From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Jul 12 2004 - 22:26:12 BST
Hi Dan, Arlo, and all...
On 12 Jul 2004 at 12:54, Dan Glover wrote:
>
>arlo:
>Explain to me how slavery "at that time" had socially low value in
>the south? I think the "system" had very high social value. Did not
>Thomas Jefferson own slaves? Also, take this above comment and
change
>"slaves" to "labor in Tijuana". Explain how this shifts the sentence
>from a "intellectually low quality" to an "intellectual high
quality"
>statement, or from an intellectual to a social moral concern?
dan:
I don't think the workers in Tijuana are slaves in the same sense as
in Jefferson's time. But again, I've never been there so I can't form
a qualified opinion.
dan later:
I don't know whether the quality is lower for the Tijuanese workers.
Maybe it is. But one difference between them and the slaves is that
the Tijuanese can leave their jobs there and search for better
conditions, legally. The slaves in Jefferson's time had no such
recourse other than to illegally leave their owners and trust in
systems like the underground railroad to deliver them into a better
environment. If they were caught they would be hamstrung or worse.
Not so with the Tijuanese. If they come north illegally seeking
employment and are caught they may face deportation but we certainly
don't hobble them, at least not to my knowledge.
msh says:
Dan, I think you're missing the point here. An analogy doesn't have
to be perfectly symmetrical to be useful in pointing out some truth.
The fact is that it's not just a matter of packing up and moving
north: there's hardship AND risk involved just as there was for the
slaves. Perhaps the punishment for their illegal behavior is not so
severe, but this too misses the point, which is...
WHY is it OK for an American Corporation to treat its workers in
Mexico so much different than it's workers are allowed to be treated
here? If it's not OK, then what is your objection to calling any and
all such exploitation of workers immoral?
dan to arlo:
I think there is a problem with your statement "the market's highest
Quality is measured in profit." You're subordnating Quality to
profit. In the MOQ and in my experience it's the other way around.
The market's highest profit is measured by Quality.
msh says:
It can't be that Quality comes before Proift when a corporation is
founded on legal language that makes it a CRIME for CEOs or BODs or
major stockholders to say or do anything that will impede the
corporation's profit flow. And even if they couldn't be held
criminally liable for such actions, they would nevertheless have
little or no incentive to act differently since their own interests
are served by profit maximization. This is why, say, you might have
a car company who KNOWS their cars will explode when impacted from
behind at a certain speed. However, since their actuarial
accountants have assured them that it will be less expensive to pay
off the resulting lawsuits for deaths and maimings than to perform a
recall, a decision is made to go ahead and allow the accidents to
occur. Hardly what I'd call Quality-Profit.
Thanks,
msh
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