Capitalism optimizes for profit. Sometimes that has good side-effects like making things available more cheaply or by finding efficiencies in a supply chain. It also means exploiting labor as much as possible and cutting corners as much as possible.
When profit is at odds with any other consideration, the only consideration is profit. This is why fines are just a cost to be paid and companies violate laws they can afford to get away with.
Where do people get the idea that what’s profitable is always what’s good, or that everything should be profitable? At this rate we’ll lose our libraries and free passage on roads because nobody questions this.
Capitalism only cares about profit, all other side effects, good or bad, are an accident.
orcrist@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Both profit and power are the objective, and stable profit is better than unstable profit. That’s why your average capitalist doesn’t want to be a capitalist. They want to be a monopolist, or they want to control the regulators so that they don’t have to compete.