The Philippine Situation: A change in social dynamics is what we need

[BananaQ]

This whole ideology has been introduced and the whole utopian dream just doesn't work. North Korea is an economic mess. The Cultural Revolution in China is a disaster. The Khmer Rouge killed millions of people while trying to put into place a system that has no class hierarchy. Even the kibbutz system in Israel is undergoing change because people just can't live like this.

@thadzonline
You know what, the oil executive does not even need to tell the pump attendant who is dispensable and who is not. They both know. It's built in to their compensation, who is more valuable to the company. Besides, most oil executives and pump attendants do not work for the same company. The pump attendant works for the small gas station, the oil executive works at the national headquarters who supplies these gas stations.

If you're trying to find a decent life for EVERYONE, the one who will provide it to EVERYONE is not the employer. Employers here are not the ones who provided the education of their employees. It is not the duty of an employer to hire everyone who submits an application... Also, have you seen the trend here in the Philippines? See how many children some of the poor have... If the oil executive has two children and your pump attendant has 7 children, who do you think will provide better for their children? Not to mention that some applicants for some positions carry with them so much emotional baggage and other stuff they've done in the past that some just don't seem even fit to become a pump attendant.

Besides, with gas in particular, there's E-VAT... that's remitted to the government for some of their programs. It's 12%! That's amounts to more than the what gas station operations actually make! And if you come telling me that the oil companies should not pass that to the consumers, then who should pay for it? If it's charged, it's always passed to the consumers. If not, better to just shut down the entire business. Then, everyone from the top down to the bottom are the same for the meantime: unemployed...

Actually, as raski has pointed out, the biggest problem with the Philippines is not that these employed people are having a difficult time. It's that some people just don't seek employment because someone else is still providing for them... Like around 5 years ago, ni uli among maid didto sa probinsya kay magminyo iyahang sister ug foreigner... and di na siya motrabaho ug maid because of that... Dili man siya ang magminyo, pero di na siya mo trabaho! Go figure... Unya unsa-on man ni nimo... ayaw jud ko ingna nga imo sad ni i-divide ang inyong kita tanan sa family, unya tigaan nimo inyong maid ug bahin sa imong household income. Kung ganahan ka ani thadzonline, ikaw lang siguro pagsugod ug imo. Total, wala may problem mangita ug modawat kung manghatag ka. Kung disgusted na ka nga dako imong income unya sobra pa sa "decent" imo life, puwede man nimo ipanghatag imo extra income...

[wikki]

i agree with raski its not the current system thats the problem. its the people culture, as ive posted on thread after thread here, the people are just to lazy to work, to stupid to try to understand things and the worst of all they want instant gratification for almost everything. things just dont work like that. you want a country that really worked to get at the top, take a look at japan and its history especially its peoples culture.

[wikki]

nevermind the west, they have been colonizing ang bleeding other nations dry since the colonial age, how they got rich to that level is of no wonder.

[grovestreet]

beacause underneath man's civilized exterior lies its barbarism and crudity... that is why wars never cease nor arm struggles...



law of nature: survival of the fittest...

same old crap being propagated to shift the blame from the system to the people.

"tell them that it's human nature."

The only "Human nature" i recognize is that people will do anything to survive. Our barbarism and crudity is not genetically hardwired in us, but it's the conditions in our environment that triggers this aberrant behavior. And in a world were scarcity is encouraged rather than abundance... you can't expect wars and violent struggles to stop. We now have the means to overcome scarcity with our advancement in technology but still there's stratification even in providing the most basic necessities like food and water to the general public. In our current system, when there's no money in helping or solving a social problem, people won't fix them. The bottomline kanunay is profit.

"What's in it for me?" mao nay pangutana kanunay sa atoa.

[thadzonline]

Geez I'm so sick of this communist propaganda. You want to live in a business-free environment? Then go live in North Korea.

Problem sometimes is we readily associate Marxism with Maoist socialism, i.e. China, North Korea. Much of that brand of communism is what is referred to as anarcho-communism or simply anarchism which has far deviated from the classical socialism described by Marx. That brand of communism is no different from personality-based politics(i.e. Mao of China, Kim of Korea, Pol Pot of Cambodia, Lenin of USSR). Many of the wealthiest nations actually adopt principles of socialism in their economics, case in point: Austria with its social market economy. Austria happens to have the world's highest Human Development Index and poverty is almost non-existent.

Nevermind if you are no fan of communism but if you examine with an open mind what is happening to us, you probably would understand what I am talking about. It's just like the lowly farmer who tills the landowner's land and gets only 20%-30% of the land's produce because he doesn't own the land. Without the farmer, the land won't be productive. The labor of the farmer makes it necessary for the land to become productive in as much as the farmer needs land to till to become productive. Give and take relationship. However, the landowner leverages his land here to earn more profit by paying the farmer as little share as possible. That relationship had not changed in the present world. Landowner is now capitalist, land assets now becomes capital. Still the capitalists leverages his capital to produce as many goods as possible for profit on the collective effort of his laborers who he will pay with the most possible minimum.

Besides, if you have a religion, surely it has not espoused ownership of the world and its resources but rather stewardship.

When I read the title of this thread I thought you were going to be discussing the real social dynamic that causes poverty here. That is, our unique culture of family clannishness. Our 'kapamilya' culture which breeds laziness, dependence and incompetence. How many people do you know are so lazy they just sit around and let their rich uncle, aunt, mother, father, brother or sister do all the work. You know.. the kind of lazy losers who just sit on their butts while their OFW mom works as a maid in Hong Kong sending them their monthly allowance even though they are already 35 years old and have their own family to feed. Yet somehow they can't seem to get off their butts and go find a job. Oh but of course this is the businessman's fault! Because the businessman should just spoonfeed the lazy losers the same way their OFW relatives nga nang-kayud sa ubang nasod have to do...

I will not argue with you with regards to this "losers" as you call them. But tell that to those workers being laid off(justified through what they term as management prerogative), to the sakadas in the haciendas of Negros, to the public transport drivers, the lowly construction worker.

Besides having associated socialism with businessmen feeding the "lazy losers" indicates no understanding of communism at all. Funny how you can criticize something you don't even know.
Communism never espoused providing the people with a free meal, but rather it espoused doing one's part for the benefit of the common good. Communism advocates social equity rather than social loafing.

And oh btw, to say that one is not aware that some form of communal living existed in Pre-Hispanic Philippines indicates ignorance of our history(the concept of the balangay). And actually some form of communal living is still practiced in Batanes and some other parts of the archipelago. This lack of appreciation of our history is the very culprit that is almost annihilating our time-bound Filipino values such as pakikisama, hiya, utang na loob, pakikibaka and lakas ng loob. Embracing a world culture as espoused by the West is necessary to keep a culture of materialism and consumerism alive and that goes with profiteering. The destruction of indigenous cultures makes it necessary for capitalism(free trade) to make inroads to exploitation of a nation's resources, human or natural.

You want to know which social dynamic we have to change? Our culture's obsessiveness with our family. You know the saying too much of a good thing can end up being bad? That applies to the way we view family relations too. Grabe ra sad ta mo-forgive basta ang nakasala o kungdi ang tapulan o kawatan kapamilya ra nato. That's what breeds corruption and nepotism on the political level and laziness and dependence on a family-unit basis. It needs to change.

True, that statement should also be true for too much faith in capitalism. Our brand of laissez-faire capitalism without the necessary social safety nets have created much poverty among our people while giving a very few more wealth than they need.

We need to be more like people from the first world where the objective of families is to create children who can take care of themselves once they are 18 and not become dependent losers who are like parasites and feed off their more successful relatives...

Hopefully not the suicide culture of Japan or selfish materialism of the West. A change in the current dynamics makes changes in culture as a necessary consequence. You can't just say change the way we look at things and the way we do things. Social psychology will argue that people will do that most likely when they see "what's in it for them". Well, maybe "What's in it for everybody.

[thadzonline]

This whole ideology has been introduced and the whole utopian dream just doesn't work. North Korea is an economic mess. The Cultural Revolution in China is a disaster. The Khmer Rouge killed millions of people while trying to put into place a system that has no class hierarchy. Even the kibbutz system in Israel is undergoing change because people just can't live like this.

@thadzonline
You know what, the oil executive does not even need to tell the pump attendant who is dispensable and who is not. They both know. It's built in to their compensation, who is more valuable to the company. Besides, most oil executives and pump attendants do not work for the same company. The pump attendant works for the small gas station, the oil executive works at the national headquarters who supplies these gas stations.

If you're trying to find a decent life for EVERYONE, the one who will provide it to EVERYONE is not the employer. Employers here are not the ones who provided the education of their employees. It is not the duty of an employer to hire everyone who submits an application... Also, have you seen the trend here in the Philippines? See how many children some of the poor have... If the oil executive has two children and your pump attendant has 7 children, who do you think will provide better for their children? Not to mention that some applicants for some positions carry with them so much emotional baggage and other stuff they've done in the past that some just don't seem even fit to become a pump attendant.

You are missing the whole point. I never said go ahead let's force businesses to give everything they have to charity, which is in fact a form of socialism Marx describes as conservative or bourgeious socialism, a sick attempt at making the masses believe that the businessman is doing his share for the benefit of the masses. The way you respond tells me you actually did not read point for point what is being discussed. Go back to the wealth pie analogy I earlier posted.

As what grovestreet has pointed out, there is stratification in the delivery of even the most basic of services. Further he mentioned, people won't fix things when there is no money in it for them. How much more if we change the system and take away a part of the estate away from the few hands that control them as a measure of social equity?

Besides, with gas in particular, there's E-VAT... that's remitted to the government for some of their programs. It's 12%! That's amounts to more than the what gas station operations actually make! And if you come telling me that the oil companies should not pass that to the consumers, then who should pay for it? If it's charged, it's always passed to the consumers. If not, better to just shut down the entire business. Then, everyone from the top down to the bottom are the same for the meantime: unemployed...

Who are you kidding if you say 12% is more than what gas stations make? An understanding of arithmetic tells us there is still 88% from that equation. Generally, businesses markup 20% on the prices of commodities, that should leave them with some 8% net. Besides, I'm no big fan of EVAT on oil, so that is so beside the point. Yet look at what gas station owners can afford.

Actually, as raski has pointed out, the biggest problem with the Philippines is not that these employed people are having a difficult time. It's that some people just don't seek employment because someone else is still providing for them... Like around 5 years ago, ni uli among maid didto sa probinsya kay magminyo iyahang sister ug foreigner... and di na siya motrabaho ug maid because of that... Dili man siya ang magminyo, pero di na siya mo trabaho! Go figure... Unya unsa-on man ni nimo... ayaw jud ko ingna nga imo sad ni i-divide ang inyong kita tanan sa family, unya tigaan nimo inyong maid ug bahin sa imong household income. Kung ganahan ka ani thadzonline, ikaw lang siguro pagsugod ug imo. Total, wala may problem mangita ug modawat kung manghatag ka. Kung disgusted na ka nga dako imong income unya sobra pa sa "decent" imo life, puwede man nimo ipanghatag imo extra income...

Kana imo gidescribe nga sitwasyon pareha ra na actually ug dynamics sa exploitation only this time ang imo lang maid ang ni take advantage sa kwarta sa foreigner, but it's the same laissez-faire capitalist mentality: exploit ang unsa ang imo maexploit. That also follows the same dynamics sa mga "lazy losers" as raski described nga maghuwat lang ug sustento.

My point is not that mamahimong dependent ang mga tawo sa charity but that things will be a lot better if the allocation of capital or wealth follows the principle of social justice and equality.

[thadzonline]

i agree with raski its not the current system thats the problem. its the people culture, as ive posted on thread after thread here, the people are just to lazy to work, to stupid to try to understand things and the worst of all they want instant gratification for almost everything. things just dont work like that. you want a country that really worked to get at the top, take a look at japan and its history especially its peoples culture.

If by instant gratification you mean the satisfaction of man's biological, physiological needs, as I have earlier discussed using Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs, that is but natural. For how can one even labor to understand things on an empty stomach(we all know hunger has its consequences to our mental processes).

It is not that our people are too lazy to work, there may be jobs available, but this are jobs that they cannot do because they do not have the necessary skills and they cannot afford the training to acquire the required skill. Simply put, there is not enough jobs for everyone because businesses have packed their bags to lands where they can exploit cheaper labor.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

That's like saying man cannot transcend beyond his being an animal. We are rational beings endowed with free will to choose between being too animalistic or be human enough. To acquire billions is way beyond just for survival.

The state of hopelessness in the Philippines today can be compared to the rationale and economics of hoarding. You see, if a businessman intentionally keeps a certain commodity and make it unavailable or scarce in the market, that is always done for a purpose which is to drive prices up. Now what happens if it is cash/money(liquidity?) being hoarded? When most of an economy's cash is concentrated or monopolized by a very scant percentage of the population, it becomes a very expensive/valuable commodity. But how can that be quantified when it is cash values which quantifies other objects of economics?

Perhaps, you will agree with me that money is a basic necessity. Without it, it probably would be impossible to live. It is what we use to purchase our basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, public transport, education. etc. That's why we try to find work in the hope of making ends meet. However, the prices of our basic goods are expensive coupled with high inflation rates and so more and more the purchasing power diminishes until many of our fellow Pinoys can no longer afford a decent lifestyle.

Then here comes Mr. Moneyed Politico, or Mr. Galante Gameshow Host proclaiming himself savior of the poor and the oppressed giving dole-outs of cash and what-nots to the poor who by the way wouldn't mind being indignified on national TV so long as he/she gets the cash dole-out. Mr. Moneyed Politico boasts of how many OFW's he had helped with his own cash, how many scholars he sent to school out of his own generosity, how many road projects he has completed. Many of our kababayans who are recipients of these dole-outs reciprocate what these monkeys had done for them by voting them into office. Those who have not wallow in the false hope that someday she'll be a recipient of the politician's dole-out discounting the fact that the number of people helped by the politician is but a very small percentage of the the part of the population that shared a similar plight.

But later on, people start to realize, these politicians have actually not done much to alleviate their situations, until at a point in time people will make a generalization that no politicians can actually do much so they will take advantage of what they can take from him through mendicancy or whatever way. Exploit the well until it runs dry.

Let me quote a post I wrote in another thread here:

the problem with mr.politico and mr. tv game show is they dont teach them how to fish but give them the fish instead...

as like what master bob ong said : "walang gamot sa tanga kundi pagkukusa"


and being lazy and depending on polticians and luck is plain stupidity.


is MArlow hierachy of need still applicable? ummm... wait i've read somewhere naa nay updated version ana... like those people na mag hungerstrike parehas ni gandhi and buddah and even jesus sa iya 40 days of fasting and dying on the cross... last na ang biological need kay gi-una ang ila ideology..

what the for the balana the maslow still applies...

[raski]

Thadz I'm finding your rhetoric very confusing, it seems that you do not even know where you stand. On the one hand you admit that a purely communist ideology where everyone earns exactly the same and shares everything does not work (or do you?) and on the other hand hold countries like Austria, which is more of a hybrid MARKET-BASED social economy, as standards. Yet, you keep talking about businessmen as if they are a class that can be done away with and you'd have your instant utopia.

Let me let you in on a secret, actually it's not a secret, it's an obvious reality that some people refuse to accept. The reason the business owner is a business owner is because he has the intelligence, vision and foresight to establish complex organizations that require massive willpower and diligence to keep together. Do you really think entrepreneurs, the kind of people who provide people with employment just had their success handed to them? How do you explain rags to riches stories like Manny Villar who started with virtually nothing and now manages a real estate empire that is the envy of every lazy pro-communist, "hand me my share" schmoe out there?

No, no, no. You are getting it all wrong. The employee should be grateful to the businessman for his ideas, his resolve, his intelligence and skill in being able to create something out of nothing. Your example of the farm and the farmer is irrelevant! Most of us live in cities and most of us do not work in a damn farm. You communists need to come up with more effective propaganda, nobody cares about the farm and farmer analogy as it is something that will have only worked in stupid countries like Cambodia of the 1970's and look what happened there.

Also, as someone pointed out earlier, I would love for you to try your nirvana of shared community dwelling by starting in your very home and neighborhood. Tell your neighbors it is open season in your home, all your food, your clothes, your TV, even your girlfriend or wife are for the taking. Personal possessions, being evil, why have any at all? Give them all away. Start with your home and then preach to us. Until then, stop this futile propaganda it will turn our country into an even bigger disaster than it already is.

[unsay_ngalan_nimo]

t.

"What's in it for me?" mao nay pangutana kanunay sa atoa.

because that how survival works...