To me, apathy and amorality when the consequences are harm towards others is evil. It’s sort of like if a driver was in a rush and ran over a protestor on his way to work.
Sure, he did not wish any harm on the protestor. He just simply needed to get past them and chose the most effective and efficient path.
It’s an amoral act but the act (and the driver) is still evil. Evil is not just a mustache twirling genocidal dictator or sadistic serial killers… In fact, the amoral does infinitely more harm than the malicious. The Nazis did not come to power because of malice. They did not kill millions of Jews because of malice. They got there through apathy and amorality.
They didn’t want to kill the Jews at first- they wanted to deport them. But once they got them in the camps… it was impractical to supply enough logistical power to actually move them all. So while they figure out a plan, let’s have them do slave labor.
And then after a while, since we can’t move them, we may as well just kill them. It’s the most effective path to where we want to be. The driver driving over the protestor.
If this isn’t “evil”, what is?
Healthy competition tends to make “evil” actions unprofitable
Competition helps. I agree that this negative aspect of capitalism is exponentially magnified when monopolies form.
The thing is, in capitalist the wealth tends to snowball. Wealth is power and wealth buys influence. Look at how Disney singlehandedly changed copyright law when Mickey Mouse was about to enter public domain. Once you reach a certain size, you can modify the rules of the game. So it creates a self-perpetuating cycle.
This position we are in is the natural consequence of free market capitalism. I agree that free market is better. But this is the grown up version of free market. There was never going to be any other scenario but the one we are in.
We’ve neglected the garden for decades and allowed some truly nasty weeds in, but that doesn’t make the weeds “evil,” that means we were poor gardeners.
We can debate on the ontology of the world evil. It really is an interesting debate. But for all practical purposes, if the weeds are killing the crops that feed your family… what is the difference? Whether they want to kill you indirectly through starvation or don’t want to kill you- you’re dead either way.
The issue with your driver analogy is that the driver has to make a conscious decision that their convenience is worth more than a human life. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the driver is evil.
Likewise for your Nazi example, the choice to arrest and deport people because of their religious, ethnic, or cultural affiliation is evil. That should absolutely go without saying, as should killing people for convenience or profit.
Corporations are rarely in that situation, and if they actively choose to kill people, the decision makers should join the driver and Nazis in prison.
wealth tends to snowball
As it should. And snowballs tend to burst on impact. Look at GE or Sears, they used to absolutely dominate, but they imploded because they couldn’t adapt to the competition.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, innovators profit massively from the value they create, and when they stop innovating, they fail.
The problem is that large businesses rarely fail and get bailed out. We should’ve had a ton of banks close in 2008, but instead their execs got golden parachutes and failing businesses just consolidated into even larger entities. The message that sends is that companies can get away with murder, as long as they are “too big to fail.” The problem there wasn’t the cheating (it was a problem, don’t get me wrong), but the lack of consequences. We should’ve seen execs being carted off to jail, having their assets confiscated to help make restitution for their crimes. But instead we rewarded them.
This isn’t a failure of capitalism, it’s corruption in government.
Once you reach a certain size, you can modify the rules of the game.
And that’s the problem. My point is: don’t hate the player, hate the game. Demand better representation, and real consequences for corruption.
I’m guessing if you looked into Google/Alphabet, you could find dozens if not hundreds of crimes committed that helped them get the market share they have, and most of those likely went unprosecuted or had ineffective penalties. Likewise for other large orgs like Microsoft and Amazon.
Yet everyone seems to blame the corporations and not the government. You blame Disney for our terrible copyright laws, yet Disney didn’t pass or sign that law, they merely lobbied for it. The problem isn’t Disney, the problem is Congress.
, if the weeds are killing the crops that feed your family… what is the difference?
Weeds killing your crops is a symptom of the problem, which is the lack of maintenance of the garden. The weeds didn’t kill your family, your lack of preventative action did.
Likewise, corporations taking advantage of an ineffective government isn’t the problem, the ineffective government is. Fix ththe gardener and the garden will prosper. But a bad gardener is worse than no gardener, because nature at least finds a way for crops to survive without anyone plucking the weeds.
To me, apathy and amorality when the consequences are harm towards others is evil. It’s sort of like if a driver was in a rush and ran over a protestor on his way to work.
Sure, he did not wish any harm on the protestor. He just simply needed to get past them and chose the most effective and efficient path.
It’s an amoral act but the act (and the driver) is still evil. Evil is not just a mustache twirling genocidal dictator or sadistic serial killers… In fact, the amoral does infinitely more harm than the malicious. The Nazis did not come to power because of malice. They did not kill millions of Jews because of malice. They got there through apathy and amorality.
They didn’t want to kill the Jews at first- they wanted to deport them. But once they got them in the camps… it was impractical to supply enough logistical power to actually move them all. So while they figure out a plan, let’s have them do slave labor.
And then after a while, since we can’t move them, we may as well just kill them. It’s the most effective path to where we want to be. The driver driving over the protestor.
If this isn’t “evil”, what is?
Competition helps. I agree that this negative aspect of capitalism is exponentially magnified when monopolies form.
The thing is, in capitalist the wealth tends to snowball. Wealth is power and wealth buys influence. Look at how Disney singlehandedly changed copyright law when Mickey Mouse was about to enter public domain. Once you reach a certain size, you can modify the rules of the game. So it creates a self-perpetuating cycle.
This position we are in is the natural consequence of free market capitalism. I agree that free market is better. But this is the grown up version of free market. There was never going to be any other scenario but the one we are in.
We can debate on the ontology of the world evil. It really is an interesting debate. But for all practical purposes, if the weeds are killing the crops that feed your family… what is the difference? Whether they want to kill you indirectly through starvation or don’t want to kill you- you’re dead either way.
The issue with your driver analogy is that the driver has to make a conscious decision that their convenience is worth more than a human life. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the driver is evil.
Likewise for your Nazi example, the choice to arrest and deport people because of their religious, ethnic, or cultural affiliation is evil. That should absolutely go without saying, as should killing people for convenience or profit.
Corporations are rarely in that situation, and if they actively choose to kill people, the decision makers should join the driver and Nazis in prison.
As it should. And snowballs tend to burst on impact. Look at GE or Sears, they used to absolutely dominate, but they imploded because they couldn’t adapt to the competition.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, innovators profit massively from the value they create, and when they stop innovating, they fail.
The problem is that large businesses rarely fail and get bailed out. We should’ve had a ton of banks close in 2008, but instead their execs got golden parachutes and failing businesses just consolidated into even larger entities. The message that sends is that companies can get away with murder, as long as they are “too big to fail.” The problem there wasn’t the cheating (it was a problem, don’t get me wrong), but the lack of consequences. We should’ve seen execs being carted off to jail, having their assets confiscated to help make restitution for their crimes. But instead we rewarded them.
This isn’t a failure of capitalism, it’s corruption in government.
And that’s the problem. My point is: don’t hate the player, hate the game. Demand better representation, and real consequences for corruption.
I’m guessing if you looked into Google/Alphabet, you could find dozens if not hundreds of crimes committed that helped them get the market share they have, and most of those likely went unprosecuted or had ineffective penalties. Likewise for other large orgs like Microsoft and Amazon.
Yet everyone seems to blame the corporations and not the government. You blame Disney for our terrible copyright laws, yet Disney didn’t pass or sign that law, they merely lobbied for it. The problem isn’t Disney, the problem is Congress.
Weeds killing your crops is a symptom of the problem, which is the lack of maintenance of the garden. The weeds didn’t kill your family, your lack of preventative action did.
Likewise, corporations taking advantage of an ineffective government isn’t the problem, the ineffective government is. Fix ththe gardener and the garden will prosper. But a bad gardener is worse than no gardener, because nature at least finds a way for crops to survive without anyone plucking the weeds.