Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
Capitalism isn’t evil. It has no moral. It doesn’t feel anything and doesn’t care. There is only one golden rule “accumolate capital”. That’s it. It doesn’t matter how. Abduct people to force them in to slavery. Sent kids in coalmines for 12 hours a day. Burn down villages. The logical end for capitalism is one person owning everything.
This isn’t evil or greedy. It is just people playing by the rules of the system. People aren’t bad people. It is the system that makes them act in evil or greedy ways. This is what capitalism wants us to act. This is how we are expacted to behave.
I think don’t follow your logic. Can you point out where I’m going wrong?
Capitalism isn’t evil -> Capitalism doesn’t care -> Capitalism just wants us to accumulate capital -> Capitalism just wants us to commit evil acts to accumulate capital -> Capitalism isn’t evil it just wants us to commit evil acts to accumulate capital -> We aren’t evil because we act how capitalism wants to act, which itself isn’t evil it just wants us to commit evil acts to accumulate capital
If people aren’t evil, because it is capitalism making them do that evil; and yet capitalism isn’t evil, because either it-being-causative-of-evil-acts isn’t evil, or else because it only exists because of human choice; then from whence originates the evil? Given this, either nothing is evil, or else there is a choice to be not evil that humans are not taking which commutatively makes them evil, or else capitalism is evil.
In your view, what is the origin of evil in the system? And who has the say whether this evil exists or not?
As i said there is no morality in capitalism. There is no evil way to act in capitalism because the only right way to act in capitalism is tu accumulate capital there is no morality norm to classify actions as evil. Slavery in capitalism isn’t evil, it is a logical way zo act under capitalism. When we classify an action under capitalism as evil we do it with morality norms from outside the system. When we use the category “evil” we put value in how we treat living beeings. A question that ist part of capitalism. That’s why actions under capitalism aren’t evil under the view of capitalism but can be seen as evil from a not capitalistic point of view.
But what does this even mean? Aren’t you saying capitalism has no view? So how can it basis for internal evaluation? Aren’t moral judgments restricted to actors like humans? Doesn’t this framework essentially rob the word ‘evil’ of any meaning, since nothing is capable of it?
That doesn’t make sense by your own arguments. Instead, it is the capitalist that doesn’t see slavery as evil. While the slave and I still do. Capitalism is not capable of conferring this type of judgment, right?
Earlier you said:
People create capitalism. It may not be evil itself in that it has no agency, but if they act evil to conform to the system that they choose to maintain, then they are responsible for knowingly setting themselves up to have to commit evil. Nothing about capitalism’s non-agency absolves actors from their implementation with and interaction with the system.
So the current logic I’m reading now appears to be:
Humans make capitalism -> Humans make capitalism and then live under it -> Humans make capitalism with the understanding that doing so will encourage them to be evil in order to live under it -> Humans are responsible for capitalism which is not itself responsible for the evil actions that it makes people commit, and (here is the leap / circular point) the lack of capitalism’s responsibility somehow breaks the chain of causality which separates the humans from responsibility for the consequences of their informed actions.
Obviously agency and cause-and-effect don’t work like this, though. Causality doesn’t randomly break whenever our egos feel the need to be consoled.
Any system that does not inherently protect people is evil. It is a known fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Any system that does not intentionally address this issue is evil.