Reader feedback: Give my regards to Alice

Re: Readers feedback, "Angry reader: Shame on you", Volume 12, Number 17, May 01 - May 07, 2006

I must say that I fully understand your feelings, but I still think that you show an incredible deal of naivety (but then, you admit that yourself). Where have you been living? With Alice in her Wonderland? Because only someone like that could say in all seriousness that "business is here for people and not for pure profit or the mere satisfaction of a shareholder".

I could not believe my eyes!

Even if the people of Greenock slit their own throats in the streets, it wouldn't make any difference to company owners, no matter of what nationality.

Common people in Slovakia, albeit new to capitalism, have already lost any illusions. The majority of the population still hasn't attained pre-1989 living standards, most working people cannot afford higher education or decent medical treatment (which was no problem in socialism) and consider themselves happy if they simply have enough to eat and a home.

The profits from Slovak factories end up in the bank accounts of foreign owners who then go further east, having exploited the Slovak government's investment subsidies and leaving behind thousands of unemployed.

Until now, working people in Great Britain and other Western countries may have been spared the full impact of true capitalism (or allowed to forget the desperation that existed before the Second Word War). This was to a large extent due to the existence of socialist countries. The capitalists worked hard to convince workers about the advantages of capitalism. But as of 1989, all such scruples have been tossed aside. Socialism no longer exists and even if it comes back, we and our children won't live to see it. Maybe the world will be destroyed in the process, but rest assured that there will be billions of desperate poor people who won't mind anyway.

There is a well-known Radio Yerevan joke as follows - Question: "When will the times improve?", Answer: "They already were." And this also applies to you. We are witnessing the onset of a new era of ruthless exploitation. The vast majority of working people in Great Britain are in for really rotten times, as are working people all over the world, even though those rotten times will come so incrementally, it might be hard to notice them. And if you do notice them, the capitalist-owned media and experts will come up with more and new sophisticated explanations as to why the masses must get poorer while working continuing to work harder.

Obviously, in spite of being naive as far as the "good intentions" of company owners are concerned, you personally are not one to be fooled easily, but there remains nothing you can do about it. Give my best regards to Alice.

Ivan Hudec,
Trnava

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