McJobs Threatened; Collapse of Capitalism Imminent

[Provost Harrison]

Exactly Kro, that is my point about why they are being killed nowadays. And when people w@nk in your burgers, it really puts you off...

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
McDonalds is by all standards the crapiest crap food around. At least were I live.

They sell food at your McDonalds?

[Giancarlo]

Collapse of capitalism is imminent? What kind of idiot could say something like that?

[Provost Harrison]

Well the collapse of capitalism is imminent. When the workers unite and hang the borgeoisie from the lamp posts and establish an egalitarian workers' state...

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

Collapse of Capitalism Imminent

Is this one of those cases where if you say it enough times it might actually happen?

The facts demonstrate that it isn't

By the way, did you read that?

"We want to be contemporary, hip and today," Charlie Bell, chief operating officer of McDonald's, told reporters this week during a rare full-day look behind the scenes at the company's suburban Chicago operations.

So they want to be hip!

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Well the collapse of capitalism is imminent. When the workers unite and hang the borgeoisie from the lamp posts and establish an egalitarian workers' state...

You are funny... this isn't the 19th century.

[Kropotkin]

I have to agree that Ronald MacDonald is one hip dude.

[Provost Harrison]

Hip? That's sooooo 1972

McDonalds are so long in the tooth nowadays the only kind of hip they are going to get it a replacement one

[Sandman]

At the very least, it'll mean any end to those sentimental manipulative McDonalds commercials that have been polluting British TV recently.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by The Templar

Marx said capitalism would eventually be superceded.

That's like saying that it will rain sooner or later. But the point is: what will superceed it? Maybe a better capitalism?

The good thing about capitalism is that it recognizes that (despite being the best of the existing systems) it is not a perfect system and always is ready to be perfectioned and fixed. People who think that the present capitalism is the top, does everything well and cannot be improved are as dangerous as any other radicals.

In many ways he was correct. Evidence? The rise of socialism and social democracy in Europe.

That's a good evidence. You only have to do at what socialism and social democracy has done for Germany The former motor of the EU is now in the tail wagon...

Or... you can also look at what socialism did for Baleares Island (you know, those islands at the East of Spain in the Meditarrenean sea) which lost 25% of the tourism in 4 years thanks to the "social and environmental protection" policies.

But if you want a really good example you can look at the two Koreas for a comparison. Or at Taiwan and China, or Hong Kong and China.

[OliverFA]

Originally posted by Kidicious


See Smileys firs post. How can capitalism survive without jobs? It can't. There is no justification for capitalism unless people have jobs.

Sure... like Henry Ford's invention for making cars faster and cheaper (which had a lot more impact that this "burguer automization" can have) destroyed capitalism.

Wait! Wasn't he who caused the Great Depression?

[Kropotkin]

Maybe, if you actually read smileys first post, you'de understand what kid is impying and you could write a decent answer instead.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by OliverFA

That's like saying that it will rain sooner or later. But the point is: what will superceed it? Maybe a better capitalism?

Is capitalism just a better feudalism?

But seriously, suffiecient roboticization will put productivity (manufacturing and service) through the roof with less people doing work. Less people doing work wil mean greater profit margins at first. But with less workers comes less people with disposable incomes. So less sales of goods and services. At some point technology will make capitalism a non-viable form of economy. Capitalism will go obsolete, and a new method for controlling the distribution of resources will be necessary.

The interesting thing is, Micky D's cutting jobs is most likely going to reduce the discretionary purchasing power of lower and lower middle class teens. This will have a negtive impact on the fashion, entertainment (e.g. movies, music, video games) industries. Thus this could drive up prices for the rest of us.

As Hegel (or Marx) would say, each historical moment contains its own unraveling.

[Kropotkin]

It's hower not like this a new kind of problem in modern economy. When such a concept as unemployment started to appear the establishment often reacted as if it was the unemployed that was lazy and didn't want to work. In the pre-industrial society there was no such thing as unemployment as in a modern economy.

If the unemployment figures reaches some critical number and these people cannot find alternative sources of income the system might go into a schock. If a large bulk of the labour force have no real chance to find employment it would lead to all kinds of trouble.

[:) Smiley]

Now that I think about it the decreasing number of jobs is a GOOD thing for most of the industrialized world, though maybe not so much America.

Right now as the population ages, there are more and more people retired compared to people in the workforce. Those retired people still eat, buy goods, and use services. Therefore, the number of jobs must go down through automation, or people will either have to work longer or pay more for food/goods/services.

The USA is a different situation though as there is constantly a flow of immigrants, which gives this country an artificially high percentage of people in the workforce. Since supply of immigrant labor always exceeds demand, reducing entry-level jobs may not be so good for the economy. It all depends on the severity of the job cuts though.