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Money is the worst proxy for optimising returns for the society. Lemme know if you have anything better. Greed and selfish pursuit leads to wealth creation
by forgot_user1234 6y ago
Money is the worst proxy for optimising returns for the society. Lemme know if you have anything better.
Greed and selfish pursuit leads to wealth creation
- neltnerb 6y agoOur representatives are theoretically responsible for balancing different social interests, including social welfare and money. I think that is better. I'd rather fix the thing where elected officials don't seem to do that job rather than just throwing up my hands and saying the market knows best... seems like a pretty extreme position to just say that money and pricing is the only tool in the toolbox.
- forgot_user1234 6y ago> balancing different social interests okay. how can you measure social welfare? > seems like a pretty extreme position to just say that money and pricing is the only tool in the toolbox. I never said that. You said it. You countered it.
- amelius 6y ago> Greed and selfish pursuit leads to wealth creation Yeah, but for the people doing the actual work or not?
- forgot_user1234 6y agoIf you create value for others and they show there happiness with money. Congrats you are rich
- amelius 6y agoPeople in sweatshops create a lot of value for others ...
- Barrin92 6y ago>Lemme know if you have anything better. I think there are some pretty obvious things. Improvement of the environment, health, safety, educational attainment, military prowess and so on. As Michael Sandel put it, since the 80s we've moved from a market economy to a market society. Markets aren't used as tools any more to further social ends, they've become ends in themselves. We don't measure success in human flourishing, we measure it in dollars. Ironically this has made much long-term wealth creation impossible. Many companies in Silicon Valley were sustained by the government pursuing strategic goals, in particular the military. Industrial ecosystems don't spring out of the ground because of selfishness and greed, they're created by institutions.
- forgot_user1234 6y ago> Industrial ecosystems don't spring out of the ground because of selfishness and greed, they're created by institutions. barrin92 meet Charles koch.
- WalterBright 6y ago> Money is the worst proxy for optimising returns for the society. Free markets have done far more for society than any other system that's been tried.
- sukilot 6y agoI'd say social democracy has done more. It's easy to tally up the greatness of the free market when you redefinento boundaries of society to exclude the huge negative costs imposed on slaves and laborers.
- WalterBright 6y agoSlavery is not a free market system.
- neltnerb 6y agoUm... I agree the word "free" is misleading but once you're in a legal system that condones slavery then of course it would be a free market. I'm having a hard time imagining the slave trade arising without a market much more free than the people forced through it. Markets are amoral. That's why we shouldn't rely on them to solve social problems.
- WalterBright 6y agoA free market is one where transactions take place absent fraud or force. Slavery doesn't remotely qualify.
- forgot_user1234 6y ago> exclude the huge negative costs imposed on slaves What slaves? That was a century ago.
- forgot_user1234 6y agoI agree.
- 6y ago
- lazylizard 6y agoChina is doing social scores?