this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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But the reason this is advertised is because the big names in chocolate use slavery, and while customers are aware of it, they don't really care enough to change their spending habits. It's common knowledge that our chocolate uses slaves, our phones and shoes use child labor, etc, but we don't have the financial stability to alter our purchasing habits to avoid them, and honestly, most people don't really care about harm coming to someone they don't know in another county, so long as they're still able to buy the products they want.
And it's not just harm to others we can't/don't avoid - from tech, to food, to clothing, companies are charging more money for worse products, but we continue giving them record profits. In the end, the vast majority of consumers allow companies to do whatever they want; giving the companies less regulation and/or putting out even more documentaries to teach people about the atrocities they commit isn't going to change those people's behavior.
It unfortunately isn't common knowledge. You'd be surprised at the sheer amount of people who aren't aware of many things outside of their own neighborhood, much less in other countries.
I'm already too surprised by the amount of people who say things like "I ordered my phone last week, and it still isn't here. There's a kid in China who isn't being whipped enough, haha!" for me to think that more people knowing would lead to more people caring.
Ths countries with slave labor that is used generally are not very capitalist.
But the companies exploiting the use of child and slave labor certainly are.
As are the people funding them.
Yes, which is why relying on consumer choice to keep the market in check is ineffective, and why we need real regulation that is antagonistic to the idea of a free market.
Why?
The "regulation" exists. Slavery is illegal in every country. The regulation is ineffective.
Because we're the people funding them, so we can't be trusted to actually stop giving our money to users of slave labor. But obviously ending slave labor is more important than eating cheap chocolate, so we need to find an alternate way to stop it. What other way could we use but to put a ban on anyone caught using slave labor, to the point where it's finally enough to prevent it from happening?
If a "regulation" is just a fine that doesn't outweigh the profits from the act it's meant to be regulating, it's not a regulation, it's just the government taking a cut of the dirty profits. We need real regulations - forfeiting of all annual profits any year they were found to have used slave labor, for example.
Any company found to be profiting from dirty tactics needs to be swiftly hammered into the ground by every regulation we can throw at it. No product is worth the cost of human lives.
Yes, but the countries with other economic systems are ones that actually run the slavery. At least here a consumer has a say (if they care), and we also have regulations that can mandate things like that.
But a free market specifically focuses on the removal of regulations. And a lack of regulations is exactly why other countries are able to use slavery in the first place. Ultimately, these companies are are exploiting the free market of lower-income countries that can't afford to regulate their businesses in order to maximize profits.
That's capitalism, not a free market.
A free market requires regulation to keep it free, otherwise monopolies take over.
Capitalism is simply the focus on allowing businesses to gain and maintain capital, which is not directly tied to regulation, though you're right in that it strongly incentivizes lack of regulation to truly maximize capital gain in spite of its negative impact on consumers. A free market specifically focuses on removing government intervention. Who do you think is meant to have the power to prevent a monopoly otherwise?
Capitalism is rule by whoever owns the most capital. Its not in the capitalists' interests to allow a free market - competition is dangerous to whoever currently owns the most capital and gets to make the rules.
For a market to be free, it specifically requires enforcing anti-monopolist, pro-competitive regulation. Furthermore, the decision making efficiency of a free market is enhanced by regulation that allows individual decision makers to have something closer to perfect information.
The idea that deregulation leads to a free market is capitalist propaganda that only benefits the billionaires.
That's just flat-out wrong. I got this from Wikipedia, since it explains the concept in a pretty easy-to-understand way:
Free markets remove all corporate regulations, and allow for companies to do whatever they want, including using predatory pricing against the competition to run them out of business and create a monopoly, or price fixing, working together with competition to ensure they both get inflated profits at the expense of the consumers. Any regulation that currently keeps companies in check, however poorly it works, would be completely removed if a free market is adopted.
Do you actually believe that though? Think about it. Would a lack of regulations really prevent monopolies, or would it enable them? And is a market that has been captured by monopolies "free"?
It's free from regulations. That's why it's called that. It's not about freedom for consumers, it's about the ability for companies to freely influence the market without worrying about silly things like ethics and fairness. Lack of regulation would enable monopolies, correct; that's what a free market would do. We need a regulated market, which - as I explained in the last post - is the opposite of a free market, in order to allow for regulations that prevent monopolies.
Currently, we have an effectively free market in the US. The regulations we have put in place are dysfunctional at best and completely broken at worst, which is what is currently allowing companies to form effective monopolies and benefit from slave and child labor. We have far too few real, impactful regulations, and half the US population thinks we need even fewer.