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Comment by IslaDeEncanta | Hacker News Reader

Ignorance is no excuse for the natural consequence of capitalism? Capitalism is founded on exploitation, don't blame it on the engineers.

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> Capitalism is founded on exploitation

As opposed to being founded on stealing other people's stuff.

That was what civilization was founded on. Capitalism came many iterative ticks later. It's actually way less exploitative than the regime it replaced, feudalism.

And before that, at the very start of civilization, there was the more exploitive warlordism.

"Farm this land, and make as much as you can, and give us the surplus, or we'll kill you and find someone who will."

"You mean I don't have to wander around the land responding to threats, you'll do that for me? If someone else comes around and threatens me, I can just point them to you? I can sit here and just figure out how to increase my YoY crop? Buddy, you don't have to coerce me, just swing by every month and we'll wine and dine the fuck out of you! I sure hope you brought all your horses because you're gonna need em!"

Warlords were like helicopter bosses. Annoying, but they don't stick around long enough to really mess with anything. It's those with misplaced senses of justice that really got a bee under their bonnet over it. Same as today.

yes... voluntary exploitation. the whole point of capitalism is that any transaction requires both parties to enter voluntarily.

it's not always pretty (and needs regulation to prevent monopoly formation, which the US currently lacks) but the alternative systems with involuntary transactions are demonstrably worse.

> the whole point of capitalism is that any transaction requires both parties to enter voluntarily.

When one party is hungry, and the other is not, voluntary participation does not imply freedom of choice.

If there are only two parties in the market, sure. That is rarely the case in any economic system, and can be argued that it is the least likely to occur in a capitalist-style system.

Exactly! You can't just go around treating engineers like adults.

So if someone gets shafted it's their own fault?

Caveat Emptor! (They don't teach it in schools anymore...)

Somebody decided not to fund schools properly.

Oh boy...so what do you tell your kids an adult is? Someone who does whatever it takes, no matter if they need to, no matter who it hurts right? It's a highly misguided view that breaks down as soon as you hit life's roadblocks and require someone else to help you out.

Don't worry, I don't tell my kids that. You made it up.

Actually, laissez-faire capitalism is the system of freedom -- inalienable individual rights, free minds, free trade, and free markets.

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