[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Olentzero *
Without the need for food to consume, there’s no job for the workers. Grocery stores can be run by the people that actually work in it, for the sole purpose of stocking and distributing food to those who need it, without the requirement that profit be generated first.
Name the planet that has bioligical organisms that expend more energy in aquiring food/resources than the food/resources provides them.
Perhaps you dont understand. Part of the reason the employees are striking is because they are going to be getting less ~profit~ than they are now.
Whatever a company, corporation or individual has left over after paying the basic bills necessary to keep operating another day is what? ~Profit~.
You seriously think people are going to labor in stores to stock shelves for the purpose of distributing food, and only get room and board in return? Are you kidding? When these same people allready make far more ~profit~ from their labor than other unskilled workers, and go on strike when asked to pay for some of their own healthcare?
The goose that lays golden eggs is laying those eggs for someone else, not the union or its members who work in the stores. Society can be run just as well, if not infinitely better, without those “geese” and the people who live off the “eggs” they lay.
Yes, somehow you and fairy tales go well together.
I have two violins, which belong to me and me alone. They’re my personal property. A grocery store, on the other hand, doesn’t belong to one individual, but to a company and/or other private investors.
Which are a group of individuals.
My violin fulfills an individual need - I play it when I want to practice, when I’m bored, and so on. The grocery store fills a social need - stocking and distributing food to people who need to buy it simply because they need to eat.
No, a grocery store fills the need of each individual who works in it and owns to to make a profit. Since food is a social need, there will always be a profit to be made. They could just as easily build violins, which dont appear out of thin air like they do in your analogy.
The people who built your violin need to be paid, cause they need to make their profit. The people who grow food need to be paid, so they can make their profit. The people who drive the trucks that deliver the food to the staore need to be paid, so they can make their profit. Etc Etc Etc.
Your analogy is completely rediculous.
The main difference between the two is that the corporation and the investors behind it have to see a return on their investment - that is, the exchange of money for foodstuffs - before people have the opportunity to satisfy their basic need.
Yers, this is so they can keep satisfying their need to make a profit, and at the same time the need of people for food. If they didnt make a profit, they would close, as no one would work for free.
Not so with playing the violin. I can play it at parties, in my own house, in jam sessions with other musicians, and I don’t need to see one red cent to do so.
No, but again, youve allready paid for the violin. Plus, youre playing the violin for your own personal pleasure, while I doubt anyone would work at a grocery store for free for their own personal pleasure.
And even if I did, the only labor required to get the job done is my own. Grocery stores require the labor of scores, if not hundreds, of people to run efficiently.
Exactly. And they are all paid, and they all profit from it, some more than others depending on their role.
But when the people who work in a grocery store take it over and run it for themselves, in concert with an organized working class doing the same thing around town, around the state, around the country or the world, the conditions of its use can change dramatically.
Yes, it can. It can become a rat infested slum hole.
Run it for themselves you mean take it over and keep all the profit for themselves?
There no longer needs to be the requirement that money change hands before foodstuffs are distributed.
Uh huh…so auto workers would just drive a car in, leave the keys in it, and grab a bunch of groceries in exchange? How would the food workers devide the car?
There’s no longer a need to calculate operating profits or net earnings or sales. There’s now only the need to know how much food has come in, how much has gone out, and how much will need to be ordered to keep the store able to provide for as many people as possible.
I see what it is now. The system is too difficult for you to understand, so you think it should made simpler.
And who is going to provide and do all this labor for free? Little elves?
You have a very romanticized view of slavery.
My point is that strikers, employing non-violent tactics to keep scabs from entering the workplace being struck, will run afoul of local and/or state ordnances (and perhaps federal law as well, I don’t know) in the commission of such acts. They shouldn’t shy away from such acts simply because they’re in violation of the law.
Well no, they shouldnt. They should also shy away because they are limiting other peoples freedom to earn a living, and a dozen other reasons, not least of which is their own safety.
I can tell posting to you is pretty much a lost cause. If you have such a completely naive understanding of human behavior, I can only conclude its willfull.
All you are doing is creating an elaborate justification for slavery. Theres nothing noble about working for free, or keeping others from working in order to increase your own profit.