“We’d like to go home to our families, but the Sherpas are worried that if we cancel the expedition we will not get paid. We are willing to continue.”
Capitalism in its purest form.
Capitalism in its purest form.
Whether a communist system actually would or could operate in this manner is probably best left as an empirical question.
Capitalism at its finest.
That doesn't mean that it's ethical for visitors to a country to enjoy a sport wherein they pay to transfer risk of death away from themselves and onto less advantaged local people. I'm not against this type of deal in principle - it's vital to the existence of institutions like EMS and the military - but when the whole thing exists so that megalomaniacs can tick off another box on the "hard things I've achieved" list, there is a real question of justice.
Most people who love capitalism might still draw the line at some types of transactions -- maybe your line is at selling organs or child prostitution, but it probably exists somewhere.
> That doesn't mean that it's ethical for visitors to a country to enjoy a sport wherein they pay to transfer risk of death away from themselves and onto less advantaged local people.
I have trouble seeing how it's more ethical to remove the choice from their hands and force them to do things that they demonstrably would rather not do.
Doesn't my enjoyment of king crab rely on transferring the risk of death while fishing in the arctic from myself to poor fishermen in Alaska? Doesn't any diamond I buy rely on conflict or slavery?
The guy come with his values, has money, changes people life, and think it is okay because by his own standards he did good.
That's it. The one who got the power makes the rules, and who cares about the weak?
Why cannot they be born in another place? The deserved it. Not your fault. You were lucky at the lottery of life and why feel bad about it?
And then add a cynical layer of "look at all the improvement our culture/money is bringing the locals". How these ungrateful dare spit on money? Bringing the superiority of your culture while connecting with the nature unspoiled by the masses.
Why people don't understand that it is better dying having a job, than maybe be poor with but sharing your life with your beloved one? Surprising no?
Yes, why would people dare want to live in dignity when they are not born lucky?
Some people never amazed me at being so naively arrogant.
I really wonder why some people don't like this kind of attitude.
Btw, I would also like to live in dignity from a work that is reasonable without killing me. I have the right to not like to work especially when the sharing is far from being fair and I cannot see my wife.
So I think it is far from only Nepalese that may be angry in the world right now.
Slavery, mercantilism, barter system, communism, etc don't solve this problem any better. In fact, historically, they're much, much worse.
But if they do - the operators will have to pay costs (permits, sherpas, etc) while having no revenue.
That can't be the full story, though. Because the obvious answer to that is that the Sherpa mountaineers should purchase insurance against cancellation of bookings (this is quite common for tourist attractions in more developed economies).
Underwriting this insurance would be quite easy, because the people who underwrite the insurance policies for the tourist climbers should be quite happy to underwrite policies for the Sherpa mountaineers as well.
[1] http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/exploitation-everest-sh...
In the former case, "extreme capitalism" and "pure capitalism" may be two different things. In the latter, they are synonymous.
Essentially... depends on your point of view.
So far my guess is that, as hinted in this and another response [0], that "extreme" is being used as a euphemism for "things I morally disagree with". Which, to me, does not make it any less "pure", but is rather your judgement on what "pure" capitalism is.
I don't see how this tragic event is a pure form of anything except tragedy.
I don't make any value judgements in the above, except perhaps in the first sentence. It's simply my interpretation of the comment, and how the quote was representing "pure" capitalism in my understanding.
I think by now you have sufficiently, if indirectly, answered my question of what you meant by "extreme". It seems like I was probably correct in my guess.
1. The pirates leave port to plunder, commit general acts of piracy and get that booty.
2. The pirates contract cholera and half the crew is incapacitated or dead.
Point 1 is widely considered unethical, but the reasons that it is considered unethical depends on what basis you hold for ethics (stealing from a person vs stealing from society vs stealing from government vs liberating from "the system", that kind of difference).
Point 2 is tragic (extreme distress), but could also be considered "karmic" (for lack of a simpler expression) depending on your ethical viewpoint.
Is it pure piracy? Well, did they pirate anything? If not, then no that's not piracy, it's misfortune. Did they pirate something and then lose it because of the cholera? If so, then yes it's still piracy, they still committed the act.
>In most societies, you gotta work to eat. I don't think it's necessarily a function of capitalism.
No, it's a function of a living and dying organism which requires sustenance. Capitalism is simply a means of trading value #1 for value #2 between organisms in which the organisms respect property rights (capital) of the individual organism.
If I had a billion dollars in the bank, I would not need to work to eat, despite living in a capitalist society. So yes, needing to work to eat is not a function of capitalism. Capitalism just says that an entity that has food gets to decide how to assign that food, since food is just another form of capital. Socialism would say that the community should decide.
This is also capitalism is it not?
I think the previous guy was trying to say that there is no morality in capitalism and therefore words such as extreme and pure do not apply. Capitalism is only concerned with money, nothing else.
Pure can certainly still apply. After all, there is no morality in the existence of water, but water can still be pure.