Even if greed was human nature we still shouldn’t shape society to reward it
Yup. I think the ideas that people are wired to selfishness and competition, and/or paradoxically, are solely motivated by material gains and profit, is complete bullshit. I don’t think you can tell any reliable story about “human nature”, when >80% of social science research comes from neoliberal states and their institutions in the last 40 years…
The original “game theory” social experiments in the 20th century had to be repeated over and over again until the ghouls running them got the results they wanted.
That’s my primary counterpoint: even if people being greedy assholes is “human nature” then why should the greediest assholes be rewarded the most for that?
Anything that varies significantly from society to society is not fundamental human nature.
It incentivizes me to dump toxic waste into the nearest body of water because that saves money. Another success story
It incentivizes me to poop at work often and that seems like a good thing, right?
Join the One Big Doodoo Ass! Workers Unite!
Marx described the phenomenon of “commodity fetishism”: through many small separate acts of exchange, we command each other to behave in very specific ways, while disclaiming this same power and attributing its commands to blind necessity. Commodities are inert objects, and humans are rational beings, but society operates as if humans were helpless against the pressures exerted by the market. Market domination even finds lucid expression in natural-sounding phrases like “if I don’t sell out to Facebook, they’ll just copy my features, so may as well do it myself” and “if I paid you more, I’d have to pay everyone more, and then we’d lose to the competition and all be out of a job.”
There is nothing wrong with denouncing American plutocrats like Bezos and Gates for greed, but we cannot stop there: we must understand that the system of exploitation is not held together by any individual’s vices. As Lenin put it, “The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits.” [10] If one of them had a major change of heart and stopped pursuing ruthless accumulation, they would quickly be ousted by stockholders for endangering their investment. In the unlikely event that their stockholders were cooperative, a competitor would swoop in and relieve them of their commanding market share. This is not apologia for Bezos, but we need to understand that there is a talent to being a capitalist exploiter, or else we will underestimate our enemy. The market selects for profitability, and it selects well — it just doesn’t select for environmental responsibility or decency or who can bring the most benefits to the greatest number. From Marx, to Lenin, to Deng, we can observe a baseline level of respect for the enemy: “Management is also a technique.” [11]
On my view, the core Marxist insight is the following: Feudal lords were the masters of feudalism. Capitalists, however, aren’t the masters of capitalism. They are merely the high priests of capitalism. The master of capitalism is Capital itself.
i mean the incentives are predicated on a state of widespread deprivation, so yeah, the crack of the master’s whip sure is a strong incentive!
