Black Friday is capitalism.
Excerpt:
. . . capitalism - the word and the concept - was the brainchild of Karl Marx. As well as offering an “-ism” opposite his own -ism, it describes a rigid class society in which one class possesses the means of production, the other nothing except its labor. The latter class is called “The Proletariat” who, as Lenin declared, can lose nothing but its chains when it rises against the oppressor.
This is not the place to argue whether capitalism was the appropriate way to describe certain European societies. The point is that owning things has always been open to Americans. The moment you buy one share of stock, you part-own “means of production,” not to mention owning your home and arriving at your place of work in your own automobile - a very American image.
America never had a proletariat.
In that case, America could not have been a capitalist country.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has redefined capitalism after Marx, and it is inappropriate to use a word whose meaning is different from what the speaker has in mind.
Perhaps what we have in America is best described as a free-enterprise system.
(snip)
- Balint Vazsonyi -
http://balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns100202.html
Capitalism, yes. Bravo! But I´d rather stay home in my pajamas all day.
Capitalism is fine, but this has become a media-exploited freak show.
I read the European press, and all over the world they are reporting the incident with the woman who pepper-sprayed her competitors and telling their readers how many Americans were trampled during the Black Friday event.
The best thing a store could do for its future is to announce that it won’t do this. These loss leaders probably don’t make them that much money anyway, and if they just open at 9:00 am on Friday with a few specials and scattered reductions, they’ll probably make more.
We look like the Muslims going around gashing ourselves on the head on whatever their idiotic moloch holiday is where they do that.
Exactly, the stores are open with the early sales because the people want it. And a lot of those people are buying things for their kids or family members, not in some scheme to accumulate tons of possessions for themselves. But singling out the bad apples isnt sensational and doesnt get internet traffic.