Oddbean new post about login | logout @022a7c10 Interesting thread. I don't know of any ethics that ever applied to capitalism. Ethics is irrelevant, and contrary, to the aim of capitalism which is to make the maximum profit for the owner. The rule closest to an ethical standard in business is "caveat emptor" or "buyer beware."
@9da99456 @Jonathan D. Cope, Esq. I think for several decades most first world countries (even including the US though less so) have operated as social democracies whereby they are fundamentally capitalist but have recognised at least some need for major public involvement in core parts of society and in providing a safety net. But now what we're seeing is a move towards a sort of pseudo-libertarian capitalism where that is being taken away, with what is left being only for the very rich. I'm not on the libertarian right but true right libertarianism ought not to protect the elite either.
@297ea08f @022a7c10 I think that's a fair statement. Two economists have stirred the American pot, Milton Friedman and James Buchanan. In 1970, Friedman said that the sole purpose of a business was to make money for it's owners. Shareholders have since taken that concept to heart. James Buchanan has espoused a libertarian theme, buttressed by old Southern philosophy; no money spent on the poor, especially the Blacks, no taxes except for defense.