Big Business: Friend or Foe?

[DeepWoodsJustice]

we are researching big business in school and my teacher is a very open minded teacher(meaning he is young) and i was just wondering, is big business good or bad for America? because i have some views that it is both, it is giving the low class jobs while keeping the rich rich, so please let me see some of your views on this subject

[yns_mr]

i couldn't understand what the big buisinnes means properly but how are conditions of the jobs given? And at what rate the wages are given? Also will the jobs given will provide the poor with the chance of becoming rich?

Provided that these questions are answered, i'll be able to make some comments...

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 10:04 pm
we are researching big business in school and my teacher is a very open minded teacher(meaning he is young) and i was just wondering, is big business good or bad for America? because i have some views that it is both, it is giving the low class jobs while keeping the rich rich, so please let me see some of your views on this subject
Big business are responsible for; The mass extinction of several species, the execution and deaths of millions of workers through unhealthy and inhumane working conditions and hours (and pay), the destruction of union rights, the influencing of wars (such as the war in Iraq) The poisoning of our environment though heavy industry and the depositing of hazardous chemicals, the production and sale of unhealthy, even fatal products, such as microwaveable food, or chemicals such as Therlidamide, The propping up of dictators, the selling of arms to warlords and extreamists, child labour, comodification etc. Most of this effects the working people of the USA, particularly immigrant workers.

Historically, Big business like IBM helped provide the machinery that allowed Holocaust to happen. IG Farben provided the Chemical Zyklon B, which was used to kill the occupants of the death camps.

Most importantly, they hold the means of production. The businessmen own the rights to all the elements of society that keep people alive. And what's more, they're not democratically accountable! We have no control of our own lives, and are instead forced to sell ourselves, to earn back what is unjustly held from us in the first place, in other words, they are a vital component to Wage Slavery.

So empirically speaking, they clearly have a tremendously negative effect on humanity, and our environment. And if you attempt to take action to prevent their profiteering rampage, you will face repression, even in America. So they are definetly enemies of the American working class.

For further reading;

Starbucks Union (http://www.starbucksunion.org/)
The corporation (http://www.thecorporation.com/)
Wage Slavery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery)
IBM and the holocaust (http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/)
Killer Coke (http://www.killercoke.org/)

[Janus]

Depends on what you mean by America, capitalism has helped to provide the benefits of development and progress for a while but many of us here feel that it is no longer necessary and thus outdated.

Big business is usually the worst aspect of capitalism in terms of its corrupt nature and monopolistic control. Just look at the excesses of big business back in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

[OneBrickOneVoice]

We are obviously against big business, as it is the highest stage of capitalism, it exploits more workers and more brutally and en mass. That said, imperialism leads to centralization of the means of production but in private hands. Thus a revolution in an imperialist country could turn the country into a full fledged socialist economy in a short time because all that would need to happen is that private turns to public.

[Fawkes]

it is giving the low class jobs
No, it is not. For every two jobs WalMart creates, three are lost. I will edit this post once I go and get the source from which that information came from so that I can cite it properly.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ "Foe" because of everything said above :)

"FRIEND" in that, without Big Business, we could not possibly have the conditions for multinational monopolization and socialization of economic relations, as a Maoist said above:


That said, imperialism leads to centralization of the means of production but in private hands. Thus a revolution in an imperialist country could turn the country into a full fledged socialist economy in a short time because all that would need to happen is that private turns to public.