Where are you sourcing them? Whatever your crew chief’s been telling you, it’s probably garbage.
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That depends on technical training and specialty. Support staff, engineers, and mechanics from State schools if they remain dockside. Ship crews I draw from the Federation.
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As far as I know, the lower echelons of Federation society, particularly those living in the Alpha cities, are increasingly falling through the cracks due to the rapid encroachment of automation in the cheap and low-skilled labour market.
It’s the main reason why any of them sign up to colonise fringe systems or to serve as starship crewmen.
Same reason why so many of kin sign up to serve on starships or join the caravans. Too many of us, not nearly enough jobs to go around. In the Republic, at least, there are more jobs being created, though the rate of growth isn’t ideal. In the Federation Alpha cities, the reverse is happening.
It’s going to take several decades or so to achieve equilibrium, I think.
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We’re supposed to accept this capitalistic system, but it not only does nothing to prevent monopolies, it encourages them. Is this what you’re saying? Capitalism is supposed to be about competition between businesses which is supposed to benefit society at large, yet this sounds nothing like it.
we are afforded the status, privileges, and power that only the exorbitantly wealthy can ever hope to achieve so long as we participate in a capitalist system that perpetuates the economic inequality, repression, and deaths of billions.
Making us duplicitous at worst or useful idiots at best?
You can justify it however you might want to; in the end it doesn’t matter so long as you participate and perpetuate the system created.
Well, when the only out currently is death, then that’s not much of a choice. From the sounds of things removing oneself via suicide would only perpetuate the system anyhow. This is quite the monster we’ve created, the empires, capsuleers and CONCORD. I wonder how one could go about changing it and with what would a one replace it with?
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Would it, though? When’s the last time you saw anyone but us using any of the things we produce? T2 Navy ships? T3 Navy ships? They don’t exist. There are few economic activities we perform that the empires’ populations don’t. But none of those activities get used by people who aren’t us. At most, we’d represent a tiny loss of tax and fee revenue in Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, and Hek. Maybe a small loss of income for CONCORD. On-balance, though, they’d probably recover that in operational expenses.
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Are you high? I don’t crew my ships with the low-skill, ‘slipped through the cracks’ dregs you’re talking about. Spirits below, why would I set myself up for maintenance problems, performance breakdowns, firefighting failures, safety breaches…
What kind of idiots do you have for XOs on your ships?
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No, capitalism is about amassing wealth. Government regulation is the only thing that ever shackles that economic drive to actual competition, and any societal benefit.
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Technically, capitalism is about raising capital to fund your enterprises. Amassing personal wealth is the desired side effect. As is benifiting society at large. If we want to be technical about it. So we both misspoke to a degree here.
Government regulation is the only thing that ever shackles that economic drive to actual competition, and any societal benefit.
So is the laissez-faire style of economics, espoused by its adherents, really so free? Is the guiding hand, even in such laissez-faire economics, truly blind? I don’t know if your views are anochristic capitalist, but I do find that line of thinking to be, often dangerously, naive. You seem more thoughtful than that.
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True laissez-faire capitalism is free from all government interference. It inevitably leads to monopolies. More, it leads to so-called ‘company towns’, entire settlements and colonies where the employer (the ‘Company’) maintains a monopoly on all goods and services imported to the settlement.
This often includes food, and when it doesn’t, it includes Company-ownership of the market through which farmers and herdsmen in the community can sell their products to the rest of the community. Usually in this model, the market buys from the producer at painfully low rates, and sells to the rest of the populace at an equally painful markup.
Attempting to bypass the Company Market is expressly forbidden, and carries stiff penalties: fines, confiscation of goods, demotion for direct employees of the Company, and even a loss of market privileges entirely. This doesn’t just cut the buyer off from needed supplies. It also cuts the seller off from being able to sell their wares or buy anything else they need to survive.
The long-term goal in this scenario is a population that becomes more than just dependent on the Company. By ensuring that the prices for necessities outstrip wages, and offering ‘Company Credit’, the Company slowly renders the population indebted to the Company. This often comes with terms of employment that seemed harmless prior to this condition, but mean that leaving the Company’s employ becomes an excessive burden. And so, once indebted, people are, in effect, indentured.
And when local populations in these Company Towns have attempted to object and demand better working conditions, ‘security’ forces have been known to conduct their negotiations with automatic fire.
You tell me: is that really so free?
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Think of where the SCC taxes go and what you can buy with them. Ore comes to mind, and that is a staple in every fleet Empires/Concord put forward. Just an example. And with some people mining so much and driving the price of ore down, every tax space dollar that they can get their hands on is much more valuable. Remember when they hiked up the sales tax and broker fees? I remember.
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And we’re not the only ones mining ore. All of the ore we mine, we use. Think of all of the overhead that goes into maintaining the SCC markets, broker systems, etc, and how much they could do with that money if they didn’t need to spend it on monitoring our industrial activities.
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Oh, I know we use most of the ore we specifically mine, but other entities? Not so much. Besides, trade taxes aren’t their only revenue. Manufacturing, research, ihubs come to mind. They’ve found the easy way to get someone else to do the work for them. And it’s practically free, considering they can print as much currency as they want.
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Just to address this bit separately, because it deserves it:
There are, generally, two competing ‘definitions’ of capitalism. The more benevolent one runs thusly:
The more accurate definition, however, holds that:
Looking at historical evidence, we can see that one of these definitions requires blatantly ignoring the history of capitalism. The first definition is, in fact, demonstrably wrong.
There is no requirement in capitalism for the laws to be objective or equitable. There is no requirement in capitalism, for example, for all people to be free. Slavery exists in a capitalist system—especially a laissez-faire capitalist. People, after all, are just another commodity. The only things that prevent one individual from employing force to ensure the involuntary servitude of another are either a)the threat of more force, or b)laws prohibiting such.
Laws prohibiting the ownership or trade of any given commodity violate the principles of laissez-faire. The ‘guiding hand of the market’ is avarice. It is not benevolent. It is not particularly malevolent. It is apathetic to all except generating profit. Benefits to society are ancillary at best—unless capitalism is yoked to society’s interests by laws. Again, this is a direct contradiction of the principles of laissez-faire, which advocates freedom from government interference.
Imagining any economic system to be a moral system is a fundamentally flawed, self-defeating position.
Economic systems are simply the mechanics of economic activity.
Political systems are the mechanics of allocating power.
Moral systems are the structure of determining what is and is not acceptable.
And the three can be combined in every way imaginable. Communism (an economic system) can be Autocratic (a political system). Communism can be Democratic. Capitalism, likewise, can be thoroughly Autocratic. It tends to result in wealth-based Oligarchies… and that’s actually how it usually develops under laissez-faire principles, too.
Inevitably, without anyone legally able to stop them, the amoral capitalists will be willing to do things the moral capitalist will not. This gives them a competitive advantage. Eventually this allows them to force their competition out of the market, or put themselves in a position to buy the competition out of the market…
… or, you know, burn them down. Literally.
The longer this goes on, the more wealth they amass. The more wealth they amass, the more power they have, because they can use that wealth to buy favors, influence… private armies…
And it is inevitable. You don’t even have to believe that people are generally horrible scum, driven by greed. You only have to acknowledge that horrible people, driven by greed, do exist. Without government limitation and deterrence, such an individual will, eventually, rise to a position of economic power. And they will use that position to amass more power.
Because economic systems are inherently morality-neutral. Profits are profits.
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No, I mean: all of the ore capsuleers mine, all of it, taken in aggregrate, is used by capsuleers. None of what we, the egg-wearing people of New Eden, produce gets used by baseliners.
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Are you sure? It’s not hard to plant one of the naval capsuleers on the Jita market and have him buy ore.
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What’s that word there? 
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Young lady, I foresee a lot of getting your ear pulled in your future.
You know damn well what I mean.
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I honestly don’t see what we’re disagreeing on here. This is pretty much why I said what did where you quoted me. My quote was in response to your saying the following.
So are you saying that you agree with me? That it isn’t only government regulation that “shackles that economic drive to actual competition, and any societal benefit?” In fact it reads as if you think some form of government oversight is required to keep the “free” in the free market. Please correct me if I’m misunderstanding.
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Capitalism is not “supposed to be” anything beyond accumulation of wealth and the control of resources and production due to being able to invest capital with that wealth. In fact, in a capitalist economy it is less profitable to have competition between business over creating a monopoly in a sector of an economy and thus being able to set any price you want.
It’s governments and societies that have to restrain the exploitation inherent in a capitalist system – such as anti-trust legislation to break up monopolies for example. Because if you don’t restrain capitalism, you get us capsuleers essentially.
No, I’m saying you would have to be delusional or an idiot not to have known what you were getting yourself into when you applied for your independent capsuleer license from CONCORD.
I suppose killing yourself is one way to end participation if you are so inclined. Personally, I just accept what I am and what I do, as I condemn the meek and merciful along with the venal and vituperous alike to their deaths.
I never said anything about crews being low-skill because they come from a low socio-economic bracket. Just because someone comes from a poor background does not mean they cannot be trained to perform shipboard tasks.
It is however, the very fact that being poor carries with it particular social stigmas such as you have displayed, like being, “low-skill”, and, “dregs” that “slipped through the cracks” that makes their potential deaths somewhat acceptable when I do kill the poor.
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Well again I see we mostly agree, despite our opening arguments. I wonder if we’re just talking past each other albeit unintentionally.
For example, when you said :
That doesn’t detract from my claim that wealth accumulation is the desired side effect. I say this because there is no guarantee that the capitalist will indeed be successful turning a profit.
When you go on to say:
Benefits to society are ancillary at best
This falls in line with the the benefits to society being a side effect, though more often desired by society and not necessarily by the capitalist.
If someone wants to argue that I said otherwise, I’ve already admitted my error in my stating my position clearly. So that’s been dealt with.
I honestly see no problem with the rest of your post, Ms Arrendis.
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