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While there is some overlap in terms of the mechanics, I would personally refrain from taking this analogy too far. The point behind capitalism is the assumpti

by gpcz 13y ago

While there is some overlap in terms of the mechanics, I would personally refrain from taking this analogy too far. The point behind capitalism is the assumption that people are motivated by money but that the profit motive can be channeled toward ultimately being good for the public. Walt and Jesse's meth empire caused tons of addictions, murders/deaths (both on and off-screen), broke up families, required dishonesty at multiple levels, and was ultimately motivated by ego more than money. Some characters (Gale) also tried to rationalize the damage their product was doing to the world with flimsy arguments about "consenting adults wanting what they want" when each contributor made the choice to get into a business with horrifying societal consequences. Capitalism has holes in it, and it's up to everyone to make sure they are doing things that are good for the world.

AznHisoka 13y ago
How is this any different than Zuckerberg creating FB so he can get all the chicks? Startups are not created solely for money. In fact, some might argue money is just a means to an end: more or better sex
- gpcz 13y ago
  I'd argue that it's not a startup (maybe a charity or a hobby instead) if you're not trying to monetize. Whether sex is the ultimate motivation behind human affairs is something I'll leave to the Freudian psychologists.
tedks 13y ago
The point behind capitalism is making more money faster. This is why Zynga and Lockheed Martin exist.
Double_Cast 13y ago
> The point behind capitalism is the assumption that people are motivated by money but that the profit motive can be channeled toward ultimately being good for the public. Uh... who makes this assumption? As far as I know, no economist has ever assumed capitalism was for the "commmon good". The problem with even mentioning the "common good" is that it's subjective. It's sounds great in theory, but exactly who decides what's "good" for everyone else? imho, Laissez-Faire is like Democracy, except people vote with dollars. So the whole "adults will be adults" idea is actually more accurate.
- gpcz 13y ago
  Milton Friedman asserts in Capitalism and Freedom that capitalism results in increased product made possible by division of labor and specialization of function, and then goes on to say that freedom itself relies on capitalist society. There's also Ayn Rand's money speech, where Francisco d'Anconia says, "And when men live by trade -- with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?" When I said "good," I meant in terms of freedom, quality of products, and diversity of products. I know those are vague terms as well, but I don't think there's much benefit to going any further into it than that.
  - Double_Cast 13y ago
    But when you say "freedom", I guess that doesn't include "the freedom to buy and sell meth"? To clarify my position: * I agree that specialization increases productivity. * I agree increased productivity is good. * I agree meth is bad. * I agree people have moral obligations to society. * I agree ethics should influence macroeconomic policy. * I don't see how Capitalism (an economic system) imposes (in top-down fashion) a moral obligation on what a company can and can't sell. My issue is one of scope resolution. I think you're confusing "good" with "demand". Per pg, Capitalism tries to supply people with what they want. But what people want isn't always the best for them. E.g. I ate a doughnut the other day. Given I could have eaten a healthier yet equally tasty apple, eating the doughnut probably wasn't the best possible decision. But I wanted it, so I ate it. When I ate that doughnut, not once did I think "Capitalism. Therefore, I shouldn't eat it." Nor do I imagine that Dunking Donuts ever thought "Capitalism. Therefore, I shouldn't sell it." A subsequent comment of yours suggests you didn't intend to imply an intrinsic between capitalism and the common good. But the way you originally framed your sentence strongly suggests otherwise.
pyrrhotech 13y ago
Actually capitalism has no point. It's just the natural system free and selfishly motivated societies develop overtime--it needs regulation to ensure that the utility produced is allocated towards the common good
- jheriko 13y ago
  actually, capitalism is an idealised philosophy which is easy to follow. its not especially natural as the development of society up until the popularisation of capitalist philosophy will show. some of what we do now under capitalism is quite considerably worse than anything that came before... specifically around the treatment of unemployed, homeless and 'bottom end of the spectrum' type people where we actively harass them and stop them from surviving because... well i don't really understand that particular desire for blind law and order to the letter, so i don't know. unemployment was never a real problem until capitalist economy became the norm. a lot of the thinkers of the time foresaw that particular change as well...
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > actually, capitalism is an idealised philosophy which is easy to follow No, its not. Its a system that evolved organically without any coherent philosophy, was criticized (and, in the process, named) by 19th Century socialists (who did have a coherent philosophy opposed to it), and since has evolved a number of different after-the-fact defenses (which often aren't even defending the same system, despite using the same name for it.)
    - Double_Cast 13y ago
      Whenever I hear someone mention "Capitalism", there's about a 50% chance they really mean "laissez-faire" rather than "private ownership". I assume it's an artifact of the Cold War.
      - jheriko 13y ago
        for me everytime i hear it or say it, i feel like communism must be involved somehow. :)
beat 13y ago
Saying capitalism has a moral component is like saying thermodynamics has a moral component. Sadly, confusing beauty with morality has been a failing of Western thought since at least Aristotle. Just because capitalism is elegant doesn't mean it's "good" in a moral sense (or "evil" in a moral sense either).
- gpcz 13y ago
  I suspect that we agree more than disagree. What I meant was that we implement capitalism to generally get abundance of things like food and medicine that we consider good for society (to the point of calling them "goods"), but that individuals need to constantly examine and take responsibility for the morality of their actions under the system.
  - beat 13y ago
    I don't think we "implement" capitalism. It just happens, like thermodynamics. The most brutal communist systems of the 20th century had thriving black markets. In America, we ban drugs, and marijuana becomes the biggest cash crop in several states. Capitalism happens as long as two parties can barter in a satisfactory way. That's why I react so negatively to associating capitalism with morality. It beocmes an excuse.
    - dublinben 13y ago
      Capitalism and markets are not the same thing. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned. A market is just any exchange of goods between buyers and sellers.
- rz2k 13y ago
  My understanding of Adam Smith would have him strongly disagree with you that there is a moral component, however his definition of morality may differ from yours.
Avitas 13y ago
Not only that, there were enormous amounts of risk. Although the writers had Walt and Jesse live through obscenely and overwhelmingly deadly circumstances, these types of events rarely happen. Sure, there's the one-in-a-billion Sgt. York that deftly beats impossible odds. The real value in this particular analogy is for the author of the original article, not the reader.

by gpcz 13y ago

AznHisoka 13y ago

How is this any different than Zuckerberg creating FB so he can get all the chicks? Startups are not created solely for money. In fact, some might argue money is just a means to an end: more or better sex

gpcz 13y ago
I'd argue that it's not a startup (maybe a charity or a hobby instead) if you're not trying to monetize. Whether sex is the ultimate motivation behind human affairs is something I'll leave to the Freudian psychologists.

tedks 13y ago

The point behind capitalism is making more money faster. This is why Zynga and Lockheed Martin exist.

Double_Cast 13y ago

> The point behind capitalism is the assumption that people are motivated by money but that the profit motive can be channeled toward ultimately being good for the public. Uh... who makes this assumption? As far as I know, no economist has ever assumed capitalism was for the "commmon good". The problem with even mentioning the "common good" is that it's subjective. It's sounds great in theory, but exactly who decides what's "good" for everyone else? imho, Laissez-Faire is like Democracy, except people vote with dollars. So the whole "adults will be adults" idea is actually more accurate.

gpcz 13y ago
Milton Friedman asserts in Capitalism and Freedom that capitalism results in increased product made possible by division of labor and specialization of function, and then goes on to say that freedom itself relies on capitalist society. There's also Ayn Rand's money speech, where Francisco d'Anconia says, "And when men live by trade -- with reason, not force, as their final arbiter–it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability–and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?" When I said "good," I meant in terms of freedom, quality of products, and diversity of products. I know those are vague terms as well, but I don't think there's much benefit to going any further into it than that.
- Double_Cast 13y ago
  But when you say "freedom", I guess that doesn't include "the freedom to buy and sell meth"? To clarify my position: * I agree that specialization increases productivity. * I agree increased productivity is good. * I agree meth is bad. * I agree people have moral obligations to society. * I agree ethics should influence macroeconomic policy. * I don't see how Capitalism (an economic system) imposes (in top-down fashion) a moral obligation on what a company can and can't sell. My issue is one of scope resolution. I think you're confusing "good" with "demand". Per pg, Capitalism tries to supply people with what they want. But what people want isn't always the best for them. E.g. I ate a doughnut the other day. Given I could have eaten a healthier yet equally tasty apple, eating the doughnut probably wasn't the best possible decision. But I wanted it, so I ate it. When I ate that doughnut, not once did I think "Capitalism. Therefore, I shouldn't eat it." Nor do I imagine that Dunking Donuts ever thought "Capitalism. Therefore, I shouldn't sell it." A subsequent comment of yours suggests you didn't intend to imply an intrinsic between capitalism and the common good. But the way you originally framed your sentence strongly suggests otherwise.

pyrrhotech 13y ago

Actually capitalism has no point. It's just the natural system free and selfishly motivated societies develop overtime--it needs regulation to ensure that the utility produced is allocated towards the common good

jheriko 13y ago
actually, capitalism is an idealised philosophy which is easy to follow. its not especially natural as the development of society up until the popularisation of capitalist philosophy will show. some of what we do now under capitalism is quite considerably worse than anything that came before... specifically around the treatment of unemployed, homeless and 'bottom end of the spectrum' type people where we actively harass them and stop them from surviving because... well i don't really understand that particular desire for blind law and order to the letter, so i don't know. unemployment was never a real problem until capitalist economy became the norm. a lot of the thinkers of the time foresaw that particular change as well...
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > actually, capitalism is an idealised philosophy which is easy to follow No, its not. Its a system that evolved organically without any coherent philosophy, was criticized (and, in the process, named) by 19th Century socialists (who did have a coherent philosophy opposed to it), and since has evolved a number of different after-the-fact defenses (which often aren't even defending the same system, despite using the same name for it.)
  - Double_Cast 13y ago
    Whenever I hear someone mention "Capitalism", there's about a 50% chance they really mean "laissez-faire" rather than "private ownership". I assume it's an artifact of the Cold War.
    - jheriko 13y ago
      for me everytime i hear it or say it, i feel like communism must be involved somehow. :)

beat 13y ago

Saying capitalism has a moral component is like saying thermodynamics has a moral component. Sadly, confusing beauty with morality has been a failing of Western thought since at least Aristotle. Just because capitalism is elegant doesn't mean it's "good" in a moral sense (or "evil" in a moral sense either).

gpcz 13y ago
I suspect that we agree more than disagree. What I meant was that we implement capitalism to generally get abundance of things like food and medicine that we consider good for society (to the point of calling them "goods"), but that individuals need to constantly examine and take responsibility for the morality of their actions under the system.
- beat 13y ago
  I don't think we "implement" capitalism. It just happens, like thermodynamics. The most brutal communist systems of the 20th century had thriving black markets. In America, we ban drugs, and marijuana becomes the biggest cash crop in several states. Capitalism happens as long as two parties can barter in a satisfactory way. That's why I react so negatively to associating capitalism with morality. It beocmes an excuse.
  - dublinben 13y ago
    Capitalism and markets are not the same thing. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned. A market is just any exchange of goods between buyers and sellers.
rz2k 13y ago
My understanding of Adam Smith would have him strongly disagree with you that there is a moral component, however his definition of morality may differ from yours.

Avitas 13y ago

Not only that, there were enormous amounts of risk. Although the writers had Walt and Jesse live through obscenely and overwhelmingly deadly circumstances, these types of events rarely happen. Sure, there's the one-in-a-billion Sgt. York that deftly beats impossible odds. The real value in this particular analogy is for the author of the original article, not the reader.