3 ms·

If someone is a hand chopper-offer, people will not want to do business with them. Capitalism will punish him. And he does that not as a result of capitalism,

If someone is a hand chopper-offer, people will not want to do business with them. Capitalism will punish him. And he does that not as a result of capitalism, there is no competitive edge to hand chopping off, it's just evil. Also, lets pretend the hand chopper-offer is not an individual running a business, lets say he's in charge of an all-powerful communist government. When you centralize power too much, you risk a tyrant seizing control of that power.

yequalsx 9y ago
I believe your first paragraph is naive. There are lots of examples of bad actors in capitalism that are never punished by the market or the government. Your belief in the wonders of the market correcting abuses is especially hard to understand when not everyone has perfect market information. As an example look at De Beers and how many people bought diamonds from this company that willingly did business with the hand choppers.
- danschumann 9y ago
  I believe you aren't objectively comparing the ills of capitalism with the ills of communism, or you simply can't do math. Communism means the government seizes control of the means of productions. There are few businesses that I would rather see ran by the government than by a citizen with skin in the game.
  - yequalsx 9y ago
    I haven’t added the sum total of all misery (how can this be meaningfully quantified?) caused by capitalists and compared with the sum total of all misery caused by autocracies. Both are horrible and good people ought to strive for a world in which neither occur. Capitalism is better overall in that it does a much better job of dispersing benefits. But the misery caused by capitalists in the pursuit of profit ought not be overlooked. I believe the Bible is correct when it says that the root of all evil is the love of money (which includes power).

yequalsx 9y ago

I believe your first paragraph is naive. There are lots of examples of bad actors in capitalism that are never punished by the market or the government. Your belief in the wonders of the market correcting abuses is especially hard to understand when not everyone has perfect market information. As an example look at De Beers and how many people bought diamonds from this company that willingly did business with the hand choppers.

danschumann 9y ago
I believe you aren't objectively comparing the ills of capitalism with the ills of communism, or you simply can't do math. Communism means the government seizes control of the means of productions. There are few businesses that I would rather see ran by the government than by a citizen with skin in the game.
- yequalsx 9y ago
  I haven’t added the sum total of all misery (how can this be meaningfully quantified?) caused by capitalists and compared with the sum total of all misery caused by autocracies. Both are horrible and good people ought to strive for a world in which neither occur. Capitalism is better overall in that it does a much better job of dispersing benefits. But the misery caused by capitalists in the pursuit of profit ought not be overlooked. I believe the Bible is correct when it says that the root of all evil is the love of money (which includes power).