“”“Make things that people want, or do things that people want done, in exchange for money or other valuta. This is a great and noble and worthwhile endeavor, and anyone who looks down on it reveals their own shallowness.”””
Yes it is a noble and worthwhile endeavour. Unfortunately (as I noted some time ago) there are in general two ways that firms can make profits: by making something people want, or by rent-seeking. The former is usually beneficial: it increases the sum of human happiness and welfare. The latter is usually harmful.
A society can be seen as a mechanism for incentivising things that benefit people and disincentivising things that harm people; and the success of a society is largely determined by how well its rules achieve this. It follows that if the rules of a society allow a firm to make profits without making something people want—for example a firm whose only business is patent litigation—then those rules are probably harming that society and should be changed.
If the only way a company could get rich was through making things people want, I suspect there would be less criticism of capitalism.
I don’t think rent-seeking is really part of capitalism… It’s more of a mafia effect that we can observe in any economical system (and feels more related to the political system… aka power, not value/money)
I think true direct democracy would “solve” rent-seeking…
Power is needed/unavoidable but best in the proper hands (aka the people, aka everyone)
Value is needed/unavoidable but best freely shared, split, exchanged, accumulated etc… (aka the individual, aka anyone)
Funnily enough, there is an interesting symmetry that just appeared in my writing which I hadn’t planned for…
“”“Make things that people want, or do things that people want done, in exchange for money or other valuta. This is a great and noble and worthwhile endeavor, and anyone who looks down on it reveals their own shallowness.”””
Yes it is a noble and worthwhile endeavour. Unfortunately (as I noted some time ago) there are in general two ways that firms can make profits: by making something people want, or by rent-seeking. The former is usually beneficial: it increases the sum of human happiness and welfare. The latter is usually harmful.
A society can be seen as a mechanism for incentivising things that benefit people and disincentivising things that harm people; and the success of a society is largely determined by how well its rules achieve this. It follows that if the rules of a society allow a firm to make profits without making something people want—for example a firm whose only business is patent litigation—then those rules are probably harming that society and should be changed.
If the only way a company could get rich was through making things people want, I suspect there would be less criticism of capitalism.
I don’t think rent-seeking is really part of capitalism… It’s more of a mafia effect that we can observe in any economical system (and feels more related to the political system… aka power, not value/money) I think true direct democracy would “solve” rent-seeking…
Power is needed/unavoidable but best in the proper hands (aka the people, aka everyone)
Value is needed/unavoidable but best freely shared, split, exchanged, accumulated etc… (aka the individual, aka anyone)
Funnily enough, there is an interesting symmetry that just appeared in my writing which I hadn’t planned for…