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Capitalism has its foundations in reciprocity. Instead of "I scratch your back, you scratch mine," we have "I give you money and you give me a service which I
by araneae 17y ago
Capitalism has its foundations in reciprocity. Instead of "I scratch your back, you scratch mine," we have "I give you money and you give me a service which I desire." All capitalism does is make a barter and trade system more efficient, allowing you to trade with someone for something you want even if you don't have anything they want. Calling that evil is sort of... dumb.
- AndrewDucker 17y agoThat's a tad simplistic. Capitalism rewards the externalising of costs - so, for instance, decreasing your unit costs by increasing your pollution is more profitable. You need external regulation to make sure that decisions are not made solely on a capitalist basis, because that would make them entirely heartless.
- DavidSJ 17y agoAll systems reward the externalizing of costs, by definition.
- camccann 17y agoBut they may reward externalizing different kinds of costs, and the relative rewards may be larger or smaller than in other systems. The question is what provides the best results (and, for that matter, how to define "best").