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Comment by mettamage | Hacker News Reader

Instances like this really make me feel that capitalism is devoid of any morality. If there's no law guarding it, a company will abuse its power in order to make more money. It could be a morally good thing, a morally bad thing, it doesn't matter: more money is more money.

It feels heartless. I wish there was a better system.

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Of course it is! What system has a heart? Systems are systems, not something that's capable to develop and cultivate and apply empathy. And even then, it could probably be gamed, like any other system. The need for checks and balances in a system is normal. In fact, I use this to judge how humane a system is. Is there a way to express feedback, to enact changes, to revise decisions, to compensate for damages? If so, then it might be not such a bad system. If not really, then that's most likely not a good system.

We have tried systems based on some seemingly absolute moral codex. Some parts of the world are still doing it. Unfortunately it always comes with brutal ways to kill arbitrary groups of people.

You seem to be missing an ethics class. Morality doesn’t have to be like that at all.

So you would say these systems are no true scotsmen?

No. If you go looking, you will find plenty of counter-examples in History. You just made a statement that the top handful of catastrophic examples were representative of the bunch.

You have massive selection bias in your sample. “Morally-based decision ends well” is not exactly something that makes headlines or that is seized upon by historians to explain memorable cataclysmic events.

You don’t need to be an ethics expert to see a difference between moral principles that lead to suffering, and moral principles that don’t.

Waving away all morality in moral nihilism is teenage-level ethical sophistication.

You are carefully trying to stay vague and are avoiding to name even a single counter-example. You are just claiming that my examples are wrong. This is the definition of a "No true Scotsman" fallacy.

Name one non-capitalistic system more moral than the currently existing ones.

All rankings trying to quantify morality and order societies by it, are consistently topped by social market economies, a form of capitalism.

> Waving away all morality in moral nihilism is teenage-level ethical sophistication.

It is also something I have never done. With the edits to your post, its nature became more and more apologetic to dictatorships. I hope this was not what you have intended.

> With the edits to your post, its nature became more and more apologetic to dictatorships.

What are you talking about?(!)

It looked more and more like you wanted to say that morals are not an "all or nothing" thing from where it is easy to leap to being apologetic to just a little bit of (systematic) wrongdoing. But judging from your reaction, this is not what you were trying to set up.

Not at all. The main thread of my comment(s) was that moral value judgments are extremely prevalent. In fact nothing actually happens in society without someone making a value judgment. And most of the time nothing particularly crazy happens.

It’s easy to point to some barbaric act and say “see, this is what morally motivated policies result in”.

But in reality, moral value judgments are all around us in the most mundane of places. It’s moral value judgments that cause us to have anti-monopoly laws. It’s moral value judgments that cause us to configure tax codes one way or another. It’s moral value judgments that cause us to appreciate the things that capitalism gives us. Etc etc. You can’t escape it.

I'd agree, hence that's why I said I wish there was a better system. I don't know it either. Although it might be an uncomfortable truth for me, capitalism isn't great either, but I do think it's the best system we have.

I'm currently reading a book called "Technofeudalism" by Yanis Varoufakis that investigates things along the lines you've said. My main takeaway so far is "Capitalism" hasn't always been one thing and it has evolved over the years. Capitalism of today isn't the same as the capitalism we had before the oligopolies and cloud giants, and that makes me thing differently about the statement "capitalism isn't great either, but I do think it's the best system we have."

I would highly recommend the book!

Isn’t Warren Buffett’s son using his father’s fortune to hunt and murder Latinos at the southern border?

Capitalism only works with proper regulation to protect the little people. We’ve forgotten that part for quite some time now.

I'd agree. It's hard though, political landscapes change. Well intended companies can also change as they get bigger. I guess in that sense it's all in flux, including capitalism (as it's only enabled through laws and regulations).

Capitalism is a system that inevitably destroys its own guardrails.

> capitalism is devoid of any morality.

That's a category error. Economic and political system don't have morals. Not capitalism, socialism, democracy, autocracy.

Economic and political system should be designed to create incentives where externalities are positive and not negative.

I meant to say the same thing you said.

Note how I didn’t mention capitalism to have bad morals or to be evil. I did say heartless because neglecting morality (good or bad) feels heartless.

Capitalism is absolutely amoral, and has always been.

I'm honestly curious (and adding this as a disclaimer to be clear it's not an attack): why would you think there was any shard of imbued morality when the whole point of the system is based on greed?

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