kaŝperanto:It's also quite easy to live well off of the hard work of others.

[...]

A lot of our wealth comes from the financial system and has little to do with how hard working we are, and our middle class (and even lower class) people are still very wealthy compared to the majority of human beings on this planet. There is a large difference between the wealth gap in the 1st world and that between the 1st world and everyone else.

Chapeau! To the point. Cheap cloths, food, gold jewelry and materials can't be obtained without shedding the blood of other human beings[1]. Fortunately, those "other human beings" live a long way off and don't die in the consumer's own frontyard.

kaŝperanto:Or am I just lucky?

I was say yes. As well as I am lucky. Today, one's wealth doesn't really depend on our capacities or on how hard we work, but it depends almost exclusively on where (and to whom) we were born. Wealth is today a geographical function.

We should never forget that this whole fiduciary (!) monetary system, which generates value ex nullo (interests, etc), and which cannot be balanced (due to the generation ex nullo), needs to break down frequently (black monday, tuesday, wednesday, any wall street crash you like) to work. And this won't go on indefinitely.

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[1] Well, indeed it could be obtained without killing anybody, but not as long as we play according to the rules of the current system.

The concentration of wealth occurs due to the installed money system via interests and not because of political agendas. The underlying problem is not an ideological but a mathematical one.
Those who control the money necessarily control governments as well. All politicians are just puppets. That is why democracy does not exist.

The introduction of the various "free trade zones" (what a euphemism!) around the globe will destroy all national governments. We are very close to the global dictatorship. That is the result of interests.

nornen:We should never forget that this whole fiduciary (!) monetary system, which generates value ex nullo (interests, etc), and which cannot be balanced (due to the generation ex nullo), needs to break down frequently (black monday, tuesday, wednesday, any wall street crash you like) to work. And this won't go on indefinitely.

Exactly.

nornen:

kaŝperanto:It's also quite easy to live well off of the hard work of others.

[...]

A lot of our wealth comes from the financial system and has little to do with how hard working we are, and our middle class (and even lower class) people are still very wealthy compared to the majority of human beings on this planet. There is a large difference between the wealth gap in the 1st world and that between the 1st world and everyone else.

Chapeau! To the point. Cheap cloths, food, gold jewelry and materials can't be obtained without shedding the blood of other human beings[1]. Fortunately, those "other human beings" live a long way off and don't die in the consumer's own frontyard.

I'd agree insofar as metaphorical blood being shed, but part of what's going on is the good ol' supply vs demand. We take work to poorer countries to take advantage of cheap labor, yes, but without this investment into these countries the people would be even poorer with little prospect for growth. The problem is in intentionally keeping things this way and not providing the same level of benefits as you would to workers in other countries. Capitalism is like democracy; the best worst form of resource allocation (as far as rapid development of capital is concerned). Its problem is that it is often inhumane and unjust, and as you mention below its presumption of continued exponential growth is untenable.

nornen:

kaŝperanto:Or am I just lucky?

I was say yes. As well as I am lucky. Today, one's wealth doesn't really depend on our capacities or on how hard we work, but it depends almost exclusively on where (and to whom) we were born. Wealth is today a geographical function.

We should never forget that this whole fiduciary (!) monetary system, which generates value ex nullo (interests, etc), and which cannot be balanced (due to the generation ex nullo), needs to break down frequently (black monday, tuesday, wednesday, any wall street crash you like) to work. And this won't go on indefinitely.

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[1] Well, indeed it could be obtained without killing anybody, but not as long as we play according to the rules of the current system.

I came upon a great article by a physicist on the actual physical impossibility of continual growth. I believe he put it at maybe 100-200 years before we would start boiling the oceans only from the use of energy on the surface of the Earth associated with the economy (no matter what source, even a magical limitless energy source would do this). Go not much further and our 3% growth (backed historically by a 5% growth in energy consumption) will have us at a Kardashev type III civilization using the power of an entire galaxy.

Citronujo:

Nephihaha:Is global government a necessary part of supporting Esperanto?

really?
Of course not! Who the hell would think that!

P.S : Welcome aboard (even though I'm new here too...)

I haven't read Zamenhof's biography or any of his Eo-related essays, but one-world government isn't a part of Esperanto. As much as I understand it, the only goal that was ever hoped to be achieved is to promote communication between people without requiring them to sacrifice their native language. In that sense, Esperanto can actually be seen as a method for preserving one's own cultural and national identity while still having the ability to work with people from other cultures and nations.

antoniomoya:You like it or not, one day this world will have a world government. It is the tendency of the ages. See Europe: Who would think 100 years ago, that one day there would exist the European Union?

In the past, the families gave way to the tribes, tribes to the regions, regions to the nations, nations to the supernations, and supernations will one day join in a world government.

You cannot stop the progress. Feliĉe.

Amike.

PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT

kaŝperanto:I'd agree insofar as metaphorical blood being shed, but part of what's going on is the good ol' supply vs demand.

I am not talking about anything "metaphorical"; I am talking about shedding human blood, as in killing people: One common way is to simply shoot them. Another way is to work them to death. Another way is generate a whole generation of gamma-minus morons, because they are starved children of starved mothers, who can't even breastfeed their baby's due to starvation. Another way is to drug the harvest workers on sugar farms with synthetic drugs in order to increase their work power, then let them die dihydrated in the road ditch and hire the next lot the next day. Another way is to work six years old children, which in other countries would be proud first graders, 10 hours a day in sweeing shops. Another way is to deforest whole landscapes for gold mining, erode the country and dry the flood beds. The last one isn't that bad, because thanks to the gold mines the rivers are already poisoned with arsenic. I can't find the "metaphorical" aspect of these killings.

kaŝperanto:We take work to poorer countries to take advantage of cheap labor, yes, but without this investment into these countries the people would be even poorer with little prospect for growth.

I am sorry to tell you that this -at least for Guatemala- is simply not true. Saying these kind of things is just lying to oneself in order to placate one's own conscience.
If we lived in an Utopian world, where the government raised taxes over produced and exported goods and furthermore invested these taxes for the benefit of the people, then, and only then, the above statement could possibly make any sense. Unfortunately the world is a grim place and no Utopia.
In Guatemala, the fertile costal lands on the Pacific side are used by gigantic companies (and it is only a few of them, maybe 5) to grow sugar cane. The fertile parts of the highlands are used for growing coffee. The fertile flats on the Atlantic side are used for growing food for Guatemalans. No just kidding. They are used for growing bananas. The basic grains (in GT's case corn and beans) are grown on the land which is left behind by the export industry, because it is not fertile enough to be rentable. Guatemala is an absurdly fertile country: nice temperatures the whole years, regular rain falls, no winter, if you spit on the ground, something will grow there immediately. And still 50% of the population lives in extreme poverty and starvation.
Next big industry here is textiles. Have you ever seen a building, which has four stories on the outside but eight stories on the inside. Yes, Guatemalans can bend space. Sure every story is only 1 meter high, and the workers can only crawl in and have to sew crouching there for hours on end. [tbc]

[cnt'd]
And in case of a fire no-one will get out. But somehow you have to ensure that clothes are cheap enough in the US and Europe.
The worst thing however is mines. You don't only deforest whole counties. You also wash arsenic into the rivers and poison the land for decades or centuries. And you lower the ground water level. And you just shoot people who oppose.
Sure mines and industry require energy. So let's build hydroelectric plants. Like Chixoy. Drive people up the arid mountains, rape their women and as a side effect shoot several thousand people just for fun.
Water is also required. Whole landscapes are now so arid that you can't grow anything there. Here just some numbers (of which I admit to have no reliable sources for):

A rural woman uses 4 hours a day to get 2.5 gallons of water.
In the city each person consumes 3 gallons per hour.
The mines consume 66,000 gallons per hout.

I took this numbers from this video. Please do watch this video. Even if you don't understand the lyrics, just watch the images. If you don't like the music, turn it off and watch it in silence. But please, I beg you, watch it.

kaŝperanto:We take work to poorer countries to take advantage of cheap labor, yes, but without this investment into these countries the people would be even poorer with little prospect for growth.

Good question. Where does this investment go? Where does the wealth go? To the hand of maybe 20 high level oligarchs. For instance, mines virtually pay no taxes in Guatemala. They grab the gold, take it abroad, and don't have to pay for it. Sure some very high animals receive millions of dollars from Goldcorp etc, but this money is not invested in Guatemala, but in luxury mansions in Florida.

Bottom line: In my opinion, my very personal opinion (which does not mean that it is arbitrary), countries like Guatemala would be off better, if the whole first world boykotted them. The whole export industry would collapse immediately. Sure, we would lose a lot of electricity, a lof of luxuries, petrolium for our cars [1]. But we would gain something completely different: The possibilty to grow corn and beans in order to feed the children.

I am sorry for this rant. Reality is crueler than fiction.

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[1] Which would affect at most 40% of the population.

nornen:
Bottom line: In my opinion, my very personal opinion (which does not mean that it is arbitrary), countries like Guatemala would be off better, if the whole first world boykotted them. The whole export industry would collapse immediately. Sure, we would lose a lot of electricity, a lof of luxuries, petrolium for our cars [1]. But we would gain something completely different: The possibilty to grow corn and beans in order to feed the children.

I am sorry for this rant. Reality is crueler than fiction.

+1

What people forget is that we have the power to change this.
Every time we spend money we are giving power to the organisation we purchased from.
So think carefully about who we give money (power) to.
If we purchase clothing that is sourced from factories that recognise basic rights for their workers then the sweatshops will have no customers and will go out of business.
It is not as easy as saying "Somebody/the government should do something about this".
It is about accepting responsibility for the consequences of our actions and changing our behaviour accordingly.

kaŝperanto:
It takes me such a small amount of effort to earn more in a week than most people make in a year;

Really?
That's very interesting.
Would you mind telling us how you achieve this?

Bemused:

kaŝperanto:
It takes me such a small amount of effort to earn more in a week than most people make in a year;

Really?
That's very interesting.
Would you mind telling us how you achieve this?

That may be an exaggeration (couldn't say for sure), but compared to a lot of places, even most "poor" people in the US are pretty rich. Take my family for example. We are, and always have been, below the arbitrary federally defined "poverty level." And we are a 9-person family. Okay, so our house isn't the biggest or most beautiful one around. We still have a solid roof over our heads, cars in our driveway, gas in our cars, clothes in our closets, and food in our cupboards. We have cell phones, internet, and many other things than US citizens take for granted, but compared to many other places, they're quite the luxuries! We don't resort to eating dirt to fill our bellies. None of us works in a place with a 1 metre high ceiling. All of us know how to read (except the babies and the 5yr old). We don't live in a cardboard box. In our country, even the hobos have access to clean drinking water if nothing else.