This is not anti-capitalist, I am not a socialist. In fact capitalism supports what I am saying here. Making money is not a bad thing, making a profit is not a bad thing, but profit as a motivation is socially and economically destructive.
A business sells a product, it makes a profit off the sells. It could do so much with that profit, it could lower its prices, raise its wages, make better products, or save it for when the market for the product drops. This is not how corporate culture thinks of profit though, they see it as an end. Corporate culture looks to maximize profit, that means paying employs as little as they can get away with and charging as much as they can get away with. Where does all this money go? Executive salaries and bonuses1, and shareholders2.
This is killing the economy. Capitalism runs on the movement of money; an author buys a candy bar for a dollar, the company uses that dollar to pay the clerk, the clerk uses that dollar to buy school cloths for her kids, that store uses that money to pay an accountant, the accountant uses that dollar to pay his mortgage, the bank gives that dollar out in a home improvement loan, the couple uses it to pay a plumber, the plumber uses it to buy pipes, the store he pays it to the trucker, the trucker buys a book, the publisher pays it to the author.
For a capitalist economy more money in the hands of more people is better. Give a family of four a million dollars and ten families of four a hundred thousand each, the ten families would spend their million faster then the one. They spend it fast because its ten homes, ten power bills, cell phone plans, internet bills, ten times as many clothes, food, and electronics. The problem is money in our economy is not distributed even close to an ideal way.
Of the population over 15-years-old, approximately 88% make less then $100,000 a year, 56% make less then $50,000, 33% make less then $25,000, and 17% or less make less then $12,5003. But if you look at the list of the top payed CEO’s you see that, that the 88% makes only a fraction of what the wealthiest people in this country make.
For an economy based on the transfer of money from person to business to person to person to business to business to person the pooling of that money in the hands of a few is destructive. It harms the business in that economy and harms the people in that economy.
News media today are almost all for profit. In order to maximize profit the news will limit their stories to the ones that will get them ratings and views even if those stories are not accurate, or important. You see thing with Fox News and MSNBC who cater to opposite wings of the political spectrum. This is socially dangerous, this creates echo chambers where the same ideas are repeated regardless if they are good or bad, accurate or false. The people in these echo chambers don’t have an accurate understanding of what is going on in the world or how people think. This ultimately leads to the demonetization of the other side and division in society.
Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and advertisers like Facebook and Google are worse then the news in the issue of echo chambers. By catering content and ads to the individual it locks out any information that contradicts the individuals beliefs far more effectively then Fox News or MSNBC ever could. This cutting people off from reality not only divides people it radicalizes them. The echo chambers created by social media and advertisers were causal in the rise of qanon and the capital riots.
It is cheaper to pollute, for the most part environmentally friendly systems are more costly then polluting systems. This is why companies fight regulations designed to protect the environment and why they continue to pollute as much as they do when they could pollute far less. This applies to safety as well, safety costs more money. It is cheaper to let people get hurt and replace them, this is why we have OSHA. It is also why we have the FDA to ensure the food and drugs you eat/take are safe and are whet they say they are. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (available for free online) is based on the conditions in the food factories on the late 1800’s, these conditions were confirmed by others. Ultimately the book and the conditions in the factories lead to the creation of the FDA.
The central problem is this: profit is equated with success so the more profitable companies are considered the more successful companies. Profit should not be the measurement of success but seen as a means to an end. It is the products they produce, how they help people and society, and what they do for the world that should be the measurement of success. An oil company that unleashed thousand of gallons of oil into the oceans should be considered a failure while a company that brings joy to people or creates products that help the world should be considered success even if they don’t make as much money.
Sources:
1. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-2018/
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/02/25/race-shareholder-profits-has-left-workers-dust-according-new-research/
3. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/cps-pinc/pinc-01.html
C.L. Who Writes 
Leave a comment