Re: bartering

Re: bartering

Evidently a lot of people don't really know what capitalism is. What you have described , in climbing the tree to get the banana, and in bartering one thing for another, are not capitalism. The latter is the barter system, which works, and the former is expending labor for the rewards. All economic systems include some form of both of these. What you describe here is a simple system and a direct system...you get to keep and eat the banana that you climbed up to get, while in capitalism this is often not the case. In barter, you and the receiver decide together what you will trade for what, while in capitalism there are many intermediate parties and transactions, and much of the balance is lost as CEO's get hundreds of thousands of dollars while the guy who made the item gets under minimum wage with no benefits. Capitalism tends to benefit some more than others unjustly, and that is the main complaint about it. Most of the ones on this board are doing well, or you wouldn't be on the internet, while the ones who are victimized are not able to tell you their stories. There are a couple here who try to present this side of the picture, we understand why we are not popular here. still, as Sarah says, these perspectives are important.

Arcoiris
Ask Gunnar
about pension/illness insurance/accident insurance/bonus
fore the staff that are from 5/8/9:am until 5/9/11/2 PM
in those firma that make millions of pesos each months

ask him also about
what are some hotels/Tour Companies are doing do repair some negative Ecological impact that they know they are causing?

Regards

Roberto

Re: bartering

Some people who make it to the top seem to exploit others below. It appears to be a natural thing, thats why some people defend it. It will not change unfortunately. The ones on the top will argue that they made it through hard work and sweat. Of course they will leave out the people who actually did the sweating. Its just more easier for a Capitalist to go to a poor country and hire cheap labor. That is the "in thing" now for American companies. People who beleive America go to foreign countries to start business soley to provide opportunity is sadly mistaken, BUT I'm sure someone would defend it and say they are. These companies simply want higher profit margins, and less regulations.

I'm not saying it is not good bringing business to countries like the DR, BUT pay the people as you would want to be paid. But that appears hard to do.

Re: bartering

What about Dominican construction companies hiring Haitians
because they are cheaper labor, work harder and do more
grueling tasks most Dominicans are unwilling to do? Hmmmm...

There's 3 apartment complexes going up on my block alone.
These hard-working Haitians work their hands to the bone
about 12 hours a day, and since they're my alarm clock
every morning, I'd say 7 days a week, too. I love their
creole music.

Some Dominicans I know grumble about them "stealing our jobs".
*shrug* It doesn't seem like there is an easy answer.

Why don't you be a Pied Piper and steal all the world's gold
and give it to the Haitians?

On a brighter note, the closer money gets to bits and bytes
in cyberspace, the more distant of a concept money will become.
When this transition occurs with astounding medical and scientific advancements, I'm hoping that everyone in the world
will benefit. Until then, I believe this is called "growing pains".

just my veinticinco centavos,

Gilgamesh

Re: bartering

You said "What about Dominican construction companies hiring Haitians because they are cheaper labor, work harder and do more
grueling tasks most Dominicans are unwilling to do? Hmmmm..."

First working hard is relative. I do not know what you mean by working hard. If it takes 2 men to lay a brick, but you have 5 guys trying to lay the same brick. Well, I guess they do not have to work as hard. Either way that is a subjective remark. You sound like and American to me. Americans seem to pick certain people our groups and determine if they work hard or not.

How could you use that as an example. Your talking about two countries who are relativly poor compared to the States.
How much cheap labor can you possibly get. If the average salary is DR is about $2000 US what is Haiti's avg salary. Ok, so they can pay a Haitian $1000 US a year. POOR IS STILL POOR. I could be wrong.

On the other hand, its much different when a company from the States come the DR who generally pays someone in the states about $30,000 - $40,000 a year and then open up shop in DR and pay someone $5000 or less a year. That is a huge difference.
Thats truly taking advantage of cheap labor.

But again.....I could be wrong.

Re: bartering

It's subjective, as you say. My point was, Dominicans do it also. I live here and I see it happening, and it's a reality. A
couple of my Dominican friends complain that the Haitians are taking jobs from Dominicans. I'm just reflecting what I observe. It sounds to me like a similar phenomena
in the States, where many manual labor jobs are being exported
to places where the labor is cheaper. For example, my casual khaki slacks are made in the Dominican Republic, and another pair that I have are made in Lesotho. No, the Haitian migrant
workers get paid very little also, in contrast to an average Dominican's pay. It's better than breaking up rocks to sell as gravel in Port-au-Prince for sixty cents US a day. Also, as
far as I can recall from reading, much of the sugar cane
workers are also Haitian migrants. The only reason I happen
to be using "Haitian" and not "Cuban" or "Zambian" is because
it's mostly Haiti that is much more economically disadvantaged
than the DR. It doesn't matter whether they're Haitian or not;
the majority of them that are dirt poor are more than willing
to accept the jobs that most Dominicans are above doing, or
require a higher wage to work. For migrant workers with
absolutely nothing except the shirt on their backs, a job of
grueling manual labor for 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week is a welcome thing. To a resident Dominican with a social life and familial responsibilities, such a job better pay a lot for all that trouble. I'm sure that the actual rate at which they work, i.e. how "hard" they work, varies by individual, whether Dominican or not. I'm just pointing out
that because of circumstances out of the control of most of those individuals, some will work harder than others because they don't have much other choice. Don't even twist my words around.

As far as being American goes, you actually say

"Americans seem to pick certain people our groups and determine if they work hard or not." Disregarding the bad grammar,
this is so terribly ironic. You actually pick a certain group
and make a label about how they pick certain groups. I think
that's pretty indicative of most of your posts here. There are
almost 300 million people that live in the USA, of an incredible variation in ethnicities and cultures.

I'm Japanese.

Re: bartering

domo