I hear you Cowbee! I’ll be be reading that wiki page latter on today. But again, the regular European carpenter does not benefit from an “exploited” cheaper iron ore in the form of cheaper nails… Not even from cheaper wood, if anything, people will appreciate more wood and hire more carpenters to fix wood cabinets rather than dispose after being worn out… It is a complicated economy…Companies like Ikea do indeed benefit from exploitation, but not the Slovenian carpenter with a market with cheaper wood and cheaper nails.
Now, you could go with that Ikea does benefit, so that those companies pay taxes that the carpenter will ultimately benefit from… I could see that, but, again, we know that these large corporation do not pay their fair taxes, let alone, compensate for the negative externalities they create, so i do see no net benefit to the average EU citizen on the exploitation their countries participate on.
First, there’s no “fair share” with taxes, capitalism is built on unpaid labor as capital valorization. However, again, as a country, Slovenia benefits from Imperialism. The robust healthcare system and other social safety nets are largely paid for via the profits of imperialism. IKEA benefits from imperialism more than the carpenter, but also passes along its profits in higher wages and cheaper commodities. The reason IKEA and Slovenia does this is to depress revolutionary pressure and maintain profits. Thus, there is a labor aristocracy in the global north, and a super-exploited proletariat in the global south.
I have to disagree here. The carpenter would ultimately had a similar quality of life with empire or without… Life in the west would be very different for sure, but i would not qualify it as worse. Consumerism would be replaced by a far more sustainable lifestyle and we would have replaced our incentives based on GDP long ago, but does not mean less quality of life, just a more just one.
I hear you Cowbee! I’ll be be reading that wiki page latter on today. But again, the regular European carpenter does not benefit from an “exploited” cheaper iron ore in the form of cheaper nails… Not even from cheaper wood, if anything, people will appreciate more wood and hire more carpenters to fix wood cabinets rather than dispose after being worn out… It is a complicated economy…Companies like Ikea do indeed benefit from exploitation, but not the Slovenian carpenter with a market with cheaper wood and cheaper nails.
Now, you could go with that Ikea does benefit, so that those companies pay taxes that the carpenter will ultimately benefit from… I could see that, but, again, we know that these large corporation do not pay their fair taxes, let alone, compensate for the negative externalities they create, so i do see no net benefit to the average EU citizen on the exploitation their countries participate on.
First, there’s no “fair share” with taxes, capitalism is built on unpaid labor as capital valorization. However, again, as a country, Slovenia benefits from Imperialism. The robust healthcare system and other social safety nets are largely paid for via the profits of imperialism. IKEA benefits from imperialism more than the carpenter, but also passes along its profits in higher wages and cheaper commodities. The reason IKEA and Slovenia does this is to depress revolutionary pressure and maintain profits. Thus, there is a labor aristocracy in the global north, and a super-exploited proletariat in the global south.
I have to disagree here. The carpenter would ultimately had a similar quality of life with empire or without… Life in the west would be very different for sure, but i would not qualify it as worse. Consumerism would be replaced by a far more sustainable lifestyle and we would have replaced our incentives based on GDP long ago, but does not mean less quality of life, just a more just one.