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A very good explanation of why capitalism is an imoral system. Anyone who can't understand this simple fact is just losing their times. The shadier your scheme

A very good explanation of why capitalism is an imoral system. Anyone who can't understand this simple fact is just losing their times. The shadier your scheme for making money, the further away you get (as long as you don't go to jail) because that's the whole nature of the beast.

hj34 9y ago
You can't blame a cow for doing what all the other cows are doing. It is in the nature of the cow.
59nadir 9y ago
Yeah, I'm not sure what the fruit of this is going to be. It's a nice reminder that most business/industry is outside of morals. It's not that all of it is immoral, but rather that it exists without any moral requirement and most of the times not having morals is an advantage. Also, if people really thought SV had any care at all for ethics and morals even before this they must've missed pretty much all of the news about SV for years and years. Not caring about what's right is expected, as long as you don't get caught. It's just a risk/reward thing.
PeachPlum 9y ago
amoral, not immoral but even then I disagree, just look at the life expectancy of the billions of people under capitalism. Milton Friedman - Is Capitalism Humane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHPI1emZFVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHPI1emZFVg
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  "The least of several evils" is not the same thing as "good".
  - jamesrcole 9y ago
    But what if it's the least evil of all the available options? That doesn't itself make it "good" but that does make it the best option available.
    - coliveira 9y ago
      Contrary to popular belief, economy is not a binary system. There is a huge range of decisions that can be pursued and each decision has a particular interest. Modern societies have decided to take the "market-friendly" decisions each step of the way instead of the human- and environment-friendly decisions with the excuse that this is the least of "two" evils.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      Of course. PeachPlum was asserting that it does make it good, though.
      - jamesrcole 9y ago
        What I was trying to get at is that if something is literally the best option available then there's not much point complaining about it.
- musage 9y ago
  Objects are amoral. When humans create structures in which they align themselves with immoral incentives, they're being immoral. The failure to be good is being evil in my books; there is no neutrality and there is no mediocrity, there is doing your part or guilt. And no, nobody is 100% innocent and nobody is 100% guilty. Nobody made themselves out of nothing. Everybody started out as a helpless baby and the range of experiences one can get exposed to before even being able to attempt defend oneself is vast. But so what if every abuser got abused in some way or another, or was withheld some crucial things needed for development? Then don't hate them, but absolutely stop them.
- coliveira 9y ago
  This is an economic system created and maintained by humans. The morality or immorality is a property of those who maintain it, no matter how much these people try to dissuade others of this simple fact.
ataturk 9y ago
I disagree. Capitalism is the only system that gave the regular man any sort of upward mobility. Perfect? No. But looking at the other economic systems around the world, we can see without any doubt which one elevated regular people on a very consistent basis. I'm not a fan of crony-capitalism, on the other hand. The system whereby companies purchase favorable outcomes via lobbying and sweetheart contract deals. But that's not capitalism, that is corruption. Plus, a lot of people on HN worship Elon Musk and it is arguable that he is the king of the very kind of money making scheming that you find immoral, whatever that means.
kafkaesque 9y ago
This should be the top comment. I move among different circles of friends. Some studied philosophy and political science, others arts in general, and others computer science. It's scary that tech people have this very "blase" attitude (oversimplification perhaps?) that one's motive when it comes to how to handle distribution of money comes down to simple "meritocracy" and/or "greed." As if the very fact that blaming the innate human debility of giving in to avarice or greed does not presuppose much more problems, such as ulterior motives, cultural bias, nepotism, etc. There is, of course, the notion that the bigger a corporation gets (e.g., a conglomerate), the more dehumanizing it is. With such large sums of money being moved around (to whatever end or outcome) comes more "bottom line" interests and "corporate interests," and as such, it is less about the individual. The repercussions of this, which are pretty evident to me, is that it creates an institution or entity or agent ("corporation," if you want) that does not have a moral framework or acts not humanely but immorally, while its shareholders and investors can sleep comfortably at night because they distance the self from the company, so it is not the person acting immorally, but some "unknown force" (the Company), which, using reason, cannot actually be "immoral," because surely only humans can act in such a way. What a world.

hj34 9y ago

You can't blame a cow for doing what all the other cows are doing. It is in the nature of the cow.

59nadir 9y ago

Yeah, I'm not sure what the fruit of this is going to be. It's a nice reminder that most business/industry is outside of morals. It's not that all of it is immoral, but rather that it exists without any moral requirement and most of the times not having morals is an advantage. Also, if people really thought SV had any care at all for ethics and morals even before this they must've missed pretty much all of the news about SV for years and years. Not caring about what's right is expected, as long as you don't get caught. It's just a risk/reward thing.

PeachPlum 9y ago

amoral, not immoral but even then I disagree, just look at the life expectancy of the billions of people under capitalism. Milton Friedman - Is Capitalism Humane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHPI1emZFVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHPI1emZFVg

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
"The least of several evils" is not the same thing as "good".
- jamesrcole 9y ago
  But what if it's the least evil of all the available options? That doesn't itself make it "good" but that does make it the best option available.
  - coliveira 9y ago
    Contrary to popular belief, economy is not a binary system. There is a huge range of decisions that can be pursued and each decision has a particular interest. Modern societies have decided to take the "market-friendly" decisions each step of the way instead of the human- and environment-friendly decisions with the excuse that this is the least of "two" evils.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    Of course. PeachPlum was asserting that it does make it good, though.
    - jamesrcole 9y ago
      What I was trying to get at is that if something is literally the best option available then there's not much point complaining about it.
musage 9y ago
Objects are amoral. When humans create structures in which they align themselves with immoral incentives, they're being immoral. The failure to be good is being evil in my books; there is no neutrality and there is no mediocrity, there is doing your part or guilt. And no, nobody is 100% innocent and nobody is 100% guilty. Nobody made themselves out of nothing. Everybody started out as a helpless baby and the range of experiences one can get exposed to before even being able to attempt defend oneself is vast. But so what if every abuser got abused in some way or another, or was withheld some crucial things needed for development? Then don't hate them, but absolutely stop them.
coliveira 9y ago
This is an economic system created and maintained by humans. The morality or immorality is a property of those who maintain it, no matter how much these people try to dissuade others of this simple fact.

ataturk 9y ago

I disagree. Capitalism is the only system that gave the regular man any sort of upward mobility. Perfect? No. But looking at the other economic systems around the world, we can see without any doubt which one elevated regular people on a very consistent basis. I'm not a fan of crony-capitalism, on the other hand. The system whereby companies purchase favorable outcomes via lobbying and sweetheart contract deals. But that's not capitalism, that is corruption. Plus, a lot of people on HN worship Elon Musk and it is arguable that he is the king of the very kind of money making scheming that you find immoral, whatever that means.

kafkaesque 9y ago

This should be the top comment. I move among different circles of friends. Some studied philosophy and political science, others arts in general, and others computer science. It's scary that tech people have this very "blase" attitude (oversimplification perhaps?) that one's motive when it comes to how to handle distribution of money comes down to simple "meritocracy" and/or "greed." As if the very fact that blaming the innate human debility of giving in to avarice or greed does not presuppose much more problems, such as ulterior motives, cultural bias, nepotism, etc. There is, of course, the notion that the bigger a corporation gets (e.g., a conglomerate), the more dehumanizing it is. With such large sums of money being moved around (to whatever end or outcome) comes more "bottom line" interests and "corporate interests," and as such, it is less about the individual. The repercussions of this, which are pretty evident to me, is that it creates an institution or entity or agent ("corporation," if you want) that does not have a moral framework or acts not humanely but immorally, while its shareholders and investors can sleep comfortably at night because they distance the self from the company, so it is not the person acting immorally, but some "unknown force" (the Company), which, using reason, cannot actually be "immoral," because surely only humans can act in such a way. What a world.