Capitalism Lesson #1: Don't Kill Anyone, Just Sue.

• Joshua M Brown
• July 28th, 2009

 

From the Wall Street Journal:
BEIJING -- More than a thousand steel workers in China's northeast staged an at-times violent protest against the planned takeover of their state-run employer and a group of them killed a top executive at the private company that was to acquire it, Chinese state-run media reported.

How nice.

So, a bunch of employees of a state-run steel mill in China weren't thrilled about the company being privatized...so they killed one of the would-be executives who was taking control of the company.  And this was reported by the state-run Chinese media, so if they are copping to one death in the protest, in reality, maybe it was more like 36 or 37 dead.

China still has a long way to go in terms of business ettiquette and so I'll deliver Lesson #1 in Capitalism for our new friends:

Guys, you don't kill someone you disagree with in business, you do what any red-blooded American worker would do:  You sue the bastard.

That's how we roll.

There are more people in law school in this country than there are actual practicing lawyers right now.  You may ask yourself, "What the hell kind of society are those crazy Americans trying to build for themselves?"  The answer is simple:  The kind of society where you can sue whoever ticks you off and never have a shortage of attorneys who will take on your ridiculous case.

And not only is this not detrimental to the economy, you could make the case that all of these frivolous class action and civil suits are actually stimulative.  I'll draw you a chart:

You sue someone by first hiring a lawyer.  Your lawyer takes the money you pay him and spends it.  The person you are suing gives money to his own lawyer for a defense/ counter suit and his lawyer then spends it.  Then, after months of court costs, the winner is declared, and his lawyer gets even more money, which can then be spent on the economy or just parlayed into the next lawsuit! 

Everyone wins!

So if you work at, say, any decent-sized Chinese industrial concern and you are being victimized by the coming of for-profit capitalism, don't worry and please don't murder anybody.  You can get your piece of the American Dream too.  Just hire a lawyer and sue...that's literally all we do over here these days and it's working out well for us so far.

Sources:

Chinese Steelworkers Fight Privatization (WSJ)

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