@ SalmonGod
Yeah.
The problem is business today revolves around the idea of being the cheapest to drive your competition out of business. That is, until you have no more competition and you can feel free to jack your prices into the stratosphere.... The big box store comes in, drives out all the smaller places and suddenly has a local monopoly.... Same deal with production facilities, except the logistics are a little different. Don't think ordering over the internet is any better, because those companies employ sweatshop labor in shipping warehouses.... How can you be ethical when the ethical choices are becoming extinct in the race to the bottom?
Used to be, you built up a loyal customer base that would do sustained, repeated business transactions with you. And yes, it did used to be that way, even today professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants) still often try to be the "family [insert profession here]" and yes, store owners and craftsmen used to do the same thing (they'd even give you credit on tabs and that was often a workable practice). The money was kept in the community, the state, or at least the country most of the time. Today, all the money leaves the area (if not the country), never to return.... Great Britain fell in a similar fashion....
Sure, the old way was "more expensive" than the new way, but it didn't matter, because people had jobs that paid and could afford it....
So in that race to the bottom, what remedy do these people have? Not much of anything. Due to "tort reform" (laws that make it harder to sue when somebody injures YOU) it is a giant pain to do the type of class action lawsuit it would take to even sue that company, assuming these people can't get workman's comp, or something (which is harder than you think). People complain about "the lawyers (plaintiff or your lawyer) getting 30% or 40%, but again, it didn't used to matter under the pre tort reform system. These new damages caps (caps on money give to severely injured plaintiffs) hurt you and help companies like these glue poisoning companies. It's not the PI plaintiff's lawyers messing things up, it's the insurance companies and businesses who don't wanna pay for the people's lives they ruined or in many cases, ended....
The truth of the matter concerning libertarianism is that it would absolutely work in a perfect society and a perfect world.... Everybody would work for their own gain and pay their own way without hurting other people, etc etc. We don't live in that perfect society or a perfect world, and libertarianism simply can't work.... It's really the same thing as communism and how that would work in a perfect world. The only difference is who takes care of people, themselves or the government.... Neither source works in all scenarios, because
people will abuse other people and that's just a total truism throughout history, whether they are talking about one person abusing other people or a group of people abusing other people (the government OR a corporation), it still holds true.
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"The free market would never willfully kill or cripple people...." ~Libertarians....
Strawman is best politician.
Also, this example doesn't prove the statment wrong. This isn't "willful", it is more akin to neglect. Well, it is neglect.
Fullstop. No. It is willful.
Read the article.The companies systematically engage in a cost/benefit calculation and determine it is cheaper to hurt people:"“If the cost of compliance to our rules outweighs the penalties for breaking them, companies just take a ‘catch me if you can’ approach to worker safety and health,” he said. And serious violations of the rules should not be misdemeanors, he said, but felonies, much like insider trading, tax crimes and antitrust violations. "
Moreover the companies are actually not caring and just view people as replaceable when they are hurt:"“There are people lined up out there for jobs,” said John Lyles, a vice president at Franklin,
according to testimony by a plant manager in a successful lawsuit in Mississippi brought by four cushion workers who suffered severe nerve damage from the glue. “If they start dropping like flies, or something in that order, we can replace them today.” "
Then the company tried to hide it by shifting around sick employees:"For its part, the company shuffled workers among its three plants in the frustrated hope that one of the sites might have better air flow. But the constant movement of these workers from plant to plant also made repeat problems look to regulators like isolated cases." You know when you engage in a coverup? When you know you're doing something wrong....
OHSA has been after these people for over 10 years now and they have done next to nothing.
Negligence is having a duty, breaching that duty, and as a result of that breach, damaging somebody. Willful is knowingly doing something. OSHA has been on these people for 10 years. They knew. They didn't care. These are not semantics. It's the difference between intentionally and unintentionally doing something.
Lawsuits like this one and asbestos claims are the paragon of willful bad behavior by companies. They really need to teach this kinda stuff in schools, because this, asbestos and exploding cars are all examples of a company cost averaging out somebody's life or health.
The company does a calculation of whether or not it is cheaper to do the thing that will prevent you from being harmed, or to take its chances with you suing it later. In re: The Pinto Problem
Ford allegedly was aware of the design flaw, refused to pay for a redesign, and decided it would be cheaper to pay off possible lawsuits. The magazine obtained a cost-benefit analysis that it said Ford had used to compare the cost of $11 repairs against the cost of settlements for deaths, injuries, and vehicle burnouts. The document became known as the Ford Pinto Memo.
An example of a Pinto rear-end accident that led to a lawsuit was the 1972 accident resulted in the court case Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co.,[19] in which the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District upheld compensatory damages of $2.5 million and punitive damages of $3.5 million against Ford, partially because Ford had been aware of the design defects before production but had decided against changing the design.
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1287071 times)