BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Oh, I've got none at all either. But the broader point remains that this kind of gross distortion isn't a good advert for capitalism as it's working in 2026. In contrast, the Industrial Revolution often managed it far better, with the rich businesses investing in schemes that not only made their businesses more profitable, but (in the better examples) did that by improving the lot of the workers, with social housing, libraries, brass bands and choral societies etc. 'Late stage capitalism' seems to be predicated on utterly screwing everyone else for every $ (e.g. Amazon workers having to claim all sorts of benefits just to survive).

I say this all the time (and as someone who relies on capitalism as I run a business!), but is is nearly impossible to make mega money without exploiting everything and everyone around you. You just can't make obscene amounts of money ethically IMO. We exalt huge corporations but essentially they only really put money in senior leaders and shareholder pockets. 95% of the private sector is SME's, those are the businesses that actually employ the majority of people and keep the lights on, so to speak, the Amazon's of this world do not. What really annoys me is when you see one of them threaten to pull production or services from a place or country unless the govt gives them x millions of investment, it is just blackmail.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

You could compare the Gates' war on malaria with Victorian workhouses.

I was actually just going to edit my above post to say that Bill Gates is arguably the only excpetion to the rule!

 

[C R]

I was actually just going to edit my above post to say that Bill Gates is arguably the only excpetion to the rule!

Not quite, a lot of the beneficence of the gates foundation was conditioned on the receiving countries introducing "proper ip protection".

https://accuracy.org/release/how-bi...l-property-more-important-than-public-health/

 

[Pross]

OK, obviously my History O-level didn't go back prior to WW1. Actually, that's true, it didn't.

But dates aside (like 100 years out), I'll stand by my assertion that the current crop of ultra-capitalists won't leave any cultural legacy, other than very bad AI graphics.

The industrialists in this part of the world had the forethought to built some very nice houses and gardens for 21st century National Trust members. I'm not sure that the late 18th / early 19th century industrialists did much more for cultural legacy and basically exploited the workforce and natural resources of the area for their own gain in much the same way as Musk et al are doing now. Many were also politicians and so laws tended to favour them at the cost of workers. They certainly weren't popular and spawned various uprisings such as The Chartists.

Lots of choirs and bands formed around mining or textile businesses but I think that was more recent e.g. my own choir, based in and iron and coal town, originated in the early 20th century and I think many of the others were around then too. In addition to the industrial link they are also heavily linked to Nonconformist religions. As far as I'm aware, brass bands started out of soldiers returning from the Napoleonic Wars but many did then get sponsored by Victorian Reformist industrialists again, heavily influenced by Quakerism in particular and also the temperance movement (I think there are still a few around with temperance in the name that I'd never really thought about before).

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Not quite, a lot of the beneficence of the gates foundation was conditioned on the receiving countries introducing "proper ip protection".

https://accuracy.org/release/how-bi...l-property-more-important-than-public-health/

Ah well, I must be right then, impossible to be an ethical billionaire 😉

 

[AuroraSaab]

But look at Bourneville, Fry's etc, and then show me the modern day equivalents. Sure, they weren't doing it for completely altruistic reasons, rather to keep the workers productive (and sober), but show me a modern-day equivalent of those sorts of efforts (obviously an immediate cost to the shareholders), and maybe I'll be less harsh on today's capitalism.

They were, famously, doing it out of Christian charity because they were Quakers. See also Friends Provident, Huntley and Palmer, Rowntree. Timpsons would be the nearest modern day equivalent. There are fewer companies doing it these days because when companies get to a certain size they end up being run by boards not individuals, who are beholden to shareholders and the market, not to a founder.