods
You really think the CEO's of companys can just chillax? My grandfather was CEO of a huge company. He never had a spare moment, even in his 'free time' he was doing exra work to help the company stay ahead of the others ect. CEO's dont sit around doing nothing, it would just be very inefficient for them to talk to the customer. The way the company employs people in the first place is that either the owner lacks the skills for a job or they lack the time and it would be inefficient to stop what they are doing ovr employing someone else to do that job. Sure with alot of goods you can find problems with atleast some of each of them, thats why they need call centers so they can see if it is just a little problem easly fixed which can be replaced quickly or if it is a global problem and they need to do a mass recall.
3) they have become very rich selling as many houses as possible whilst maximising profits so they can afford the best legal protection against the home buyer if they try to sue when the house falls down
It's true that companys will use their vast captials to help them get the best lawers ect. This still does not take into account that in todays society if a big company is taken to court over and over again, or even just once. They get alot of bad publicity, this effect the reputation of a company and means that other companys can step in to take their place quite quickly.
4) as a rich person they have large amounts of money which they can use to influence people. Lets say for example that there is a law against houses falling down within 15 years of being made. The house builder knows that his poorly built houses only usually last 10 years before they fall down; so they pay some money to some influential people such as politicians to change the law so that houses can fall down within 10 years and the builder will still not be liable
I'm starting to think you really dont like rich people ^^. Most people in the world would not do this. Yes there are afew people in the world that would try this. That is called corruption and it comes in my view from the human need to have more (greed). You may say this is only here because of the capatilist system, but think about it greed and the thurst for humans to have more is in everyone. Dont you want to understand more? Learn more? Be better at a skill? or in your case take over the world and make 'Karl Marx's vision come true? All these things are greedy, you and everybody just want more all the time. So i dont think the system is it blame for it. Some people in the world will try anything to get there way and get 'more'. physically, mentally, money. It will occur is any system and in any time zone which involves humans (that have not been genitically modified). The best anyone can do is put things in place to avoid this.
Capitalism is really not a very efficient system; if you think about the nature of it. The employer will pay their workers the minimum amount of pay that will not make them quit their job and in return the worker will do the minimum amount of work that won't get them fired
I really dont see the problem with this. The employer needs a job done. He employs people and to be effective as possible looks for the best deal. Time is only worth as much as people see it. So the worker needs to weigh up the opportunity cost of working/earnering and not working/being poor. The employer also weigh's up the cost of having to employ someone and what beneift it give the company (E.g. output increases). Plus who said the worker would work as little as possible? That is a state of mind about all humans that says they are all lazy and will do as little as possible to get as much as possible. Thank god for the labour market meaning there is a competitive atomshpere in getting jobs, meaning people will do the work they should.
The problem with arguing that protection should be afforded by the government for the people against the rich capitalists is that the government are often in the employ of the rich capitalists. Or as Karl Marx put it: the government are 'the executive committee of the bourgeoisie'
The 'mob' is what runs the country. The mob refers to the mass of normal people. The government is only in place if the 'mob' wants it to be. Thats all i really got to say on that, the bit about the government being employed by the 'rich capitalists' just has no grounding.
Once this concept is grasped it makes sense of so much that is happening in business, politics and with the exploitation of consumers, the raping of the environment, the lowering of the quality of products, the wastefullness etc etc
The argument that consumers should vote with their feet and use a different product only works if there is a competitive market full of different products
The problem is we are very far along a process of consolidation of wealth where now much of the worlds wealth is held by a very small number of people. This means they have an increasing strangle hold on the market and can create monopolies. So you cannot 'exercise choice' if there are only a few products and they are all equally bad
People have different skills. The people the huge amounts wealth have just
utillzed thier skills, most of the time the ability to think fast, see the bigger picture, make hard decisions, creativity. Next time you are in a shop look around, if you cant see the how competitive the market is then go on the internet look up houses for sale. Phone companys? Internet access? Everything we do we have so many options. People that have gone to live in 3rd world countrys for a few years when theyget back say when they went to the shop they were shocked. Not because of all the food in it, but because there was so much choice between the same type of food.
I seem to have rambled on abit, if in places its incoherent please let me know =). To get back the main point of this Topic. If they person agrees to have their hair cut for a certain price at a certain quality or goes into the aggrement knowing what the outcome will be then no they should not be protected. The main reason is whatever reason they are still going to the hairdressers for it is obv not the hair cut. So the person has obviously found value n somthing in it (e.g. the expirence of it as they are friendly, they know it so feel safe ect). How can one put a vaule on such things, it seems like only the person paying knows what they truly value it at.
