> Hasn't all of this efficiency got something with standard of living.
Quite right, 579, but inversely - i.e. the greater the economic efficiency, the lower the standard of living for the majority, but the better for the elite.

> Why not be a little more socialistic in our approach to work and wealth management.
This has been the most common social argument throughout history.

> This will always be the case
Not necessarily. We have a choice, and it is ultimately between apathy and action. But the action must be intelligently conceived and executed if it is to succeed.

> Maybe a pull back is in order to protect our own.
Precisely. We've now had three full decades of the corporate globalization agenda, and the dominant consensus in those countries most affected by it is negative. Time for a change, but to what?

Seems Beelzebub has stumbled on the great secret of capitalism that is never ever mentioned for fear of exposing the whole system for the sham it really is.

<<In other words, it would be a society of slave labourers with no civil rights or personal lives working full-time for a small, wealthy elite who were free to do as they pleased.>>

We dont have far to go do we?
Modern capitalist economics is a religion founded on even more spurious basis than the real religions.
Taking existing power structures and inequalities as "natural" and deriving a theory from it that just happens to increase the power and the wealth of the upper classes, capitalist economics perverts everything humanity and civilisation has stood for for millennia and turns it into a dollar value as if nothing else matters. Soulless and inhuman economics of the rich. Isnt it obvious why we are heading down the toilet at a great rate of knots? It wasnt called "voodoo economics" for nothing.

"Capitalism knows the price of everything but the value of NOTHING!"

*Standard of living means material things, there is no standard of living for the workers, they are too busy trying to earn enough to pay for the things that make for a better living standard.*

So let me see. Average wage is around 1200$, more cushy benefits,
bells and whistles then any other workers in the world.

Perhaps its how they spend it, 579. Billions on the pokies etc.

Shut the pokies down, I say.

Meantime Aussie workers are creaming it all the way.

Beelzebub, before going somewhere, do you first make sure to puncture all the tyres, so you don't get there too efficiently? When you make yourself a ham sandwich, do you first make a sandwich that you don't want and then throw it out, so you're not guilty of the economic crime of making the ham sandwich too efficienty? When you want to go to the shops, do you first do a detour via some place you don't want to go to, so as to make sure you're not to efficient in going to the shops?

All human beings strive to satisfy their wants with the least waste of effort. This universal fact is what is behind economic efficiency.

The whole point of human society is to reap the benefits of co-operation, and the benefits of co-operation come because labour in co-operation is more productive than labour in isolation, i.e. it's more efficient - more outputs for same inputs.

To oppose ecnomic efficiency is to oppose the purpose of human society itself. You're basically saying, why don't people waste more, and not co-operate as much - for a better more humane society?

Many people today live at the margins of subsistence. Urging the most productive people to be less efficient is the same thing as urging a policy for the most marginal to die.

So capitalists are ruthless exploiters if they employ people full-time, but if they don't, that's also because they're ruthless exploiters? If they develop industry on-shore, they’re dreadful leeches, but if they do it off-shore, they’re dreadful leeches? If they make profits, they’re parasites, but if they don’t, they deserve bankruptcy?

>> How would you prove it?

> By observing what is happening in society.

Prove that economic efficiency is the cause of the problem, rather than government intervention. For example, when governments impose regulations on business, they count most against small businesses, because of economies of scale. The effect is to favour big companies, at the expense of small business.

But your economic illiteracy is such that you look on this phenomenon, and decide that the cause must be not enough government regulation, without the slightest reason or evidence for this conclusion.

With that depth of confusion, what makes you think that your mere observation is capable of distinguishing A preceding B, from A causing B; or distinguishing causation from mere correlation?

You can’t prove your case or disprove mine; I can prove mine and disprove yours.

That’s why you can’t answer the questions in my first paragraph. Isn’t it? But if you can, then what’s the answer to them?

On the positive side, you are trying to understand economic phenomena, and wish for a better society. I respectfully recommend you start with the first chapter of Murray Rothbard's Man Economy and State: http://mises.org/books/mespm.pdf
and let us know if there is anything you can disprove by logic

> Seems Beelzebub has stumbled on the great secret of capitalism ...
There is a great deal more psychology deployed in service of corporate capitalism than is generally realized. Highly recommended; browse the sites and borrow the videos from the local library for more:

www.thecorporation.com
www.zeitgeistmovie.com

> Modern capitalist economics is a religion ...
Yes, well said, mikk. Unfortunately its attractions are now so great that the most talented people find them increasingly irresistable, and have so much influence that alternative voices struggle to be heard.

> Shut the pokies down, I say.
A nice thought, but just a drop in an ocean of problems, Yabby.

Peter Hume, your rant is so full of things you claim that I've said when I haven't, and so full of one-eyed bigotry, that it cannot warrant an answer. The belief that economic efficiency is "the purpose of human society itself" is undoubtedly the most crippled understanding of humankind I've heard. The Devil surely has no claim on your soul - there isn't one!

> ... decide that the cause must be not enough government regulation ...
I never mentioned governments or regulation. You're so stuck in your own mind and its ravings that you can't even read the words on the screen.