Who Will Exploit?

     Exploitation is the use of fraud, force and/or threats of
force to take something the owner wouldn't voluntarily give up. 
The "Occupy Wall Street" crowd protested that big business was
exploiting people.  Business people want to use as little effort as
possible while selling at the highest possible price.  They want
more for less.  Adam Smith observed, "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."

     The temptation is always there for business people to use
fraud, force and threats of force to get more for less. 
Government, by use of its own force and threats, can stand in
the way and block business people from yielding to temptation. 
Government can, and does, use its force and threats to aid
business people who yield to temptation.

     Keep in mind that politicians are no more noble and
moral than business people.  They too want to gain as much as
possible with as little effort as possible.

     There are two ways businesses can get more for less. 
One is to charge higher prices.  The other is to pay less for
labor.  Material, equipment and supplies are the products of
labor.  Thus, paying less for these is paying less for labor.

     Workers also want to get as much as they can for a little
effort as possible.  The universal chant of the labor union
movement was, and still is, "More pay, less work."

     Essentially everyone in every capacity wants more for
less.  Given the opportunity, everyone is a potential exploiter. 
Any society based primarily on exploitation, rather than
production, doesn't have a bright future.  In the long term it has
no future at all.

     Give any group in society the power to exploit and it
will.  Government and labor will as eagerly exploit as will
businesses.  Even consumers will exploit if given the chance. 
They to want more for less.

     The purpose of production is consumption.  All
exploitation results in less  production at higher costs. 
Consumers bear all the cost of all exploitation.  Whenever one
producer-consumer gains by exploitation, other consumers lose.

     Consumers may directly exploit other consumers.  This is
the mission of thieves and robbers.  Forcibly taking from one for
another is always exploitation.  It doesn't matter whether the
exploiter is business, government, labor or consumers.  The end
is always the same.  Some consumers end up with less.  On
average everyone ends up with less.

     The biggest exploiter will always be the most powerful
one.  The weaker ones will seek to enlist the aid of the powerful
exploiter.  The powerful exploiter always needs the support of
others to maintain and increase its power to exploit.  Thus, the
weaker groups make deals with the powerful exploiter to get
assistance in their exploitation.

     If no one has the power to exploit, everyone is free to
peaceably produce and trade with everyone else.   Exploitation is
impossible in such an environment.  Do to natural limits on
production no one will have everything he wants.  Each will
have all that he is able to produce.  The effort not wasted on
exploitation will be used to produce more.

     Those who are the best producers will have the most. 
History shows that such fortunate producers commonly share
with the less fortunate, either by providing them with more
productive work, or out right charity.

     The important questions are: Who makes exploitation
possible?  How can we stop exploitation?  Business, labor
unions, and consumers have almost no ability to exploit without
the approval and support of government.  They are nothing more
than branches on the exploitation tree.  Cut off a branch and two
will grow back.  The only way to end exploitation is to dig out
its government roots.  Government is the mother of exploitation.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
                                 * * * * *
                                  * * * *
                                   * * *
                                    * *
                                     *
Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum