Capitalism is a concept, it can’t care if it wanted and it even can’t want to begin with. It’s the humans. You will find greedy, immoral ones in every system and they will make it miserable for everyone else.
Comment on AI companies are violating a basic social contract of the web and and ignoring robots.txt
moitoi@feddit.de 8 months ago
Alternative title: Capitalism doesn’t care about morals and contracts. It wants to make more money.
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 8 months ago
Aceticon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Capitalism is the widelly accepted self-serving justification of those people’s for their acts.
The real problem is in the “widelly accepted” part: a sociopath killing an old lady and justifying it because “she looked funny at me” wouldn’t be “widelly accepted” and Society would react in a suitable way, but if said sociopath scammed the old lady’s pension fund because (and this is a typical justification in Investment Banking) “the opportunity was there and if I didn’t do it somebody else would’ve, so better be me and get the profit”, it’s deemed “acceptable” and Society does not react in a suitable way.
gapbetweenus@feddit.de 8 months ago
People will always find justification to be asholes. Capitalism tried to harvest that energy and unleashed it’s full potential, with rather devastating consequences.
Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sure, but think-structures matter. We could have a system that doesn’t reward psychopathic business choices (as much), while still improving our lives bit by bit. If the system helps a bit with making the right choices, that would matter a lot.
Katana314@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s deemed “acceptable”? A sociopath scamming an old lady’s pension is basically the “John Wick’s dog” moment that leads to the insane death-filled warpath in recent movie The Beekeeper.
This is the kind of edgelord take that routinely expects worse than the worst of society with no proof to their claims.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 8 months ago
This is the kind of shit I saw from the inside in Investment Banking before and after the 2008 Crash.
None of those assholes ever gets prison time for the various ways in which they abuse markets and even insider info for swindeling amongst other Pension Funds, so de facto the Society we have with the power structures it has, accepts it.
AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Exactly. Capitalism spits in the face of the concept of a social contract, especially if companies themselves didn’t write it.
WoodenBleachers@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Capitalism, at least, in a lassie-faire marketplace, operates on a social contract, fiat money is an example of this. The market decides, the people decide. Are there ways to amass a certain amount of money to make people turn blind eyes? For sure, but all systems have their ways to amass power, no matter what
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
I’d say that historical evidence directly contradicts your thesis. Were it factual, times of minimal regulation would be times of universal prosperity. Instead, they are the time of robber-barons, company scrip that must be spent in company stores, workers being massacred by hired thugs, and extremely disparate distribution of wealth.
No. Laissez-faire capitalism has only ever consistently benefitted the already wealthy and sociopaths happy to ignore social contact for their own benefit.
WoodenBleachers@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You said “a social contract”. Capitalism operates on one. “The social contract” as you presumably intend to use it here is different. Yes, capitalism allows those with money to generate money, but a disproportionate distribution of wealth is not violation of a social contract. I’m not arguing for deregulation, FAR from it, but the social contract is there. If a corporation is doing something too unpopular then people don’t work for them and they cease to exist.