That or moral apathy. At some point in the 80s we decided that markets driven by business profits should dictate every aspect of society.
I imagine 100 years from now they'll look back at today in disgust.
Ultimately "Corporate Profits" produce the economic value that people desperately want, and participating in the creation of something people want _should_ be a prerequisite for getting economic value in return.
I'm also proposing that in a wealthy first world country, perhaps nobody should have to go homeless. Crazy idea, I know.
What have these "corporate profits" you worship ever done for homeless people?
Right now most people have access to abundant food, cellphone in every pocket, access to a wealth of information, access to transportation, incredible medical advances.
I can't imagine that the progress we've made would be scorned. Like other market driven forces, bad players will not be rewarded as information about them increases.
However, if information is not increased because of something like a company buying a newspaper so investigative threats can be used against politicians to avoid information gathering, then we have problems. This is more crony capitalism than just capitalism.
If you compare real median wage growth in the West in the 60s and 70s with the last two decades though, it doesn't look so great. Maybe we can do better.
100%, both systems are great theories. However, the last few hundred years of actually trying to implement capitalism has "most people have access to abundant food, cellphone in every pocket, access to a wealth of information, access to transportation, incredible medical advances.", if by "most people" you mean "possible a majority of people in the richest countries in the world". Unfortunately, the cost of that is that we've done irreparable damage to our environment, are causing the worst Great Extinction ever, and have caused a climate crisis that may cause us to go extinct.
A huge amount of R&D happens in academia which isn't capitalism; but then is monetised by capitalism (but doesn't reinvest it back into the academia)
Without invoking too many absolutes, there's so much bullshit involved in the latter that people doing the former aren't willing to put up with. It's mostly two different kinds of people with two different skillsets.
I agree that "No true Capitalism" is just as bad a fallacy as "No true Communism". But our real life imperfect Capitalism has still had incredible results whereas real life imperfect communism has lagged significantly and failed more brutally.
> most people have access to...
Why is "most" a good enough metric? If most people have homes but my commute to work is littered with tents of homeless people, is that adequate? Should politicians just throw in the towel then and call it a day because "most" people have houses?
I think we can do better.
Why pick on traders? I know a lot of developers making well into six figures. I hear them talking about getting 3 new graphics cards for their gaming rigs instead of how they worked at a soup kitchen.
What is your point? That GS should be donating 100m to charity instead of reinvesting into their business?
Where do you think that money goes? Workers will be paid to implement their plan and taxes will be paid on those wages. In fact about 40% of that 100m will eventually end up being paid in taxes.
The problem is that if I have a company [and this is a systemic example, no exceptions, see #1], and I allow (central-)bank "friendly" people on its board, so that we can receive as many low- or zero-interest loans (with open due date or refinancing at will, i.e. free money, printed freshly from thin air) from the bank, so that we can under-price, destroy and acquire all our competition, become a monopoly AND finance a massive lobbying power in the DC so that we can get laws passed which increase our profits (at the disadvantage of the citizen), you can bet all your savings that such system's demise is written in the fabric of space and time, because the most essential feedback loops (and the ones that you mention, the ones in the market, work in exactly the opposite way) in that system have been disabled and its just a runaway train without brakes.
Buying laws starts and finances wars, relaxes food, water and environmental toxicity limits, enables false advertising, eventually raises taxes, enables trading of derivatives so detached from reality that a computer game pales in comparison, you name it. The days of this system are numbered and we should really speed up the development of trustless alternatives based on blockchain, or we're going to hit the wall really hard.
#1 https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed...