Would you sacrifice your comforts for a better world?

This is purely hypothetical question, as at least in the current world such thing is simply an utopia.

The more the world globilises, the more we see that certain countries, countries with more power and stronger financial status, simply start using the countries for gaining more profit.

I live in a country, which is stronger than the Asian countries, yet I see daily, how big corporations from countries, who have really strong economics, simply come here in order to save up on their expenses. They are trying to get their work done as cheaply as possible. It is nothing uncommon to see a huge company using the bad economical status and lots of unemployeed people in order to gain profit, they pay minimum salaries which is simply impossible to live with and at the end, they take their huge profits, back to their country, without paying any taxes (absurd law). From that the people in the stronger counties, simply get stuff cheaper, buy more as the salaries are higher without even considering how the people who made their products are suffering for their good.

It is a common knowledge that several companies are simply using the fact that low salary is better than nothing and many desperate people are willing to work for them for extremely low salaries, even for their country, simply because of desperation.

Everybody can see that such thing is simply wrong.

Would you be willing to sacrifice your comforts for the people enriching your life with amazing technology and awesome things got the salary what they deserve for such work? This would mean the iphone might cost nearly 1500 dollars, shoes costing 300-500 dollars. Although that is still less than what the price would be if these were made locally, but it would be fair.

It might be possible if some international laws would be made, for example, every company must their pay employees in foreign countries 10% over the average salary in that particular country or making another law, which would make the taxes for taking profits out of any country, exactly the same. I do not say that these are the best solutions, I have not thought it through entirely, simply random ideas.

Although, please answer the question. Would you be willing to sacrifice your comforts for making the world more equal and fair?

PS. To say again, this is simply hypothetical question

yes i believe so

I'd say 30% over the local min wage, and high taxes for exportation which would go to the country products are being exported out of.
But no it won't happen with all the capitalist pigs in power.

No I would not. Your question is quite ambiguous, so let me explain. I would be willing to make sacrifices to help my fellow man, but that has little to due with labor wage disparities amongst various countries...

I would prefer to pay a fair price to someone who produces the products locally, thereby creating a more positive impact on the economy in my area. The fact that corporations have resorted to slave labor is independent of the fact that they are just making higher margins on their goods sold. I don't support globalism by any means. China is beginning to realize that since they are now being outsourced to India and Africa due to their high labor costs.

If I am going to pay more, I would rather buy from a local business. I would like to see a 10,000% tariff on imports and job export taxes on companies that send American jobs to foreign countries.

Not in a million years. First, just whose idea of what the greater good should be will be used? Second, who gets to decide who and what is sacrificed for the greater good? I believe I'll just keep believing in the US Constitution!

I would be happy to pay a premium for locally produced products, but I have no interest in sending more money oversees. It is worth a higher cost of goods to know my neighbor, friends and family have jobs producing what we need and benefiting the local economy. As far as the rest of the world goes I invite them to do the same for themselves.

Originally posted by ohioriver
Not in a million years. First, just whose idea of what the greater good should be will be used? Second, who gets to decide who and what is sacrificed for the greater good? I believe I'll just keep believing in the US Constitution!

1) This has nothing to do with US constitution.

2) I changed the greater good to better world. It simply means a world, which is fairer.

3) Comforts can be defined as products, which have been made by using extremely low-cost labour in third-world, lower-salary countries. The people there often have to work for basically nothing, even compared to others in their country, simply to provide huge corporations and richer countries cheap products. The overall question is a hypothesis in the situation where some international law was made which makes the companies pay more and fair price for the workers overseas. Would you like this law be taken? It would mean that every product which comes overseas, like shoes made in Vietnam or technology made in China, would have much higher cost to make.It would mean that all the prices of such products will rise, although the workers get paid fairly and not be used to give Americans or any other stronger nation cheaper products by using the extremely low-wage workforce.

We can bring an analogy with USA in it. If in USA people were to work such a long hours, for repetitive and skillful job and local minimum salary, it would bring chaos and the company would be sued and their reputation diminished. Although currently the situation is the same in China and other poor countries. Although not enough people care about it, because they get cheaper things and these Chinese people not Americans who are suffering. As long as we win from using somebodies poor financial condition, it is okay, as long as it is not American.

PS. I do not say all Americans think so, although there is quite a number of them, who do.

I've already sacrificed my comforts for a better world. I quit my job; withdrew my money from the bank and closed my account; started a small business, serving my community; stopped watching television and the propaganda associated with it; and even learned how to eat to live and not live to eat. What more should i be doing?

reply to post by Cabin

If in USA people were to work such a long hours, for repetitive and skillful job and local minimum salary, it would bring chaos and the company would be sued and their reputation diminished.

Everyday in the USA, people work long hours doing a repetitive skillful job for the local minimum salary. They also have a hard time making ends meet. Those that are employed that is. My friend works 7 days a week, 10 hours per day. You seem to be ignorant as to what the working conditions are in the USA.

Corporations have lowered the labor wages in the US due to the lower labor wages internationally.

I'd give it up in an instant. I think that the internet as a learning tool is the thing I would miss the most. Free education for those who want it. Communication with others of your kind. I like my tractor also with the 80 inch snowblower on it. Wait, Bones and Castle come on on Monday night Am I allowed to change my mind? How about roughing it for four days a week.

reply to post by Arolexion


Reduce copyright to 5 years free, 10 years (taxed on revenues) any further years will pay the median of the previous 10 years tax plus actualizations or be moved into the public domain no copyright after 70 years of the death of the author.

No patents on software or business processes.

No privatization of water and medicine or state/public security services (this includes prisons).

Corporations will not share the same rights as individuals (freedom of expression etc)

Promotions are granted by merit not on time in function.

No fixed job (not even for politicians), every person is obligated to change job each 3 years if not promoted (to an unrelated function) and only able to return function after 6 years. Exceptions with a maximum of 3 years to anyone studying or teaching at the same time.

Those would help a lot and would not evolve much loses in comfort...

human nature being what it is ... hell no not about to give up a damn thing worked too hard in this lifetime attempting to make the world better only to see the bastards who profit from blood and death destroy more while fat.. lazy... useless idiots demand more and more that they neither need nor deserve ...

Originally posted by Cabin
Although, please answer the question. Would you be willing to sacrifice your comforts for making the world more equal and fair?

I don't understand what you mean by "equal and fair." I also don't understand how you think this would somehow make the world better. After all, we're all born into this world as wiggly little babies. That's as fair as can be. There's a chance we might have a birth defect, but we all have an equal chance of that, just like we have an equal chance of being born into a rich family or a poor family. That's baseline fairness right there.

History is full of examples of people who were born into average or below average circumstances yet rise to massive power and fame (or infamy) in the world. Do I want to make it easier for everybody to do that?

Besides. When it's all over, an even greater equalizer takes over. Death. Those who caused great pain, or great joy, who accomplished amazing things, or nothing, all die. The universe ends for all of us.

So I guess I am not willing to "sacrifice" anything, because it really won't make any difference in the grand scheme of things.

reply to post by Cabin

Although, please answer the question. Would you be willing to sacrifice your comforts for making the world more equal and fair?

No.

First, such action would require an almost infinite trust in those who hold wealth and power, to do what was right. I don't have that trust to offer.

Beyond that, I have personally come to the belief that our time here on this blue gem of a world isn't meant to be for an experience in paradise. To the contrary, it is a form of boot camp; basic training for the human soul operating a physical machine that is also loaded with a type of firmware... that is basically no more than animal instinct. The latter includes sexual desires and the want of material wealth, etc.

Feeding the beast isn't the challenge. The task is to survive it and improve yourself at the same time.

I think you're a little dry on the facts. For starters guys in Bangladesh, India, and China are just as smart and educated as we are. In fact, in postgraduate school in the US 80% being foreign born is the not uncommon and normal, especially in the sciences.

The end state is we get guys who are just as capable who can work for less.

A recent economic analysis concluded that we could live on less if we adopted a 1950s life style. In the US we've incurred excess expenses like cellphone bills, cable, Internet, and health insurance (it didn't really exist until the 1970s, but that is a topic that deserves its own thread), plus homes were smaller.

I'm living on the edge, as-is, so I don't know what else I could cut.

If you're talking about a social construct that demands a change, I would suggest we start with banning the strict regulations on energy production. I could write a tome concerning coal uses, along with the beauty of a Thorium-powered future. For all the social costs associated, loose environmental regulations on the usage of hydrocarbons allow for economic growth as seen in China. From a historical perspective, too, abundant hydrocrabon energy powered Industrialism for the past 300 years. Now that we're tapping shale and tar sands the easy oil party is over, and strict regulations on coal have put us in a hard position.

I would be willing to sacrifice cheaper gas prices for a slightly more expensive gasoline produced from coal liquefaction.


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Make them pay min wage plus 10% for the country they export the goods to.
Sure it's a bit clunky but no worse than meeting safety and labelling requirements for different markets which they already have to do.

Without wanting to step on any toes, it seems to me so far as if this discussion is mainly about American jobs and American comfort levels...

How does that affect me? I do not live in America. I live in a country where minimum wages are considerably lower than in the US and when I was much younger, I felt seriously trapped (like a butterfly pinned to a collection board) by discrepancies in currency and earning capacity/potential. Specifically, I wanted very much to be a musician, but the 'best' musical instruments were made in the USA, and prohibitively expensive. I ended up with an electric guitar made in Korea that was, in my opinion the best of cheap instruments. I became a writer instead. Well, thank goodness pencils and pens are cheap and they work even when the power is down... Thank goodness for my 15 month old made in China laptop, for the 8-year-old PC I'm typing this on, and my first ever PC, a second hand PC from 1999 (which did not cost that much less than the made in China laptop.

I can honestly say, that my geographical location has necessitated the sacrifice of both comforts and dreams, when they fell out of my price range, and I suppose, considering the origin of the laptop, I should also add moral comfort to that list of sacrifices because I am NOT comfortable with labor conditions in places like China. I know I would never come within sniffing distance of an Iphone of 1500 dollars (or its currency equivalent in my country). I do not HAVE an iphone now.

Sacrifice, in my world does not mean paying more. It means going without. This has taught me the art of improvising with available resources, of adapting and making do and that, no, that big shiny thing on the store shelf does not buy happiness.

In my opinion, manufacturing Iphones in the USA does not really make the world a better place on a global scale. The real problem lies in the fact that corporations have learnt to exploit the varying market values and legal protection of laborers in different countries to push up their own profit margins. In the fact that every time they see and abuse such an imbalance they unknowingly (or perhaps knowingly) create further imbalances on a socio-economic level. I don't think there are easy fixes for this anymore , just an endless reshuffling of hardships and social and moral debts.

Nope. There is no reason everyone on this planet isn't living with abundant clean energy, pure waters and environment and high technology.

There is no reason, except for greed and people accepting rule by bad guys, and I don't, I've been waiting all my life for the majority to stand up and not sit down till they're in prison or stripped of all their wealth, wearing sack cloth and on bended knees helping humanity and repairing what they've done. There isn't a trillion armies on earth that would make me step back in a majority. But I don't believe in martyrs.

No. There is ample land for all. Aquaponic can grow heritage nutritious foods and orchards even on rocky terrain. There is abundant clean energy. They can even clone muscles so we don't have to kill animals to eat, and no need for that meat to be anything other heritage and organic either.

There is simply No Reason for the abuse of this planet and the starvation and slavery of third world is done by design of the elites.

In fact I was told, if you really wanted to do somehting. If a village adopted an area and took advantage of the cheap land costs there and set up many eco farms, offgrid, clean energy, aquaponics, abundance, small businesses. One too many set up and the mafia gangsters running the country would send in the death squads to the villages.

Its all run by intent by the elite here.

We don't need banks for abundance either.

We don't need dirty fossil fuels.

I'd rather my homes and plastics were made with industrial grade hemp myself.

There are people dying of malnutrition, hunger not just people but other beings killed horribly because of our greed, comfort-level. Its time to change not because we would like to but because we can as emotional beings help them remove from suffering.