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Much has been said about the need for dog-eat-dog law of the jungle in the business world to ensure darwinian evolution of the economy to deliver maximum result

Much has been said about the need for dog-eat-dog law of the jungle in the business world to ensure darwinian evolution of the economy to deliver maximum results for the society and to secure an everlasting prosperity. I have no problem with that. The benefits of capitalism seem well articulated and history supports many of the assertions. On the other hand, I think the fragile, precious, and short-lived people of said society need to exist in a different environment insulated from the brutal realities of daily survival that exists in a world of business by robust social safety nets and welfare, allowing them achieve their potential without being ridden by anxieties of merciless pressures of daily survival. But one may also observe that the current state of things in US at least - is sometimes the mirror image of the desired state - the largest businesses have often secured themselves robust socially-funded safety nets, while people are more and more stripped of any social protections, see the erosion of welfare programs of the past, while being criticized for not robustly enough fighting for survival according to the laws of the jungle.

runarberg 4y ago
> The benefits of capitalism seem well articulated and history supports many of the assertions This is if you ignore all the mass hunger or the homelessness that many people experience globally, or the mass exclusion from treatment which could be administrated but isn’t because people can’t afford it (take the recent misdistribution of covid vaccines which caused millions of unnecessary deaths). And also if you ignore the climate disaster, which was caused by oil companies simply maximizing their profits, at the cost of all else, including our climate, engaging in a mass disinformation campaign to downplay the effect of carbon emissions, despite their own science telling them otherwise. If you only focus on the upper and middle class of the richest nations, sure, this system does seem to work nicely. I’m sure you could say the same about communism if you only focus on Soviet upper party members.

runarberg 4y ago

> The benefits of capitalism seem well articulated and history supports many of the assertions This is if you ignore all the mass hunger or the homelessness that many people experience globally, or the mass exclusion from treatment which could be administrated but isn’t because people can’t afford it (take the recent misdistribution of covid vaccines which caused millions of unnecessary deaths). And also if you ignore the climate disaster, which was caused by oil companies simply maximizing their profits, at the cost of all else, including our climate, engaging in a mass disinformation campaign to downplay the effect of carbon emissions, despite their own science telling them otherwise. If you only focus on the upper and middle class of the richest nations, sure, this system does seem to work nicely. I’m sure you could say the same about communism if you only focus on Soviet upper party members.