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Old 04-11-2016, 08:51 PM
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donquixote99 donquixote99 is offline
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Why Did We Lose Sparta?

Here's a bit of the story of 'just another plant that got offshored.' Except it wasn't just another plant, it was a superstar profit machine, where the workers excelled at doing what was supposed to make everyone prosper. They were productive as hell, and kept getting more productive. But it didn't matter.

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Employees stuck around for years, knew their jobs inside and out, and had a rare esprit de corps. When they faced tight deadlines, fabricators would volunteer to come in as early as 4 or 5 a.m. so they could get a head start before the paint crew arrived at six. In December 2009 the Sparta facility was named by Industry​Week as a Best Plant of the year, one of the top ten in North America. In the months that followed, it won Best Plant within Philips’s global lighting division as well as the firm’s global “Lean Challenge.” That summer, plant managers invited state officials and legislators to Sparta to celebrate.

Then, one morning in November 2010, a Philips executive no one recognized drove up and walked into the plant, accompanied by a security guard wearing sunglasses and a sidearm. He summoned all the employees back to the shipping department and abruptly announced that the plant would be shut down.
Read the whole story (long form journalism, in Virginia Quarterly Review) here: http://www.vqronline.org/reporting-a.../losing-sparta

I'll make two points:

1. First, the central claim of orthodox economics is that theory, predictions, and policy can and should be based on 'economic actors who make decisions based on rational analysis to maximize their economic well-being'. This case shows how questionable this claim is. Phillips blew off a strong, well-supported, funded proposal to keep this plant open. Then they lost hundreds of millions by moving this plant.

2. Given this sort of insane and irresponsible behavior, corporations do not deserve the freedom to make decisions like the one that closed this plant, without being answerable to anyone, or even having to explain themselves.
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Old 04-11-2016, 09:33 PM
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To answer my own question, we lost Sparta to the power and dysfunctionality of trans-national capitalism.

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The primary lessons that we learn from the failed Communist and So*ialist regimes of the 20th century is that centralization failed, yet when we look at capitalist economies today what we see is that centralization has taken place as well. Today the global capitalist economy is as much or more centralized than the Soviet Union ever was, the difference is that the economy is centralized under the control of powerful private interests who exercise heavy influence over governments around the world, as opposed to being centralized under the direct control of government.

A 2011 study found that a mere 147 transnational corporations (less than 1% of transnational corporations) controlled 40% of global capital. The study found, "that network control is much more unequally distributed than wealth. In particular, the top ranked actors hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth."

While this study examined only the relationships of transnational corporations, the findings can be broadly applied to conclude that generally speaking, control over capital is actually more concentrated than mere wealth distribution would indicate. This actually makes sense based on how controlling shares of corporations work, which is what allows entities to own less than half of the value of a corporation while retaining controlling interest. As capital ownership and control become increasingly concentrated, the ability of capitalists to undermine market conditions in order to preserve profits increases.

This is the reality that we have to acknowledge and face. Ownership and control of capital is far more concentrated today than at any time in America's history and this fact is a product of capitalism itself. Ultimately, attempts at economic and political reform which don't fundamentally address the distribution of capital ownership are doomed to be temporary and ineffectual at best. The underlying cause of economic inequality and political disenfranchisement in capitalist economies around the world, particularly in America, is concentration of capital ownership. This concentration of capital ownership undermines the principles upon which America was founded, and now creates the type of feudalistic social and economic conditions that early Americans fought so hard against.
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar..._evolution.htm
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Last edited by donquixote99; 06-30-2020 at 05:33 PM.
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Old 06-30-2020, 05:33 PM
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The answer here is a thorough reform and re-imagining of American Capitalism, moving us to a more mixed, more managed economy dedicated to maximizing the well-being of the populace as a whole. Now would be a great time to get busy and do it! Here's a discussion that gets into this idea:

https://theappeal.org/coronavirus-pa...A0QH8VlRIegO3M
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Old 06-30-2020, 05:45 PM
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Meine deutchlander cousins have a law that says labor must have seats on the boards of corporations. We need a Marshall Plan for America.
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Old 06-30-2020, 05:57 PM
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The problem, and the solutions, are of course as much political as economic. An observation quoted in the piece on The Appeal:

“The real problem is that our political system is no longer designed to serve the public interest, and has been slowly reconfigured to benefit the private interests of gain-seeking organizations: our major political parties and their industry allies,” the authors wrote, recommending a restructuring of the election process and system of governing, and diminishing the influence of money in politics.
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Old 07-08-2020, 10:24 PM
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This is how I see it, too.

We have an oligarchic system that centers primarily on the military / industrial complex.

IMHO, there is a clandestine one world government that maintains (and will continue to maintain) an illusion of national sovereignty.

The end goal of this one world gov't is (again my HO) the fomentation of a final global confrontation known as Armageddon.

Just like Ronald Reagan said, "We never know when (this) is going to happen".

I recognized y'all are free to believe something else.
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Old 07-08-2020, 11:14 PM
Mark B Mark B is offline
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Philips has acquired & subsequently closed other lighting plants in the US. This is troubling.

http://homenewshere.com/wilmington_t...a4bcf887a.html

https://www.wickedlocal.com/news/201...60-losing-jobs
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