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Comment by forgingahead | Hacker News Reader

Zero-sum thinking on business and wealth-creation has already made America (and many countries in the West) poorer - an entire generation has been brainwashed into believing that business, profit-seeking, and earning money is an ignoble pursuit.

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Is this comment satirical? Because when I look around in the states I very much see a deeply held belief that making a profit, operating a business, and earning money is one of the most important things you could do. Those things come with significant cultural cachet.

I'd suggest the comment above is from the perspective of the vast majority of Americans becoming poorer, and not a reference to the entire countries wealth which serves to benefit a large wealthy minority.

I don’t think it’s satirical. I think it’s a bad faith or ignorant take. My observation is that younger people don’t mind the pursuit of profits as long as it’s more fair and ethical.

Young people are not more fair and ethical, new generations don't just suddenly gain purity and enlightenment out of thin air, they just have a different hustle.

Much of the intellectual class, by which I refer to the class thar engages in public discourse, certainly thinks there is something ignoble about making a profit. Online comments demonstrate that.

Comment said 'a generation'. The rest of us still hold the belief quiet deeply that profit, operating a business and earning money is one of the most noble things you can do.

Noble? It's not bad to want money, but that's not in and of itself noble.

I think the difference between you and me is that I understand the benefits other people get when I make money. You think the only benefit is for the person itself, so trying to call it noble is tacky.

Sometimes other people benefit, not always. It depends on how you go about things.

It always does, or else the transaction won't take place (as long as it's voluntary, in the strictest sense of the word).

Lots of real transactions have pressure applied. But more importantly there are always externalities, and it's basically impossible to make those entirely voluntary; there are far too many to evaluate manually.

Many businesses have a positive or neutral effect on almost everyone. And many others have a negative effect on almost everyone they touch, outside of the parties directly involved in a deal.

What, exactly, is inherently noble about making a profit?

I mean, profit-seeking for the ends of profit-seeking is pretty ignoble: if your ambition is to sit on a pile of money like a fire-breathing dragon, what's the point?

For many wealthy, continually fueling pure unstoppable hedonism is the entire point.

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