• Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The idea of there being a form Capitalism which is not corrupt is about as ill-informed as the idea that there can be a World were everybody has the same as everybody else for ever and ever (i.e. the Utopia called Communism, which is not at all the same as the political bullshit out there called thus) and for the same reason: human Greed.

    For there to be Capitalism there have to be Laws (the bare minimum being Contract Law and Property Law, and if you want things like ownership of ideas then also Intellectual Property Laws, plus indirectly the whole edifice of Criminal Law to make sure that violence is not used to force some for the profit of others).

    Laws have to be made and ajusted as times change as well as appropriate punishments defined; there has to be Oversight to see if Laws are abidded by or not; there has to be Judgement of people’s actions with regards to those Laws; there has to be enforcement of the punishments for breaking the Law. Lets call the people who do all this Lawmakers and Law-enforcers.

    How can anybody expect that Lawmakers and Law-enforcers, at the very least when such things impact profit making, under Capitalism where “Greed is Good” and wealth is the most important measure of a man, to not serve their own personal greed first and foremost, which in such positions often means being corrupt?!

    Even if magically we started with squeaky clean Lawmakers and Law-enforcers, many people outside who are not squeaky clean and are looking to enrich themselves would be attracted to such positions were they can sell their control of the powers of law-making and law-enforcement to the highest bidder so you would always end up with corruption in Politics and the Judiciary as the crooked replaced the honest.

    It’s frankly hilarious to expect that in Capitalism everybody would be looking out for numero uno except for those responsible for making and enforcing the framework of Laws that is the only difference between Capitalism and Anarchy, with those people expected put first and foremost the interests of Society above their own (in other words, be Socialists).

    In summary: Capitalism naturally breeds corruption because maintaining and applying the very framework of rules that supports Capitalism without becoming corrupt would require in the right places a special group of impeccably honest people not influenced by the very Capitalist Spirit that pervades the rest of Society, along with a system making sure any replacement for those people are also of the same kind, all of which is impossible.