Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 90% of businesses worldwide, but their participation in international trade remains limited. Reasons for not engaging in international trade include a perception of it being too risky, a lack of knowledge about international markets, unfamiliarity with customs regulations, and disinterest in expanding business beyond U.S. borders. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that only 266,457 of the approximately 27 million small businesses currently sell their products to foreign buyers.
Global trade allows wealthy countries to use their resources more efficiently, but competition can be damaging to small, domestic industries. Exports create jobs and boost economic growth, as well as give domestic companies more experience in producing for foreign markets. Running a global business, even for relatively small businesses, can be incredibly lucrative, offering ways to achieve both short-term and long-term business objectives.
To open trade doors for small businesses, it is crucial to prevent a potentially costly mistake: the resurgence of protectionism. Small businesses need specialized assistance to connect with foreign buyers, understand other countries’ rules and regulations, and access to finance. Additionally, the cost of trade is an important factor for Canadian small businesses, as it is expensive to set up supply chains and distribution.
In conclusion, small businesses have the potential to thrive and compete in a globalized world, but they must be supported and encouraged to take advantage of all potential opportunities.
📹 Why There’s No Such Thing As An Ethical Business Under Capitalism
New video every Friday! Citations and Further Reading: Winners Take All, Anand Giridharadas …
What are the main barriers to a business trading internationally?
Tariffs are the most common barrier to trade. Tariffs make imported goods more expensive than domestic goods. Another common barrier to trade is a government subsidy to a domestic industry. Subsidies make those goods cheaper to make. This makes the domestic price lower. Tariffs and subsidies make foreign goods more expensive, which makes people buy less of them. Barriers to trade are often called “protection” because they are meant to help certain industries or parts of the economy. From an economic perspective, reducing trade almost always costs more than it benefits. See also Exchange and Trade, Comparative Advantage, and the Benefits of Trade.
Why do some companies choose not to go global?
U.S. Business Challenges to Going Global. Many U.S. business leaders are reluctant to enter new international markets. This could be because they focus on short-term results. Global expansion is a long-term investment. But American companies often focus on short-term profits to meet shareholder expectations. This can make leaders avoid making long-term investments in international markets. Their hesitancy could be due to:
Limited resources: Even if a venture promises long-term profits, U.S. businesses might lack the resources to implement and manage expansion strategies. A sufficient domestic market: The U.S. has a big consumer market, and businesses may think the domestic market is growing fast and has less competition, so they don’t need to expand abroad. Some U.S. business leaders think their industries are already too competitive globally and that localizing their services or products would not be worth the investment. They may also believe that it would be better to strengthen their domestic market presence or explore other growth avenues. These ideas can also be influenced by other factors. The U.S. is rich in natural resources and human capital, so it can focus on self-sufficiency rather than global interdependence.
Why do some firms choose not to expand internationally?
Failing to account for operating costs in an international market. Not accounting for all the costs of operating in a new market can ruin a successful marketing and sales effort. Local expenses may include higher taxes and fees that are not typical of business overhead in the U.S. These expenses can reduce the profit margins based on domestic sales and marketing models. It is important to work with people who know the local market well. They can help you understand the true cost of doing business and avoid mistakes about the financial opportunity.
Exporting your domestic operations to the local market. Don’t rely on U.S. expatriates for managing an international operation. “I don’t think that’s the best strategy,” says Monti. “They understand the company and the product, but not the local practices and culture. The best strategy is to have a local manager with support staff that could be seeded with U.S. expatriates.
What is the #1 reason small businesses fail?
10. Bad money management and no budget. Small businesses, especially in retail, often fail because of poor financial management and lack of budgeting.
Manage cash flow well. Without it, businesses may struggle to pay rent, buy inventory, and pay employees. Retailers must balance buying enough stock with the risk of buying too much, which can tie up money and cause cash flow problems. Another common mistake is not budgeting for marketing or underestimating the cost of acquiring new customers, which can slow growth.
Good budgeting. A financial advisor can make a big difference. They help businesses with budgeting, planning, and investment strategies. They help businesses avoid common pitfalls.
What are some disadvantages for small US businesses competing in today’s global markets?
International markets offer great opportunities but also pose big challenges. Opportunities include new customers, lower costs, and less business risk. The threats include political, economic, and cultural risks. Is offshoring ethical? Why? Do you think reshoring will become more popular? Why or why not? Have you seen an offensive ad? Why do companies take so long to realize their ads offend people? References Carmichael, K. (June 20, 2012). Canada’s ‘Reshoring Opportunity’. The Globe and Mail. From theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canada-competes/canadas-reshoring-opportunity/article4230748/
What are the negative effects of international trade on small businesses?
These negative impacts include higher costs, a lack of needed inputs, higher prices to cover tariffs, and wasted time and effort. But beyond the direct impacts, changes in trade policy and retaliatory measures are a source of much uncertainty. Trade policy uncertainty will slow economic growth. How much is unclear. But it doesn’t end there. Businesses make different buying decisions. Some may find cheaper suppliers or make less of their product because the higher price will make customers less likely to buy. How this affects things like the aluminum in F-150 trucks or beer cans depends on the industry and how much the final consumer pays. Small businesses are all over the U.S. economy, making almost everything. It would be hard to identify all the specific impacts, with 6 million employer firms and tens of millions of single-person firms. The NFIB trade question helps us understand how recent changes in trade policy impact small businesses.
What are the disadvantages of free trade for small businesses?
A free trade area has benefits and disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it threatens intellectual property. … Unhealthy workplaces. … Fewer tax dollars.
A group of countries in a region that signs an agreement to cooperate with each other.
Over 1.8 million professionals use CFI to learn accounting, financial analysis, modeling, and more. Start with a free account to explore 20 free courses and hundreds of finance templates. What is a free trade area? A free trade area is a region where countries agree to trade with each other. The FTA’s main goals are to lower trade barriers and encourage free trade.
Why don t US companies engage in global trade?
Companies lack the size and resources to go abroad. Many middle-market companies are too small to go abroad. A quarter of companies think they’re too small to expand abroad. These companies may lack the resources to find and manage overseas customers, partners, and suppliers. Some 15% think international expansion is too expensive.
Getting there is only half the challenge. Even established overseas middle-market companies face challenges when expanding their international business. Transportation costs can be an issue. A quarter of international businesses face political, environmental, and legal risks in their target markets. About the same percentage of businesses have trouble finding partners to expand. Many companies also face economic uncertainty, poor customs procedures, and corruption. Despite these challenges, many middle market leaders see international activity as key to their future growth. To learn more about how middle market organizations balance the challenges and opportunities of globalization, see the Center’s full research report, Winning in the Americas.
Why do 90% of small businesses fail?
Why do most startups fail? Top Reasons Startups Fail. Why do startups fail? Startup failure rates are high because of a lack of product-market fit, poor marketing, and cash flow issues. Why do entrepreneurs fail? Most businesses fail for many reasons. If the owner doesn’t create a good business plan or a model that will last, the startup will fail. This can lead to the startup losing money, facing operational issues, and getting into legal trouble. Another reason for high business failure rates is poor marketing. A good marketing strategy lets startups share offers with customers and show how their products solve problems.
How small business affect the global economy?
SMEs are important for building a society without poverty. They provide jobs and money flows across society.
Bell, S., 2015. worldbank.org/en/topic/financialsector/brief/smes-finance.
Katua, D.N.T., 2014. The Role of SMEs in Employment and Economic Growth in Selected Countries. International Journal of Education and Research, 2, pp. 461-72. Muritala, T., Awolaja, A., & Bako, Y., 2012. The Impact of Small and Medium Enterprises on Economic Growth and Development. American Journal of Business and Management, 1, pp.18-22.
What are the disadvantages of globalization in small business organizations?
Globalization challenges include worker exploitation. … Job loss, high investment, environmental degradation. … Taxes on cross-border trade. … Compliance for Employers. Globalization is good for business. Globalization helps businesses by giving them more customers, more money, and a more diverse workforce. Globalization also brings challenges like environmental damage, legal issues, and exploitation of workers. Globalization can be overcome. When considering whether to expand your business, you should ask yourself: what are the benefits of globalization for people and businesses everywhere, how does globalization affect your business, and how can you overcome the challenges of globalization?
Why do so many small businesses avoid doing business globally?
Key reasons why many small businesses avoid doing business overseas include: (a) financing is often difficult to find, (b) would-be exporters dont know how to get started and do not understand the cultural differences between markets, and (c) the bureaucratic paperwork can threaten to bury a small business.
📹 Imports, Exports, and Exchange Rates: Crash Course Economics #15
What is a trade deficit? Well, it all has to do with imports and exports and, well, trade. This week Jacob and Adriene walk you …
Howdy, friends! I hope you all enjoy this week’s article. If you’d like to help support the website, please consider perusal my Nebula Original Series, The New F-Word! I’ve put a lot of work into it and I think it’s really cool. You can get free access to Nebula with your CuriosityStream subscription – it’s less than fifteen bucks a year for both platforms, which is an amazing deal. Check out the latest episode of The New F-Word: nebula.tv/videos/second-thought-how-fascism-survived-the-post-war-era and sign up for the Nebula/CuriosityStream bundle deal here: curiositystream.com/secondthought It really does help keep this website running 🙏
A Dutch economist, Paul Schenderling, wrote a book about this. He basically states that the most important thing that needs to change, is the definition of success. Right now, success is synonymous with profit. Selling a lot of products that self-destruct is good for profit, but not for anything else. I’d rather have my washing machine last 25 years than need to replace it every 5 years or so. If the success of a company is defined by the durability of its products, its environmental impact, and the way they treat its personnel, the rules of the game will change and companies need to change along with it.
When I studied business studies in college I remember one of the first important lessons was ‘the aim of all business is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible.’ Morality does not come into it, if they do something that would incur a fine but they would still make a profit on it then they will do it because profit is more important.
I was curious as to how Nespresso got a certification declaring them “ethical”, so I looked up B-Lab’s certification process. Companies register their own employees to the “B Impact Assessment”, where they give prepared answers to a checklist of questions they get to see in advance, and at the end of the 12-month process, they only need a score of 80/200, or 40%, to pass. So all a corporation has to do is select a number of employees they trust, feed them the correct answers, and get just good enough of a score to get the certification. The entire thing is one big joke that’s being used by large corporations to scam consumers into thinking they care about something other than profit.
i have been consistently embarrassed, criticized, ridiculed, bullied, and put under extreme mental/emotional duress at my places of employment both by bosses and coworkers for trying to share these values and ideas. The reason change isn’t happening is because people aren’t ready for it. Things are shitty now, but not shitty or catastrophic enough to convince people that the way we’re living now could be so much better. It’s soul shattering, crushing, and completely heartbreaking. I weep for my fellow americans every day and for my brothers and sisters across the world who are enslaved by the idea of enforced public complacency. Feels real bad man. 27 years old and i feel like a senile old man half the time, plagued by easily attainable visions of what could be grossly overlaid on top of the grim reality of what is
This is true. Since corporations routinely break the law if they think that there will be a net profit for them if they do so, it begs the question “What’s the difference between a ‘legit’ corporation and organised crime?” Corporations are just criminal organisations that have paid governments enough to let them exist.
Not just in business, but even in our day-to-day lives, money and materialism is glorified in such a way that subjects such as ethics, morality, wisdom, and justice are pretty much always sidelined and sometimes downright ignored. I mean, we’re always told as kids, for e.g., that ‘honesty is the best policy’. How much of it do we get to see in the world?!Kids are more honest and kind-hearted than most adults I’ve seen. At least they don’t see everything in terms of profit.
I remember when I was in college these big law firms would sponsor trips. Our college was based in a working-class community, they’d proceed to spend the whole trip giving presentations about how programmes such as theirs were changing lives like ours. I even remember one instance where a homeless man got a job at a law firm through one of these programmes. What they omitted to tell us, was how they were making the world a worse place by giving large corporations all sorts of advice. Including things like Mergers, which create monopolies, tax avoidance and just anything a business would need to do to evade accountability. CSR is one big scam, you hit the nail on the head!
I had to quit my job at amazon, for a variety of reasons but the one that sticks with me is the day everyone made fun of me for having a “Failed” business 1) Thats how the shit works 2) I explained (or tried to atleast) that most of the reason it “failed” was because I refused to use evil corporations advertising platforms, and didnt crush my customers with BS. I used to jokingly say I was too nice to run a business, but this article just confirms that I 100% just have a conscious and the people who run these fortune 500 companies do literally nothing but terrorism for god damn numbers on a spreadsheet
My parents are massively in denial about this – they’re honestly pretty good as far as parents go when it comes to social justice. They do care – but they definitely struggle to wrap their minds around how bad things are and the audacity of what needs to be done to fix things. It’s just hard to convince Gen X folks that the world they grew up with was built with blood and abuse.
Thank you for this. My last two employers were B Corps. Both, and only those two in all my job history, gave me trauma. I am not alone in that trauma from the most recent and have spent the past couple months trying to get HRC to hear me. Now when I look at all the brands I’ve loved forever when I’m in big beautiful Co-op grocery stores, I twitch at the thought of how much of the population might be experiencing similar trauma. Telling the world you’re saving pollinators while cursing and scapegoating employees is a scene that replays in my head when I evaluate the choices on the shelves. Sometimes I wonder if other shoppers notice me twitching.
By reading some common “beginner business books” you can peer into the mind of an average business owner. They will never truly care about the working class because they see them as idiots in a way. They work for money and “chose” to enslave themselves to the system while the entrepreneurs decided to make the system work for them. In a CEO’s mind, the working class should be grateful to have a wage in the first place.
Agree. I started my uniform business two years ago and no one wants American made/ethically-made/recycled hats. They want the cheapest, most dubious sht possible, and if I don’t order it they bring it in. And if I say no I don’t pay the bills. Its demoralizing sometimes realizing how much everything is built on layers of exploitation, but my goal is to finish getting set up as a cooperative and live small.
Consider this – I’ve, sadly, extensive experience in both retail and residential psych facilities. I once dreamed of fighting the good fight as a psychologist, but I digress. When I say there’s a terrifying amount of overlap between management practices….let me put this another way. When a lion tamer says to get down…. I was slapped down for recommendations or generally casting out ideas for a better system because “it’s not cost effective.” Never forget that you are a product, because humanity is expensive.
Love the content from this website. I’ve started listening to “Debt the first 5000 years” at your recommendation, and I was surprised by how witty and interesting the author is regarding the subject. I expected a lecture honestly, but discovered someone talking about their passion, which is much more engaging to listen to. Keep up the good work!
This concept is a great gateway conversation to getting people to move leftward in their thinking. It definitely was for me. I was pretty conservative in my teens and early twenties, before I started examining ideas like that the rich can give money to solve local, national, global problems or that companies can improve society by behaving ethically. Basically it came down to one question: “But what if they don’t?” After that, it wasn’t long until I learned that, in fact, THEY DON’T! So then I started on a path to figuring out actual solutions to these problems, as well as ones around race and sexism and inequity in general, which led to me to websites like this one and socialist solutions. Everyone is different, but if you’re trying to figure out how to broach these conversations with your more conservative friends and family, I personally can attest that this is a great place to start.
I’ve only watched the intro so far, but I did want to quickly mention that Adam Smith is sometimes quoted out of context, and he wasn’t as hard line as he’s made out to be. The Wealth of Nations can be as selectively quoted as the Bible! I struggled through a few chapters many years ago, and I found him surprisingly anti-capitalistic. Especially as I read them in the UK when Thatcher was in her pomp, and his name was all over the place – that’s why I took the trouble to go into it in the first place. Here’s a quote from an essay I just found on a website called Aeon (I have no idea if they are dodgy or not!)… ‘Smith pulled no punches in his assessment of the bosses as working against the interests of the public. As he put it in The Wealth of Nations: ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.’ Smith was totally anti-monopolistic, and that sets him against modern capital right there. It’s a bit off-topic, but I felt he needed a defender. Not that I’m the right man for the job! 😉 Love the articles – keep them coming – you are greatly needed in these troubled times.
💚✊💚 all companies under capitalism chase profits – if they happen to help any people it’s secondary to their cause. Great work JT. Keep educating the people. All power to All working class people. And when the corporations set the bar so low that dragging ass counts as “ethical” we the people are doomed.
What he said at 10:04 is incredibly true. Spoilers for The Good Place below. At the end of one of the later seasons, it’s revealed that NO ONE has gotten into The Good Place (basically non-demonimational heaven) in centuries, and that’s because for so much of humanity’s history, people worked their own land, made simple, uncomplicated decisions (barring soldiers in wartime and monarchs) and could make a tangible impact on the world’s net good or bad (not unlike Zoroastrianism) through their actions and their contact with others. However, the rise of industrialization and the prominence of factory labor, exploitative business practices, especially toward the global south, and the fact that global supply chains complicate things even more. The fact is that most people don’t have the time, energy or even ability to go through the spiderweb of things that led to them getting an apple in their grocery basket, heedless of what went into it to get it to them (pesticides, exploited native workers, greedy CEOs making selfish decisions on all of the above, etc.) all the negative that’s put into the world before it even touches their hand creates an inescapable web of complicated effects on the world as a whole that make that simple act, completely innocuous (and inescapable for most, seeing as we don’t grow our own food supplies) an unavoidable moral pit trap. To bring this around to the point of the article again: Supporting companies that claim to act responsibly is all well and good, but the way that the world itself is set up is geared in such a way that it’s literally impossible for good companies to be fully good and not lose out on essential profit that can keep them in the game.
Just plugging that curiosity stream/nebula deal and commenting for the algorithm. I’m already a patreon supporter and have had a subscription to curiosity stream/nebula for a few years now otherwise I’d do it myself. It’s honestly a really good deal, kind of insane that it costs so little considering what you get.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong, but… Does this mean that, under capitalism, it’s impossible for a socialist to start a successful and truly ethical business? To be clear, by “successful” business I’m not referring to a top 500 company that dominates it’s market but rather to one that at the very least can manage to break even.
Very good article, as usual. Here are some more suggestions for more articles: So-called “ethical” funds for “ethical” investing. Many people choose them because the money goes to good causes. The problem is that there is no regulation regarding the label “ethical”. So some self-styled ethical funds invest in armament companies like Raytheon (which does other stuff as well, but two thirds of their business is weapons). Some not quite so gross ethical funds invest by the “best of class” principle. The cement industry e.g. causes a lot of pollution. So such funds are invested in the company that pollutes the least (or claims to do so). This is more ambiguous. I am not sure whether it is possible to get rid of cement completely. Other greenwashing companies or organizations that give supposedly “green” labels (according to very weak or scarcely controlled or supervised criteria) would also be good material for a article. And, please JT, do a separate article on Nestlé. Yes, there are already several YT articles bashing them but, IMHO, they cannot be bashed enough. After all, they continue with their evil practices as if nothing happened and, unfortunately, many people don’t boycott a brand even after they learn about their nefarious practices.
Thanks Second Thought ! Another spot-on expose’ of this system. Wish we could multiply your views, approach, research, writing and production talent one-thousand fold across platforms. Please keep informing and hammering away. (This system is so entrenched across the globe, particulalry in the U.S. and Western Europe that I unfortunately have no faith that there will ever be any significant change, but I give you and others like Our Changing Climate, et. al., kudos for all your efforts. Would love to get my son, a budding documentarian, engaged at your level. Keep it up, keep the faith.)
I’d be interested in an exploration of steady state economics and business ethics. Because I have a hunch that there’ll be a huge difference between the current GROWTH paradigm and STEADY STATE economics. Also be good to do articles on how the Spanish Workers Cooperatives work, especially from the ethical standpoint. In Spanish Workers Cooperatives – many of which DO constitute “big businesses” – have significant input from the workforce employed.
I have known ethical people who own small and medium-sized businesses, and who seek to operate those businesses in conscientious ways. But it’s the financial, promotional and competitive schemes they must operate under truly determine how their businesses operate. The simple way to put it is: it’s defense of capital. That’s a shared trait, a shared mindset. It’s not a personal failing of these people, but (ironically) a collective set of values that overrides the nature of the individual who starts out to be one of those social justice minded entrepreneurs. This often happens with not-for-profits and a lot of social service and social justice organizations as well; they have to operate within a framework of donors and contractors and often ended up unintentionally adapting to the values of that framework.
Definitely some good things to think about. I might push back a tiny bit on the UBI example, not in the sense of you being wrong, but that too much pessimism about UBI improving people’s lives enough to stop them from making trouble at some point starts to smell like accelerationism. It’s like arguing that Labor Unions winning higher pay and shorter hours is actually bad because then people won’t be desperate enough to participate in substantial systemic change. The key difference, of course, is that one is a bribe in exchange for not building worker power, and the other is a direct result of Labor building power and flexing its muscles. I think to some viewers it might sound like you have to choose between policies that help workers’ actual material condition and building worker power, when really we should always be pushing to do both. A great article, as always. Thanks for giving me some food for thought!
Thank you for this content. I know paying you through a 3rd party “app” isn’t the best way to give you monetary support; But I also assume you don’t want to give out your address so we can pay you directly, because of crazy people. Haha! Keep up the good work, and I hope we can find our way forward! Best wishes!
Love your way of thinking. It’s clean, rational but you got some passion going on for these topics which is a great blend. Personally i had to make a study of narcissism due to circumstances (not that i am suffering this disorder). My life as been a hell but i am in a way thankful for having learned to understand what this disorder means in a practical sense. You can’t learn it by reading books, there’s just no way. When i hear this mumbo jumbo about rich people doing as they please and out of self love and that this will better everyone around them.. well…that is blatant narcissism. Narcissists want to do as they please … they are far more sensitive to control than other humans are to oxygen. You can’t stop them in their tracks because they seem to have a god given right to do as they please even when it is at the expense of what ever. This world is suffering narcissism, that is what i am learning.
2 solutions – 1. limit stock buybacks or kill them altogether. In 1982, during Reagan, a divergence in wages and profit of a business happened in many aspects of American-style capitalism. Since then, COLA raises, if you get them, are meant to reduce or maintain an inflation-adjusted wage. 2. Cap CEO/ChiefXX pay at 100x the frontline worker. A minwage in LA County would produce a CEO pay of about $3.2m/year with that cap. Japan has it now. Both of these solutions will produce a higher wage and quality of life for workers, expand their buying power in the market, and lower investment return/dividend drive to shareholders and investors without removing it explicitly.
Hey JT. I’ve decided that today would be the day to sign up for the CuriosityStream + Nebula deal, but I’ve noticed that I am unable to sign up as I do not have a credit card or a debit card with a 16 digit number and that sort of information on it. In Germany, an “EC card” is extremely common for payment online and in stores but the number layout is different. They make use of the “IBAN” numbering system. Your conventional credit cards aren’t as common in European countries, so adding more payment options such as PayPal if possible and to think of other countries would be much appreciated. Would love if CuriosityStream could address this flaw
Good article but I disagree in principle with the idea that apps aren’t helpful to the homeless. An app made by neoliberals may be of little use. But I’m currently working on a discord and subreddit to create a directory of resources for the homeless in PDX along with decentralized information that the homeless can use to provide themselves and each other with mutual aid.
Ethical business under capitalism isn’t possible as it is a system that inherently encourages unethical practices, a lack of regard to the environment and those inhabiting it, the treatment of workers as mere cogs in a machine instead of people who deserve to be treated with decency, an unjust hierarchal system based upon wealth where those at the top get away with horrific crimes against those below them, while those at the bottom are severely punished for simply trying to survive. The sole reason this system survives is because a massive portion of society has bought into it’s propaganda that this is all a necessary evil for civilization to function.
I was once part of this lovely anti capitalist small business made up of disabled, neurodiverse, queer and poc artists where we would be able to sell our art and everyone would be payed equally, no bumping up other artists due to popularity and so forth. I was really excited to see this thrive since the head of the business was trans and very passionate about this project. Unfortunately the business never picked up and that person has dropped off the face of the earth (I assume due to personal and medical circumstances) and any evidence of the business was essentially erased. I really wish that it was able to lift off but I suppose capitalism and the rising cost of living is gonna make small ethical businesses next to impossible to thrive and survive.
I see an analogy with the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the entropy of a closed system never decreases), which comes about from sheer probability: there are a lot more disordered arrangements of some set of atoms than there are ordered arrangements. For a business producing Product X, there are many different ways they could go about it, the vast majority of which are “unethical” according to our usual metrics, so statistically it’s much likely for the most profitable method to be unethical rather than one of the rare ethical methods.
Just signed to Nebula after perusal some of your work here. Just want to point out that at the first article @around 16:45 you mention Andon Dimitrov, but I’m almost certain you mean Georgi Dimitrov. Those are two very different cats… I do not think in general that article content is best suited to really hit the mundane brutality of fascism on the head, but thank you for trying. Appreciate the work. Will watch the rest of the articles. Also the comments on Reddit seem to be turned off, hence this comment.
Hey @Seconf Thought can you share your view on the multi-stakeholder approach. I heard of this term from the world economic forum. When I searched it up I cam across: multi-stakeholder capitalism, multi-stakeholder economy, and governance. The concept is the same for all and sounds similar to what you have been saying regarding stakeholders.
16:00 ❤ Demands become dictates. I prefer the words “best practices” or “system optimizations” because at one point it won’t feel like dictates. For me “school” is paramount and what seems like a dictate (derogatory) is actually just learning within the scientific method. IOW, 2+2=4 is a dictate so to speak but more of a maxim.
I’m sure you get tons of suggestions, and I’m not 100% sure if you’ve done it or not yet. But I think a article about Eminent Domain would be really interesting. Some people say it is useful, and I’m sure it is in some instances. However, I am curious if wealthy people have ever been the victim of it, because I am highly doubtful they have been
I’m a small business owner, and obsessed with this website. You provided solutions that we as the working class can implement to start making change, but I wonder as small business owners, what actions can we take? Is it organising as a worker’s cooperative? What are some coordinates steps the small business community can implement?
Fascinating article as ever, JT. I’m not sure if you accept article ideas but on the subject of introductions to socialism I myself would like to know the different ways in which socialism or at least communism has been implemented; where it has failed or succeeded and what we can learn from it for future. A little something to reverse some negative stereotypes and conceptions of the potential systems.
The halo effect you were talking about applies both to companies and individuals. This is especially evident in the media image of a genius. The boogie genius is great at everything. In reality it cannot work this way. Same goes for good deeds. Being good in one area of life doesn’t mean being good in all areas of life
I think the problem with saying capitalism is bad is the fact that it is such a broad term. The same term that defines huge market leading corporation also defines smaller family owned businesses. I think many, if not all of us are aware of the potential atrocities to arise from earning the highest possible profit, if they aren’t occurring already. The thing is, to forego this economic structure means the dissolving of many careers, career opportunities and even socioeconomic mobility.
I wanna say some stuff: I’ve been following you for years and firstly I’m so happy I get to see your face, secondly I finally realised I should be patron, thirdly I would like to see some life hack articles on how to be a good everyday socialist or motivational stuff for keeping going and how to deal with far right rhetoric in the workplace and whatnot, you know some everyday practical stuff and fourthly do you play on the Nintendo Gamecube? I saw in some other article at the cartoony bit at the end and I was like “that’s a frikkin’ GameCube” I collect retro games so it might be fun if you gave some socialist perspective inside on games and movies or something. Anyways, I wish you the best. You’re a great person and an amazing YT activist. Peace comrade.
CSR was the most impactful of all of my graduate school classes. I remember telling my professor my main takeaway’s from the class were that capitalism inevitably ends up terrible and things like the stock market must be destroyed for the sake of the worker. They must be the stakeholders and investors or it all goes to hell. He didn’t agree with getting rid of the stock market 😏
there is no responsibility without ownership. If a selected few own the most their only “responsibility” is to maximise their personal gain from that ownership. Real responsibility that maximises the benefits for the society overall can only come from collective ownership. When people own a common good preservation becomes more importand then personal benefit as the last one becmes increasingly more impossible with the ammount of collective owners.
I’m a sole trader and therefore in a sense a businessperson. There is no way my business is ever going to have a turnover of more than a few thousand a year, let alone profit. I substantially agree with you though. As I see clients and my experience increases, they become less profitable to me, because the number of times they need to see me goes down. Also, as they become more educated about their health, they become more able to take care of themselves. Both of these factors shrink my turnover. The worse my service is, the more money I make per customer.
I noticed this when I worked at Goodwill. They claim their employees are their number one priority but they treat them the worst. The pay is crap, the working conditions are awful, they would not fix the heating or air conditioning, then when customers would leave they would not see oh maybe customers are leaving due to the conditions of the store, oh no it was because we didn’t work hard enough and put the garage sale shit products in the right places that would make higher sales. They would call the store several times daily to ask for the numbers, never once asked about how their people were doing. The manager said he called to ask about getting the leaks and other problems fixed, they said it wouldn’t happen so stop calling. Luckily a customer got to go back to use the restroom and saw the conditions, the huge piles of shit in the back that were a hazard and the next day the fire marshal came and said he could shut the place down now but would grant them 72 hours to clean up the place. Once the bigwigs got word of that they all of a sudden had personnel and trucks to come fix it, they only care when they realize the money might stop and those suits never step foot into what they are running, but they know they have to act to do something so their paychecks keep coming. And with millions of dollars what do they do to help the disabled people they pretend to care about, they show people things on google on how to write a resume. Oh wow!
Great article! I may incur the wrath of some people in the comments but I will use this space to put it all out. As someone from a third world country I find it funny how people from first world countries will find out and discuss about all the harm they are doing abusing the power they have to shape the world and still won’t change a single bit for real; at most falling for businesses that only claim to be ethical and fair only to buy overpriced stuff as a means to hold their virtues high while not giving up on their privileges. This may sound like I hate or have something against first world people, but that is not the case, I just feel hopeless the same way anyone would feel when they see another global conference for climate and ecology that will end in promises and no compromises. Sometimes its better to not know, it hurts less.
Love this article. We, as a society, it doesn’t matter where is located around the world, have to unite to fucking burn all them corporations that actually harm the people and the planet, they might have s hell lot of power, but they cant surpass the number of people. Also, there’s no such thing as donations in capitalist logic, they call it that way so you forget about its real objective: influence and power trade off. To set an exaple: in Chile, we have once a year something called “Teletón” which is s charity campaign to raise huge amounts of money for helping the people in disabling conditions (the State have never taken care of them) and they always say that the people is its most important donating part of it all, but along the 27 hours televized show, you can see a lot of companies and corporations doing “donations” of about 1-3 million dollars and people go crazy in ovations, but people also ignore the fact that they are buying popular approval, evading taxes and buying some political power through influence. What a great country I live in where charity is a emotive teardriving show for capitalists to take advantage of!
This article was extremally informative and eye-opening for me. I have become even more convinced in the idea that only proper governmental regulations may have a leverage against capitalist’s greediness. However, I’m still puzzled about one thing: how can we regulate companies if they immediately threaten to leave and ‘make their profits elsewhere’?
I always reach the same problem when I think about investing / saving for retirement. Everything I can do is unethical. Buying shares of unethical companies / crypto currencies / gold bars probably mined under catastrophic working conditions. I don’t habe enough capital to invest in real estate…. Of course I want to save for the future. I don’t like risk, so I should diversify: a bit of everything. I don’t need a ton of profit. I just need to get along; beat inflation. I’m working class. Not doing bad, but also not well. Under average. I want to be save from poverty when I’m old. My pension on its own will not do it. So I have to invest. 😔What do you guys do?
I come from the Netherlands a country a lot more socialist then the us and I will tell you it’s much better here for the normal people. I do not always agree with you on everything as well as I don’t agree with some capitalist but I do really love your work. Great articles always and very nice to see some different opinions on YouTube.
It’s been a well-known fact for years that CPR is generally an excuse for “business as usual.” I found the “shared-value” concept more interesting (develop projects that are both profitable and drive sustainability). Would be interesting to have a article on the ways in which this has worked/failed, rather than the CPR debate, which is a bit outdated.
This is why I hate the finger wagging at consumers for their shopping choices. It’s like these people forgot that other people have too busy lives with their jobs, families, errands, hobbies, etc. to be “woke” about all these evil corporate practices. And even if they were aware, like you said, they often have to go with the cheaper unethical option…given an ethical option even exists…which these sjws somehow still find a way to shame them for.
The fact that you can say this and still get sponsors on your articles goes to show how brainwashed the population is to the point that corporations think even someone who talks the truth like you can’t have a significant enough impact on people’s dogmatic beliefs. We truly live in a dystopia and we don’t even have the cool Cyberpunk aesthetic.
The science of marketing ideas has advanced much faster than technologies needed to meet pre-existing consumer demands with innovation or production. Ideas like “this product will make you feel great” and “you feel good about this company” are crammed down our throats all day every day. It works on most of us.
Socialism won’t solve any of these issues either because socialism has nothing to do with nor was it conceptualized to address those issues. Socialism is mainly about the means of production and democratizing the work place. There is no reason to assume it will fix any of these problems as addressing these issues will still pose the same cost based disincentive. Capitalism is market based and it is anticompetitive to be ethical. The solution is to make being ethical a requirement to enter the market in the first place. Now being ethical would be as competitive as making a profit. We already have the mechanism in place to do this, in fact we already half heartedly do this. It’s state enforced regulations. If we actually funded our regulatory agencies effectively, we would see a massive improvement. Also it is way easier to support and gather support for the right candidates than it is to try and get your coworkers to unionize, let alone to kick of a global socialist revolution. There is a concrete solution and not just a slightly more detailed version of “Go out and make a change”.
Yes and No. Publically traded companies will always have to put profits first, which will always result in poor ethical practices. But some privately owned outliers do exist. Arizona Iced tea for example is a super interesting case study, keeping their prices the same for decades, and knowingly sacrificing profits to keep their prices the same for their customers. Super interesting case study. Would love to see you mention them sometime
This article is monetized & sponsored, meaning this channcel also falls under a “business under capitalism.” The streaming service they’re advertising is definitely a capitalist business too. Youtube, is extremely capitalist. It is ironic to enjoy the fruits of capitalism while simultaneously criticizing it. There are plenty of businesses operating under capitalism that are ethical, or striving to be as ethical as possible.
capitalism: raises the world out of poverty like NEVER BEFORE and continues to do so, life expectancy up child mortality down infrastructure up etc… people who didnt exist all this time and just recently became “adults” im a socialist communist! bro you should trade places with somebody from the past living in a socialist communist country and give them the chance to live in a capitalistic society. you jave no idea how bad it gets during socialist communist regimes, we dont teach that in schools in the west, and very suspiciouly so, you think the goverment benefits from capitalism, wait till they hear ik communism you get to own everything and nobody tjats not from the goverment can own any single thing, you want to see actual evi fascit dictatorships? pick up a history book and read about communist socialist countries of the past AND present.
Why there’s no such thing as ethical business under Communism. Since I was asked to elaborate, I provide the following: Basic human nature. We’ve all done group projects before. So we all know what it is like to have one of the teammates slacking off but still getting full credit even though they did little to nothing. Now imagine that on a much, MUCH larger scale. We are competitive creatures by nature, and it is a necessary feature as well, so without the competition of our fellow employees to reach the top, everyone will just give up on even trying to do well in the first place! For instance, look at Russia, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. China is technically communist, however they have been allowing more capitalist systems because communism was literally destroying their economy. Also for appetite look to smaller sources like Native American districts. It is a pain to see. They are LITERALLY the active testing grounds for Socialism, and just LOOK at the state of my people! (I have some Native American in my blood.) Their towns are in shambles because they earn more money by sitting around and doing nothing than working. Because of that they barely live, always in a constant state of just getting by. This is also why so many people today in America are refusing to go back to work after Covid. They are earning more by staying home and doing nothing. And what does this do to the REST of the actual, rule following members of the team? They jump ship because of the raised taxes and the unfairness of paying everyone else’s bills!
In 2019, Brazil, there was the collapse of a privatized company’s dam that flooded a massive area, killing almost 300 people and destroying everybody else’s homes, alongside a bunch of wildlife. Later was discovered the company was aware of the imminent danger of cracking. The alarms that should activate to warn the area of a dam’s rupture, didn’t activate. Lives stayed destroyed, company had some minor setbacks.
I thought for sure you’d mention recuperation/ Guy Debord when talking about companies supposedly taking on social justice causes when, in reality, they’re just stealing the language and look of a cause to make more money. I believe it was one of your articles that turned me onto his work a few years ago. Secondly, as one of the folks who notices these things, I liked the editing on this article more than usual. I noticed the shift from the ‘cut on every line’ to the blend transitions recently, but here I liked the push-in/pull-out on cuts philosophy. It made the whole article feel a little more natural, with longer (feeling) line reads between cuts and a little more urgency to punctuate certain lines. So that’s all to say: well done!
I signed up for the curiosity stream/nebula bundle & paid for an annual subscription. However, I cannot access The New F Word on Nebula or any Nebula content. Is Nebula included with the curiosity stream subscription or would I need to pay separately to subscribe to Nebula? If not, how do I access it and The New F Word?
The IWW provides free external organizers to help you organize your work place as safely and most strategically as possible. Even better, be that highly specialized expert yourself and join the IWW! Other reasons to join/build a union is because according to a broadway musical “It’s better with a union man.”
The other side of the coin is also important – as consumers and customers, most of us are also ideal for an unethical system: lazy, uneducated, yet frustrated at not being able to trust companies with actually doing a good job. I think most of us still cling to the hope that companies want to become highly profitable by selling us a great product. We also fall too easily into a consumerist mindset, though is it really too much of our faults if companies invest so much on keeping us hooked on an addiction? I also wonder how many companies are truly ethical as long as they are small and everything goes well, yet compromise ethics if they wish to grow because it is almost impossible not to do so
To rectify you on Adam Smith, he was not as evil as some people say. He actually said that the individualism of people, through the invisible hand (that is the hand of god), would lead to the most wealth, not the most “good”. Then still according to Smith, justice would come from altruism, but he didn’t say how society should be organized for that purpose since he never finished his work on political philosophy.
Great article. Total slam dunk. For those that want to know what current business models itself after quality principles, look to Mondragon Corporation. In all truth, the only thing people will ever see change in “good” businesses and markets is the back office accounting. Many people think their whole expectation in life as they currently know it will change, and although this may be true for poorer people, most working class people will still be doing what they do at the same location. However, big changes will be seen but only in those places that are hurting the most.
Yes, we must decentralize power to the smallest levels like communities, and the only centralized power should be government and we should have a direct democracy over it. It’s crazy that all our resources are going to dumb things, for example, we have all these great engineers spending all their time and skills to making people waste time on their phones. Imagine where we would be in healthcare if they spent their efforts towards things that really mattered. We can decide these things as a democracy not a republic.
There were two excellent episodes on Nestlé by the (sadly, now finished) podcast Eat the Rich. The episodes are still available for listening, though I don’t know for how long. In case anyone wanted to learn about just how truly evil Nestlé is and has been from its inception. Spoiler alert, JT didn’t even scratch the surface- it’s fucking bleak.
I literally got an Ad for “Michelin sustainable tires” in the middle of perusal this. The ad even admitted that there is nothing immediately noticeably different about their “sustainable tires” as opposed to their… normal ones? Then it played b-roll footage and left straight into brandspeak. Hilarious stuff.
A capitalist and a communist have something in common: if it’s my birthday, I get the first and biggest piece of cake. Some people extend that to ‘I should own all cakes and cake-likenesses should pay me royalties. I am Cake Lord.’ Others want everyone, even those not invited to get a slice. And they should all be equally paper thin,even the birthday boys. We have to find the happy medium for birthday analogies.
great suggestions at the end i would add the results often wont come fast. earlier in my career i was a militant union worker. wont cross picket lines, after werk would picket with brother unions, was an organizer for years (thats still dangerous work. I didnt hand out billfolds on the street.. i gained employement at non union shops and tried to turn them union. threats of violence, stolen wages … suffered it all) late in my career i represent management so i cant be in the union (but im always a socialist) and i take heart in the work me and others did so that todays guys and girls in the filed have waaaay better benefits and almost double the pay i had when i was doing the grunt work. im not jealous, Im fuckn happy for them that they wont suffer the same economic struggles i had to endure trying to raise a family. and yeah the price of everythign has gone up but the wages increase with that anymore and its still double what i made in 2000. painters and allied local #10 afl-cio portland orygun. wages could always be stronger so i hope they havent dropped the ball in the middle of the fight
Adam smith also discussed the issues with the pursuit of only profit, as the only objective. He believed bloated profits did not represent the economic growth that sustained communities, etc. He was right but also is commonly misread and more frequently ignorant of his own inability to see the nightmares of the thing he advocates at other times. This message is sponsored by Adam Smith I like him. He also believed in like antitrust laws and stuff.
– As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel.\r \r Corporations, which should be the carefully constrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.\r \r Grover Cleveland
We definitely need more regulation and a larger separation between corporations and state than church and state. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we had no lobbying and required all elected officials to only be able to accept money from their own position with criminal charges for any failure. Imo politicians should be held accountable as their decisions affect everyone within their systems
In theorie B Corp certification is not a bad idea to increase transparency for conscientious consumers, who have an inforation disadvantage against companies regarding their products sustainablity. And obtaining this information is otherwise costly (aka i.e. time consuming). The real scandal is relying on something like B corp to promote company sustainability. We can’t rely on the responsibility of individuals to always make the right (sustainable) decision in a capitalist system. The initiative needs to come from the government to protect the rights of their citizens (and future citizens in the case of climate change).
11:25 And I would love to ask: What if ethics were strictly enforced on business by law? When regulations reward those who stay true to their ethics, while heavily punishing unethical practices, for example, any form of worker abuse, polluting the environment, emitting greenhouse gases, etc., to the point of unprofitability. Will there be mass cross-accusations of hypocrisy, causing massive disturbance of law and order, leading to relaxed rules as a result?
Our company recently revealed that it will soon be rolling out some sort of employee shareholder/stockholder option. They said it would put a lot of the profit incentive directly into the employees hands and pockets. I don’t know much about business or economics, so I was wondering what your opinion is of this? It sounds similar to the socialist ideal of the means of production being in the hands of the workers, but I may be misunderstanding what they mean.
Grea article. Hey if you looking for another angle on leftist economics which is still not well covered by popular youtubers (or at all) you may want to look into Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. Their theory of Capital as Power and differential accumulation (Nitzan has some articles on youtube explaining differential accumulation which by itself would be a nice theme for a full article).
I don’t understand the concept that a business has to forever increase shareholder profits on a quarterly basis. In a natural market, every business every market will at some time will plateau. Meaning to continue quarterly increases in shareholder profits will constantly require “cuts” to continue this in labor, quality, etc. quarterly forever after the plateau point is reached. This stagnates innovation, growth, wages, community, consumer and worker benefits. Which without workers, consumers, and surrounding communities, these businesses would not exist. A business can exist without shareholders.
Not everyone has access to an app but the bubble gets a lot bigger when it is web based. At least in my country we provide tools for that including public computers at libraries. The crypto market acknowledges this and there are more and more web based projects surfacing. Whether thats a good thing for the economy or not, I don’t know. But I do like that we aren’t all gatekeeping basic oppurtunities.
I think a lot of the argument for capitalism improving innovation is that it facilitates concentration and motivation of researchers and innovators. As the thinking goes, humans, like all animals, are naturally inclined to apply minimum effort required to succeed (analogous to optimal foraging). If people are allowed to live comfortably without the threat of subjugation and destitution for the capital gain of rival individuals or factions, they will become complacent, and disinclined to exert themselves to invent. It’s difficult for me to absolutely extinguish this line of reasoning: although I subscribe to the communist precept of inherent value, that humans are generally incapable of absolute idleness and will be intrinsically driven to contribute regardless of their ease, I personally would do nothing but fuck and eat and drink on beaches if I could afford it and could ignore the associated exploitation required for that in modern society. There is ample evidence that I am far from alone in that inclination. It registers that capitalist progress is often dehumanizing and misguided. However, though our recent progress has been capitalist coerced progress, it has been progress. Our world is rife with travesty, but such travesty could be nothing but a streamlined and scaled up version of the misery and avarice that seem innate to life. Everyone wants to live, most are driven to reproduce, living and reproduction can be assured at the expense of others, and so the others become expendable.
It’s especially a bummer when you combine this with the fact that a handful of companies make and own most consumer goods, as in the Nestle example. Even if you find a brand that you believe to be more ethical in practice than other brands, it’s probably still owned by some ethically reprehensible company. I struggle with wondering to what extent I should account for these things in my day to day buying, because it feels like the only correct choice is to buy nothing.
I think the main problem with child labor and poor working conditions in general ist that there are still countries where these conditions exist. If it is possible to achieve the same results for half the price somebody is going to exploit that and after that it is just a snowball because other companies need to keep up with the low prices of the competition. This is still no explaination for the environmental problems discussed in this article but I imagine that the „system” is somewhat similar, given the fact that recycling etc. costs a lot of money.
Hi there Second Thought and audience members. I want to bring awareness to my You Tube website I just started devoted to Decentralization. I will be covering topics on what decentralization is, why it is important to the survival of this species, the philosophies behind it and how we start implementing decentralized technical solutions to the systemic problems caused by our current centralized socio-economic-governance systems.
I would like to point out that it is worthwhile supporting more ethical business especially when they are socially owned, if only for damage limitation. I was recently part of a campaign to stop a public university investing by proxy in fossil fuels (they bank with a globally leading funder of fossil fuels) and was trying to get the Marxist society involved. Even when I suggested a collectively owned not for profit bank, they basically said it wasn’t worth it on the grounds that all businesses were unethical.
I think that companies should have a right to a profit, because that is how they work. To cope with the problems you mentioned, lots of strict regulations have to come into place about labor rights and quality of products. Also companies that do unethical things should pay fines proportionately to their capital, unethically made products should be banned or at least highly taxed so that they are not attractive to buy.
I’m not sure I entirely agree that businesses that do things unethically will inevitably fail, it’s just that CEOs do not compromise on the amount of money they’re hogging, if that extra money that was being spent on the company’s elite businessmen went to the rest of the company, I think it would stay afloat.