This is excellent from Michael Shellenburger, even though most of it is paywalled. Michael is obviously a keen advocate of freemarket capitalism! It’s so good because it gets to the heart of the confusion which surrounds capitalism, where most people nowadays have been brainwashed into believing that it must necessarily be bad, because it invites greed. Yes, it does, but it doesn’t have to. Greed is intrinsic to human nature, it is not an intrinsic facet of capitalism. We are all capitalists, even the simple hunter-gatherer tribes roaming the Amazon. We seek to expand our assets in order not just to survive but to make life a little easier, for ourselves and our family. The hunter-gatherer tribes define their territories and their natural assets within that territory and they will work hard to protect them. We have our homes and gardens and possessions which we also protect and which we naturally strive to improve upon. Greed comes into the picture when modest improvement become an insatiable lust for acquisition and financial and territorial conquest at the expense of others who lack such unbridled acquisitive ambition.
Sorry but this is a whole old of nonsense the idea of there being different types of capitalism - some inherently good and some inherently bad.
Capitalism is capitalism and it is used to pursue a profit, it is neither inherently good or bad although we have and are still being brainwashed into thinking otherwise.
Thank you Jaime for highlighting this article and your additional comments about it. Real food for thought. It’s all so incredibly obvious when you come to think of it, but actually first needs setting out articulately.
You ~(or rather Shellenberger) forgot the point that it's those same "philanthropists" who dictated that ESG is actually a benefit! First, prove that reduction of carbon emissions is what this planet actually needs!!
I often feel that we're in the same state in human affairs as Aristotle was in physics. It's 'obvious' that the Earth stands still, the Sun goes round the Earth and being at rest is the natural state of motion. In the same way it's 'obvious' that 'doing good works' will give better outcomes. It took 2 millennia for Galileo and Newton to refute Aristotle. They discovered the 'unnatural nature' of the world - we can't base our understanding on mere appearances. What we need is a renaissance in thought about the human condition just as there was in our understanding of physics.
Sorry but this is a whole old of nonsense the idea of there being different types of capitalism - some inherently good and some inherently bad.
Capitalism is capitalism and it is used to pursue a profit, it is neither inherently good or bad although we have and are still being brainwashed into thinking otherwise.
Thank you Jaime for highlighting this article and your additional comments about it. Real food for thought. It’s all so incredibly obvious when you come to think of it, but actually first needs setting out articulately.
You ~(or rather Shellenberger) forgot the point that it's those same "philanthropists" who dictated that ESG is actually a benefit! First, prove that reduction of carbon emissions is what this planet actually needs!!
I often feel that we're in the same state in human affairs as Aristotle was in physics. It's 'obvious' that the Earth stands still, the Sun goes round the Earth and being at rest is the natural state of motion. In the same way it's 'obvious' that 'doing good works' will give better outcomes. It took 2 millennia for Galileo and Newton to refute Aristotle. They discovered the 'unnatural nature' of the world - we can't base our understanding on mere appearances. What we need is a renaissance in thought about the human condition just as there was in our understanding of physics.