Capitalism and Human Exploitation are Inseparable

Capitalism is not the root of all evil, well for the most part it isn’t. Local capitalism, free of slavery or forced work is actually really efficient. Unfortunately in today’s global economy democratic countries through capitalism have become destructive. They have a dangerous advantage over the rest of the “unfree” world.

The main argument for capitalism is that it “creates new technology and innovation that otherwise would not be possible. Without capitalism most of the modern day advancements would have never come to fruition and we’d all be living in the dark ages still.”

This argument follows a logical pattern but draws the wrong conclusions. Rarely does capitalism actually create anything at all. When it does, it’s typically a system or method for delivering new technologies and products to the marketplace so capitalists can enjoy profit from the innovation(s) they had little to do with.

Capitalism and capitalists are typically not altruistic intentioned people (on purpose). Sometimes they create good products with good purpose but for the most part they create useless shit that we really don’t need. Capitalism will create anything it can sell for profit whether it’s “needed” or not, nothing a little marketing can’t fix.

Capitalism is largely responsible for wealth inequality, not just in the United States, but across the world. The reason we can afford $3-4 for a gallon of milk or gas is that for a hundred years or more now we have been importing global wealth into the United States, mainly because we have freedoms that many others still lack. 

It didn’t achieve this goal alone though, human nature or blind greed, has allowed many capitalists to be okay using slave labor or exploited work forces in other countries. Many are so blinded by the profits that they don’t even realize what kind of a system they are participating in anymore. Most don’t stop and ask why the United States is so wealthy to begin with.

It requires you to understand currency. Currency was created as a common method to exchange labor. Labor is the creation of products or the performing of services. Currency represents those products or services as stored value. Simple right?

So why is the exact same job in the United States for $10 an hour worth only $1 an hour or less in a third world country?  Why do our factory workers here make around $15 an hour or more but people are working even harder in the same type of factory for 10 cents an hour?

This is where capitalism gets really bad, because it is non-discriminatory, meaning it doesn’t care where the labor or products come from, it only sees profits. By nature it seeks to maximize profit lines which means every business action must be necessary, cheap, and sufficient for its intended purpose.

Guess where capitalism really likes to find its labor, resources, and products? 

The answer is third world countries where there are no governments able to protect the environment or people. There are rarely any environmental regulations, some countries we buy from have forced slavery, some have child labor, some have dictators that control workforces and pays them scraps, and some are a mix or in between all of these things.

This is where the transfer of wealth begins. 

Through capitalism we have essentially stolen so much labor and resources from the world that our economy is completely hyperinflated with an enormous amount of wealth compared to the rest of the world. 

A child performing labor for 10 cents an hour is only $4 for a 40 hour work week in the United States, and that is half an hour for even minimum wage workers here. We are exploiting the rest of the world, everything we have here seems to be made in China. 

There may not even be a product left in the United States now that doesn’t have a trace of human exploitation in it, whether the plastic components were made somewhere else or the resources were stolen from another land, nothing in the United States is free of this exploitation.

Don’t worry, the ultra rich 1% are smart and have us fighting amongst ourselves for $15 an hour minimum wage which may make our lives here easier but does nothing to stop human exploitation or save any other human being from anything in the world. In fact, it might do the opposite, they might have to exploit even more people to find cheaper products and resources to pay for that additional wage here.

We consume four times the global average in energy and many other products, at that rate of consumption, we need to exploit more humans to maintain our lifestyle. That means we need to get more products from countries that force labor or have slaves.

How much of an impact has it really had?

Well if you consider that most of the people in the world are not actually free and most of the wealth is created from these cheap products and labor, it becomes very clear how the United States got ahead. The United States did nothing special except allow freedom which gave us full access to capitalism and the market. 

Other first world countries also share this insane advantage over third world countries. Many of these countries are ruled by dictators, have child labor, no labor laws, or outright slaves. This labor force has created the core components and provides the core labor to everything we consume in the United States. Without them we cannot have the lifestyle we currently have here.

People are so concerned about fair wages in the US but not many stop to ask why the US has enough wealth to even pay what it does. The minimum wage here is astronomically more money than most people in the world make and it’s because the United States has access to exploited human labor and stolen resources from “less fortunate” countries and people. This does not mean we are responsible for it, but when capitalism seeks profit, it finds the cheapest goods and labor to lower its costs. Do you understand what “Made in China” really entails yet?

How much damage has been done?

Remember, everything that has any value came into existence through someone’s labor, even precious resources and minerals had to be harvested by someone. The total wealth of the world was at one point or time someone’s hour of labor, and all those hours of labor added up is equivalent to the wealth of the world. 

Currency is only a way to measure all of this labor and exchange it, otherwise farmers who need tractors would only have milk to offer in exchange for equipment and the equipment manufacturers may not need milk, so we created currency to store the labor value so instead of that supplier having to take milk for a tractor, they can take currency and then go purchase something they need in that same way.

If we took all of the accumulated wealth in the world and divided it up amongst the entire world population we quickly see how disproportionate it is in the United States and that may give us a clue as to how much stolen/cheap labor/resources has been transferred to the United States, probably long before some of you reading this were born.

This transfer of wealth is what hyperinflated all of the prices here so that the cost of a gallon of milk could buy you 40 hours of child labor in another country.  They do a good job keeping this hidden from us though because economies are relative, meaning no matter what you make, you still have to spend it in the local economy (unless you’re ultra rich) so while your $10 an hour would make you a big deal in a poorer country, you still have to pay an inflated $3-4 for a gallon of milk in your local economy which creates a whole class of poverty in our country even though this poverty class still makes more money than most of the rest of the world.

If all countries and people had access to democracy and capitalism we would see a rebalance of wealth. There would be a global minimum wage, which means the US would become “poorer” while the rest of the world caught up as the wealth transfers back to the world we took it from. However, because capitalism is so antiquated of a system, the rich will continue to get richer so that wealth inequality gap would start to exist in every country the way it does in the United States.

Capitalism is not evil, combined with human greed and the freedoms America has over the rest of the world, it has allowed us to exploit the entire human race to enhance our quality of life in the United States at the cost of others. It’s not just America, as more countries come online and start to participate in this global market we will see an ultra top .1% of the world continue to exploit their fellow humans. Some by ignorance and some intentionally, but it is happening and will continue to under our current system.