Originally posted by Asaris
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As far as 'the man' goes, you seem to forget a number of things. First of all, 'the man' is an abstraction. Even if 'the man' is 'keeping you down', that doesn't mean that any specific individual is acting in a corrupt manner.
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Yes, the man is an abstraction, but specific individuals do act in a corrupt manner. Not any one of them constitutes the man by himself, they work together. Even if it's not intended to work together, by working toward the same goals, they keep things protected.
Originally posted by Asaris
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Second, I doubt very much that the corporations are working together in the manner you describe. Things are just too competitive -- these people are not each other's cronies, they are rivals.
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They may compete as to which company makes a better microchip, or which company sells more oil, but they don't compete over paying high wages to employees, or keeping corporate overhead (CEO's salary) low, or freeing up national airwaves for competition, or accepting legitimate bids for government projects, or not demanding taxes.
Originally posted by Asaris
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How long before one of them sees that, by increasing wages just a little bit, they can get much better talent? (There's a Econ term for this, but it's been too long...) And then the spiral continues, until people are making more or less what they should.
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Yes but the sprial assumes that any one of them wants the whole structure to change. If that were the case, then Argentina would have ignored everything OPEC said long ago. Sure, it wants a little more than the other members, but not so much more that it crushes the whole system and the market is flooded.
The diamond industry is a perfect example of this. There are mines of diamonds that have been taken off the market just to protect high cost. The diamond cartel (DeBeers) only allows so much of the stuff to hit the market at any one time, and in such a way they've been able to keep prices ridiculously high in relation to their actual rarity.
And again, how is this different from how the mafia works? Sure, there are always different heads coming and going, but the structure remains the same. You think it matters to the guy at the Deli that it's a different gang shaking him down each week? Some gangs may be less violent than others, but at the end of the day, they're all demanding money from you at the point of a gun, and they produce very little for all they demand.