Paraphrasing Pascal, I apologize for the length of my reply as I didn't have time for a shorter one...
While your reflections on human nature and desires are thought-provoking, it is important to highlight that this analysis does not directly relate to capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system that operates based on specific principles, and your points being made fail to address those foundational aspects.
You stated that "man is only allured by potential richness and driven by a desire to outdo rivals because of his lust for power." While it's true that some individuals may exhibit such traits, it is a vast oversimplification to apply these characteristics universally to all humans. Human motivations are complex and multifaceted, influenced by cultural, social, and individual factors. Capitalism, as an economic system, does not rely solely on individuals driven by a "lust for power." Instead, it operates on the principle of self-interest, where individuals pursue their own goals, which can lead to the overall benefit of society through competition and innovation.
Your argument discusses the illusory nature of power and how individuals are imprisoned in fear and unable to trust life. While these philosophical insights may hold merit in a broader context, they do not directly pertain to capitalism. Capitalism does not inherently imprison individuals in fear or restrict their ability to trust life. In fact, proponents of capitalism argue that it fosters individual freedom and empowers people to take control of their economic destinies.
The analogy of a child's happiness being dependent on the prospect of getting an ice cream also does not offer a relevant critique of capitalism. Capitalism does not promise happiness; rather, it provides an economic framework where individuals have the freedom to pursue their own desires and aspirations. The pursuit of material wealth, while a driving force for some, is not a universal characteristic of capitalist societies. Many individuals in capitalist systems also prioritize non-materialistic values, such as personal growth, community engagement, and creative expression.
The claim that capitalism "builds" individuals who live off others and are pitiful, petty, and empty is a sweeping generalization. Capitalism promotes competition, but it also fosters cooperation and trade, where mutually beneficial transactions occur. Moreover, individual behaviors and character traits cannot be solely attributed to the economic system in which they live; they are shaped by a myriad of social, cultural, and personal influences.
Your initial argument presents intriguing philosophical reflections on human nature and desires. However, it falls short in establishing any direct connection to capitalism. To have a meaningful discussion on capitalism, we need to analyze its core economic principles, market dynamics, and social implications, rather than relying on generalizations about human behavior and happiness.
Yeah, the fundamental problem here is an effort to assign moral meaning to an economic mechanism.
Capitalism is an optimizer and generally a good one. Leaving humanity out of it for a moment, it follows a pretty basic principle: things in greater demand generate larger profits and encourage the supply of more of those things. Because people have limited resources to apportion among their various needs and desires, they’re driven to show their true priorities when actual trade offs must be made.
Because profits (the capital in Capitalism) accumulate with firms and decision makers who have a track record of most effectively using resources to meet the needs of society, those firms and individuals are more empowered to make more good decisions in the future. Again, as an optimization toward finding the best ideas and methods and increasing their influence, not as a moralistic “reward”.
It's incredibly simple, but it works incredibly well. It’s completely decentralized and thus scales very well compared to a centralized planning approach where a small number of people are expected to represent the priorities of a large number of people and to anticipate all contingencies.
So placing a moral judgement on the mechanisms of Capitalism is as absurd as saying gradient decent methods are morally superior to stochastic methods of optimization.
That said, Capitalism misused can lead to suboptimal or perverse outcomes. Capitalism is limited in its domain of effective use and generally works best with guard rails in place. It isn't great in markets like healthcare because the information flow can't keep up with events (do you have time to do a Yelp search before choosing a hospital for whatever emergency you're dealing with) and there is essentially a singularity in priority. It's not great for the health insurance market because the market relies on balancing risks across time and society but individuals will focus on their individual risks. It's not great for education because it relies on cross generational transfers and while the older generation theoretically accumulated wealth based on merit, there's not reason to assume their children will show equal merit and thus deserve the best tools in education.
The provisioning of resources to the more effective firms presumes that past brilliance ensures future brilliance, which is not always true. So efforts should be taken to avoid monopolization of resources which is essentially the optimization to a local maxima by assuming one firm has all the answers forever after.
This points to another potential failure mode for Capitalism: money serves a dual role as both vote and resource. That's the underlying elegance of the system: people vote for their priorities with their resources and those resources are then used to best meet the priorities. The failure mode is what happens when too many people have too few resources to vote-- the example case is a fully automated society where our needs are met without labor. This is where redistribution of wealth gets discussed through means like a universal basic income-- so everyone retains some voting power in the economy.
Where Capitalism is clearly perfectly suited is consumer goods, such as smartphones. What better way to assess the needs, desires and whims of society's preference for a consumer good than to ask them to vote? You don't need to hold a poll or compare data sheets to decide where to allocate resources, because people are voting with their limited resources toward their priorities. And this is a place where maximizing profits is essential because if a company isn't doing the best it can to maximize its profits then there is a risk that the economy produces more of the wrong product because the right product has the wrong price.
So the moral judgement should be reserved for the society in which Capitalism exists: the priorities they choose to pursue and how they choose to mitigate the weak points of Capitalism. Capitalism itself is just an amoral algorithm.
Man is only allured by potential richness and driven by a desire to outdo rivals because of his lust for power. The illusory nature of power eludes him, and because he is deluded, he is imprisoned in fear and thus unable to trust life and to understand that true creativeness only thrives in freedom of fear.
That’s proven entirely false by the fact that science, technology, and mathematics have, overwhelmingly through history, been driven by two industries: agriculture and war. The fear of starvation and the fear of death at the hands of another.
By throwing a tantrum a child displays that it insists on getting an ice cream. When the mother promises that she will buy one, the child is happy. Is that happiness real? Of course not. The child is only happy because of a prospect. The happiness is dependent. Remove the prospect and the child will express temper again.
The happiness is real because there is sufficient trust between child and mother that the prospect is presumed certain. Undermining that trust undermines that happiness.
The allure of material richness and the drive to outdo rivals “builds” a man that lives of others, not with others. Hence he is pitiful, petty and empty, because inner growth towards living the richness of his true self is blocked.
Perhaps when we eventually evolve into creatures of pure light and energy, this utopic idea can come to be. But for now we're creatures of flesh and require resources to survive, thrive, and carry our thoughts and genes into the future. As long as that's true, people will be driven to succeed at each of those even if done at the expense of their neighbor.
It's simply not true though that Capitalism is built on these base behaviors. Capitalism directs resources to where they are most effectively used to achieve the market's priorities. If living with others and cooperating achieves that more effectively than living of others and going it alone then the strategy of cooperation will be more successful. Apple best succeeds by using Samsung components and their engineering teams cooperate on making that relationship work.
