During the trial it was revealed that McDonald’s knew that heating their coffee to this temperature would be dangerous, but they did it anyways because it would save them money. When you serve coffee that is too hot to drink, it will take much longer for a person to drink their coffee, which means that McDonald’s will not have to give out as many free refills of coffee. This policy by the fast food chain is the reason the jury awarded $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages in the McDonald’s hot coffee case. Punitive damages are meant to punish the defendant for their inappropriate business practice.
A lot of people around here say “capitalism” when they mean something more like “the Kali Yūga”, “this fallen world, this vale of tears”, “the age in which the Tao is lost”, or “this age of muck and clay, in which we are lesser than our fathers of iron, who were lesser than their grandfathers of silver, who were lesser still than the ancients of gold.”
The folks who speak this way, if you asked them, “Was there any wrongdoing in the world before the first stock certificate was issued?”, would say “Of course there was!”
If you asked them, “Did pre-capitalist kings or judges ever favor the unjust over the just because the unjust gave them riches?”, they would say “Yes, they did!”
If you asked them, “In ancient times, were there rich and well-fed tribes, and poor and starveling tribes, and did the richer tribes lord over the poorer ones?”, they would say “Certainly.”
Which all goes to show, at some level they do know they’re not really talking about “capitalism” in the economic or historical sense. They’re not talking about an economic structure or a stage of Marxist history. They’re taking about wickedness, graft, injustice, abuse of power – things which are much, much older than capitalism.
They’re merely using their favorite snarl word instead of just saying “evil”.
And why do we blame capitalism instead of generic “evil”?
Because capitalism is the system that actively promotes it and is in every facet of our lives.
It’s greed not evil.
Murdering a baby is evil, letting millions starve to death is business.
Okay, maybe you really do think kings and warlords were more virtuous than shareholders or CEOs. Alas, it was not that way. They were buttholes too. Buttholery is not controlled by the economic system of the day.
You seem to think that I wouldn’t also reject authoritarianism?
There is no system of governance or economy among humans that you wouldn’t reject, if you reject every one in which wrongdoing takes place or people enrich themselves unjustly.
That’s my point. “I reject capitalism because people can benefit themselves by doing injustice within it” is dopey, because that predicate is not unique to capitalism; in fact it’s universal. In every system of the world, people can benefit themselves by doing injustice within that system.
Therefore, the person who reasons this way would reject any conditions under which they might find themselves living.
Whatever “reject” means here, I’m not entirely sure.
No, we oppose capitalism because it inherently ENCOURAGES people to benefit themselves by doing injustice. That’s a crucial difference.
It’s equally true that people can be violently bigoted against religious, racial and sexual minorities in every system, but only a few actively ENCOURAGE them to.
Regulation is still useful. You’re basically arguing for anarchy with your naive take. When a system advances the idea to exploit people, the system is fundamentally flawed. Will all systems have abuse? Sure. But that doesn’t mean “you will dislike all systems, so it’s irrelevant if one is better or worse.”
And what makes capitalism superior to any other form of resource distribution that humanity has tried so far is not that it does or doesn’t allow greed, but it lets the greedy use their greed in a way that has at least the potential to benefit the many. And by having a legal avenue for greed to be used, capitalism forces greed to the surface and makes it legal for everyone to discuss.
Oh yeah, we’re all feeling that trickle down any day now.
You are missing the point. EU countries also have capitalism and they are far better off. It’s not capitalism that sets taxation laws or anti-trust laws, those are what has failed in the US. In the EU, while not perfect, those types of laws are more rigorous and in turn those countries suffer less from corruption and injustice.
Not everyone is American.
Also capitalism is still ticking up the EU, there’s a reason they have to constantly fight against it just to ensure the most basic of freedoms for its citizens.
Did you just “but maybe” somebody about their own beliefs?
Capitalism opens an avenue for greed to be used for the benefit of the many, whereas any other form of resource distribution has no place for greed and as such no place for the greedy. At that point it becomes the same kind of discussion as the prohibition discussion. Do you ban it or do you allow and regulate it. Banning greed won’t make it go away, it will only force it into hiding and to undermine the current system. Capitalism forces greed to the surface, at which point people can have a discussion about how much greed should be permitted.
Wow, that’s some impressive horse shit! The very nature of greed means that it will always benefit the few over the many and the nature of capitalism is that greed is elevated to a virtue, inevitably hurting the many to serve the few rich and powerful.
First of all, that’s false. Pretty much every centrist and right wing structure of government centers the individual and thus caters to the greed of the individual over the needs of the many.
Besides, if that was true, that would be a good thing! Being greedy isn’t some inescapable natural urge that must be satisfied or you explode. Making space for the most base parts of human nature isn’t good with cruelty, deceitfulness or (except in the ordered and consensual context of sports and even that is a bit iffy in many cases) violent tendencies, so why do you want to nurture and protect greed?
Sure, but just like the other vices I just mentioned, discouraging it and making it disadvantageous to act in a greedy manner will suppress and lessen its impact on society.
Yeah, that’s the same thing people said about right wing extremists when Trump emboldened them and look how that turned out…
Bottom line is that capitalism directly encourages greed and in doing so indirectly encourages cruel indifference towards the lives, health and happiness of anyone who stand in the way of greedy people and corporations. This lawsuit is 100% a symptom of how capitalism hurts people.
Under capitalism, a greedy person can sate their greed by offering up something many people are willing to pay for. Elon Musk is a shit human being, but his companies revolutionized the EV market, the commercial rocket launch provider market and Star Link now allows for internet access anywhere. Capitalism has turned his greed, at least in part, into a benefit many can profit from. Similarly, with Elon now tanking Twitter, BluSky, Threads and Mastodon can compete for users that have stopped using Twitter.
I was talking about systems of resource distribution, the government concerns itself with the judicial system.
Just like the prohibition lessened the impact of alcohol on society? Just like the war against drugs lessened the impact of drugs on society? Just like, as evangelicals would claim it, banning contraception and abortions lessens, in their eyes, the negative impact on society. Historically, the greedy have been, through corruption and the like, just as damaging to society as they have been now.
With a bunch of them in jail and with Trump weakening the republican party for years?
Capitalism isn’t to blame for the suffering of the ones standing in the way of the big players, western european nations show that quite clearly. While not perfect, they have much stronger protections for the powerless against the powerful, yet they also employ capitalism. This lawsuit is a failure of the judicial system, it wouldn’t have happened in a country with stronger laws against abuse.
Just stop at your first sentance, no it doesn’t.
But capitalism specifically favors the greedy and individualistic. It’s no surprise that if you base your society on capitalism, people will get more greedy.
On top of that, capitalism enables some uniquely capitalistic evils, such as commodity fetishism and alienation.
Also, some consider capitalism inherently unjust, making it an evil in its own right.
Ok, and we still create laws to combat it. I don’t think “evil always existed, so let’s not have the FDA because it’s not that we’re protecting citizens from bad food, but simply from evil.”
This is such a weird “I’m 14 and this is deep” take.
Of course it needs laws to curtail the worst of the impacts capitalism has. Capitalism is a system that distributes a finite amount of resources between demand that outstrips supply. It doesn’t concern itself dishonest actors, that is what the judicial system is for. McDonalds was such a dishonest actor and that they got away with it is a failure of the judicial system.
You’re confusing actual institutions with its philosophy.
Capitalism is also not the only system to distribute resources. Capitalism isn’t concerned with anything as it’s not an actual living thing. But to pretend that it doesn’t incentivize ruthlessness or greed is simply untrue.