Is the University of Chicago-blessed, “greed is good” near-term profits approach to business wearing out its welcome? James O’Toole’s The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary…
Two ethically oriented supporters of capitalism--the show host and author-- inadvertently make a really strong argument for why capitalism can’t be reformed to treat humans or the environment in a responsible way.
Examples are given of decent people trying to make positive changes in how business is done, only to have their legacies destroyed by the overwhelming structural sociopathy of markets, competition, corporate law, and investors that bridle at any reduction in profit.
If you would rather not cut down a rainforest or use forced semi-slave labor, your investors will probably remove you, take over the company or force your hand through lawsuits or other maneuvers.
Capitalism is a vicious and destructive system by design and can’t be otherwise, unless we somehow find a way to invent a new form of humanity that doesn’t easily succumb to the incentives given to greed, domination and moral indifference.
Another solution is the overthrow of the capitalist order, replaced with fully humanized and environmentally sustainable practices.
Liberals will caution us that any proposed political reform that requires a leap in benevolence or intelligence beyond what people already are, is prone to disaster. There might be some truth to this. But what happens when an economic system compels people to be much worse than they might like to be, and in so doing obfuscates our vision of who we might become?
