Comment by bertiewhykovich | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bertiewhykovich | Hacker News Reader

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bertiewhykovich

I want to be careful here to avoid asserting that there is a system that is known to be ultimately more ethical than capitalism under current global conditions. (Social democracy may fit the bill, but I'm not prepared to argue that here.) That, however, doesn't mean that capitalism is ethical, or makes it easy to live an ethical life. The mechanics of capitalism are fundamentally exploitative -- again, even if they are less objectionable than many alternatives -- and participation in a capitalist economy makes you party to this. Nearly everything that I do is inflected with some sort of abuse: my laptop contains lithium ion batteries that use cobalt mined in insane conditions, my commute uses oil that, in turn, funds the malignant gangster-kings of Gulf states, my sweater was sewn in factory conditions that endanger the lives of people whose only mistake was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. (And this is to say nothing of the tremendous misery that occurs /within the United States itself/.)

Again, I am not here proposing an alternative to capitalism. But -- even if it was the best system around -- its abuses are monstrous.

Who forced you to use the laptop, to wear that sweater, or to live more than a walk away from your commute? And can I have a citation on the "tremendous misery" in the United States?

Nobody was forced, it's just the most convenient (cheapest, readily available, whatever). Only using truly ethical products is not going to be as convenient. Hence "difficult", not "impossible".

Citation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5895028/

Well keep in mind that RMS lives his ethics because his ethics are about closed source and only closed source along with some lip service to resenting his ID being checked (he's happy to ignore it to get to his paid talks, so really pretty fluid there). His ethics are simply not impacted anything you listed.

So it's amazingly easy to live RMS's ethics when you're given money to talk about living your ethics and those ethics are not impacted by most of the world around you.

>The mechanics of capitalism are fundamentally exploitative

No it's not. The mechanics are capitalism are fundamentally about mutual benefit. I give you money because having your product is worth more to me than having the money. You give me the product because having the money is worth more to you than having the product. Mutually beneficial exchange is the cornerstone of capitalism. At the end of the transaction, we are both better off.

That's not to say that there's not problems around monopoly and violence, but the latter is the failure of the state, not of the market. And monopoly is not exclusive to capitalism. Under alternative systems, everything is controlled by a monopoly (the state).

That's a lovely notion, but even the most cursory clear-eyed look around you should pretty conclusively demonstrate that it's not true.

I assume you disagree with the statements "it's just business" and "duty to maximize shareholder value" then.

It all depends on context. In some cases I do, and in some cases I don't. However, one of the reasons I run my own business is to avoid compromises like that when possible.

Mutually beneficial exchanges can still be exploitative. You give me money, I don't shoot you, we're both better off. Whether or not capitalism is "fundamentally" exploitative depends a lot on definitions, but the issue of violence isn't limited to state actors, and the market can definitely coerce people.

"You give me money, I don't shoot you"

That's not capitalism by any definition.

That's extortion and it was a well known practice thousands of years before we invented (or at least understood) capitalism.

I'd argue capitalism is not even an ideology, it's just a simple understanding of comparative value and how to go beyond zero-sum economics.

Oh, I know; my point was that the principle of mutually beneficial exchanges doesn't preclude an overall negative outcome. I don't know if capitalism is an ideology, but it certainly stems from a certain ideological framework (it's hard to have capitalism without belief in property.)

I'm pretty sure that by definition it does prevent a negative outcome, since "mutually beneficial" generally means that each person is better off than before the trade, meaning there are positive payoffs on both sides - I'm not sure where exactly you get a negative from there.

In the example of "give me what I want or I'll shoot you", you could argue that "X prevents Y from being shot" and "Y gives X what he wants" is a benefit for both sides, but that ignores the first part, "X puts Y in a position where he is going to be shot" is not mutually beneficial, so the salient part of the example (the threat) is not actually an example of mutually beneficial exchange.

Again, my point was that even if every exchange, in and of itself, is mutually beneficial, the overall society can still be unpleasant. But it should also be noted that mutually beneficial exchanges do not prevent negative results even directly, but merely improve the outcomes for those who are agreeing to the transaction; two parties can agree to an exchange that leaves them both better off than they were before, but harms a third party. Which doesn't even bring up that these exchanges are based on perceived benefit...

No true scotsman fallacy, activate.

That's a great example of a mutually beneficial but morally repugnant trade, but markets generally don't coerce people in this sense. Markets more often reach the fairest possible solution given an initially unfair situation (say, where one side has a gun and the other doesn't), and the fairness or unfairness of the whole thing depends on how property rights were initially allocated.

>I give you money because having your product is worth more to me than having the money. You give me the product because having the money is worth more to you than having the product

That is just trade, not capitalism. You are mixing them.

> ...mutual benefit. I give you money...

Actually, it's like this: I give you money because I want to make a profit and become richer. You work in order to survive.

This is empirically correct.

Capitalism is far from exploitative. It is based on mutually beneficial trades by both party's choice.

Maybe those people are working because it offers better pay than other jobs, even if the conditions seem bad to you? (this may not be true in all situations)

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