> Greed kicks in because capitalism
There were no greedy people before capitalism. Of that we can be sure.
There were no greedy people before capitalism. Of that we can be sure.
Capitalism, on the contrary, rewards it. The best way to be under capitalism is greedy (sneakily so, if necessary).
So yes, it is uniquely new to have a value system that rewards greed.
Without greed it goes from a positive sum system to a destructive system because you no longer have the parties being better off from the transaction. From a cursory standpoint that might be ok (the economy won't implode if some small fraction does this like a minority of commercial activity being charity functions) but you basically lose most the information conveyed in prices and cost causing complete loss of productive allocation and it is an economic implosion.
It's a pointless conversation if you're willing to do that. You're just changing definitions before arguing them.
An example I'll take from Cory Doctorow: Google search isn't getting worse. We know this because nobody's toppled Google's monopoly on search. Because of the magic of the market, if what you perceive as search being worse was actually search being worse, then, Google would no longer dominate.
Since google continues to dominate, actually, search isn't worse.
Capitalist analysis requires QED circular logic to justify its inherent contradictions.
Capitalism may occasionally reward value, but very, very rarely does it reward value more than greed.
Proof: teachers are some of the worse paid jobs in our society despite being essentially the backbone of our nation. A single teacher in the course of a year can completely alter the course of history for a classload of kids. Multiply over a two decade career... And that's just elementary school. Highschool teachers will influence hundreds of kids each semester.
Yet their wages in many states cap out at around what a recruiter makes. Recruiters being nothing more than middlemen between a labor market and a hiring market - as a former recruiter, trust me, that multi billion dollar industry creates essentially no value.
Of course the capitalist analysis means the entire system is immune to criticism - "actually, teachers don't get paid much because they don't add much value, if they added more value, they'd get paid more." QED. Circular logic.
"The multi tens of billions of dollars American health insurance industry adds value. If it didn't, it wouldn't be worth multi tens of billions of dollars."
Capitalism rewards greed, and the greediest are the most capitalistically rewarded.