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> The market is basically amoral. Yet people support it and sleep at night. The world is not fair, people are unfair, and it's a damn good cause to try to make

> The market is basically amoral. Yet people support it and sleep at night. The world is not fair, people are unfair, and it's a damn good cause to try to make it fairer. Sure I expect there's a serious correlation between putting effort in, but a huge part of how valuable your efforts are to your life is decided by where you were born, who your family are, who fucks you over and how you are parented. I'm sure there are Muslim women in Saudi, or prostitutes in Liberia, or Chinese farm workers who'd (aside from cultural bias) work twice as hard and have just as many good ideas as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates given the education and upbringing they have, but they simply don't have the opportunity. Many socialists I talk to have it wrong in that they don't recognise that yes, effort is a factor in your life's success, but many of the capitalists I talk to fail to acknowledge that effort is simply one of many factors that influence it.

derefr 16y ago
If you could choose your DNA, your parents, your upbringing, your interests, and your talents, the market would be the perfect arbiter. The problem is that people, for social signalling reasons, cannot internalize that they are not in control of these things, or that they matter. Thus, through the lens of our cognitive biases (hiding all these influencing factors from us), capitalism looks like the best system we've tried so far, and all the other systems don't "feel" right (because, for example, they force those of low social status to acknowledge that fact.)
swombat 16y ago
Amoral does not mean immoral. I think you're confusing the two. Nature is amoral too. That means it does not have any sense of morality, it functions based on a different set of rules. Immoral is against morality. Amoral is without morality. The market isn't unfair, or fair - it's neither.

derefr 16y ago

If you could choose your DNA, your parents, your upbringing, your interests, and your talents, the market would be the perfect arbiter. The problem is that people, for social signalling reasons, cannot internalize that they are not in control of these things, or that they matter. Thus, through the lens of our cognitive biases (hiding all these influencing factors from us), capitalism looks like the best system we've tried so far, and all the other systems don't "feel" right (because, for example, they force those of low social status to acknowledge that fact.)

swombat 16y ago

Amoral does not mean immoral. I think you're confusing the two. Nature is amoral too. That means it does not have any sense of morality, it functions based on a different set of rules. Immoral is against morality. Amoral is without morality. The market isn't unfair, or fair - it's neither.