For me, the key consideration in the origins of profits is the exploitation of the underprivileged. You touched on this in the previous entry when mentioning the historical origins of land and wealth being in slavery and colonialism, but a big part of "economies of scale" isn't in the money saved by streamlining production, but rather by the power accumulated by large organizations that allow them to "save" money by severely undercompensating their workers, providing miserable working conditions, ignoring the environmental impact of their activities, etc. So the money being paid to investors is being stolen from workers and from the communities affected by their larger webs of business activities. That's why the staggering inequality in USian society is so devastating.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-02-27 11:04 pm (UTC)For me, the key consideration in the origins of profits is the exploitation of the underprivileged. You touched on this in the previous entry when mentioning the historical origins of land and wealth being in slavery and colonialism, but a big part of "economies of scale" isn't in the money saved by streamlining production, but rather by the power accumulated by large organizations that allow them to "save" money by severely undercompensating their workers, providing miserable working conditions, ignoring the environmental impact of their activities, etc. So the money being paid to investors is being stolen from workers and from the communities affected by their larger webs of business activities. That's why the staggering inequality in USian society is so devastating.