this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2025
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Money is power when the lack of it is death and/or suffering. If someone wants to work a little more or does something particularly awesome then ok, they get a cooler thing, but when you take care of everyone’s basic needs and you properly enforce taxation then everything on top is just a little bonus and not a runaway train to tyrrany. Money is not the core of that system but it can still exist.
I was thinking about this conversation earlier while watching a video about vaccines and was reminded also that the profit motive, for many companies in that sphere, actually prevents them from releasing technologies that could help people long term because they make more money off of costly, short term solutions. Life saving medicine is worthless to these people of they can’t charge a premium for it and but you better believe they’ll lock down that patent so no one else can get to it, just in case.
See, that’s the thing about putting money first, it doesn’t matter how you get it. Sometimes you gotta innovate, but these companies are chasing easy money, not honest money. I mean look at stock market traders and you’ll see an army of criminals and thieves. The very concept of private health insurance is making gobs of money off of people you never plan on actually helping in their time of greatest need. Large corporations will spend untold millions on propaganda and hush money schemes before they’ll actually make improvements. 3M knew the dangers of PFAS and still dumped it into the environment and hurt a lot of people. GM did the math and found that recalls for a faulty ignition would be more expensive than paying out any settlements if someone died so they just let it ride because the lives of their customers are less important than lining their pockets.
I need you to work on imagining a better world. It’s not that far away but we’ll never reach it if we don’t even try.
I think you take my defense of the usefulness of the profit motive, and the wonderful things it's gotten us, as a declaration that it is the best external motivator and should be used in all situations. Of course not.
Your first paragraph is simply not true in the sense that even if everyone's basic needs were met (and we should create a society where they are) money would still be the main source of power outside violence. Most people are not satisfied by basic necessities, especially when given examples that better is possible.
Your second paragraph is an excellent example of the limitations of the profit motive, and it's why we should continue to fund public research and development in areas where the profit motive fails. We already do it and in fact we should significantly increase our funding levels. There are other areas where the profit motive fails (utilities, healthcare at the point of delivery, national defense, education, etc.) and I think we (the United States) should expand into internet and universal health insurance.
For your third paragraph.... What do you want? For humans to be better? They will nearly always go with the easy solution. It's weirdos who look at difficult problems and take the honest, long term, responsible solution at the expense of themselves or even just short-term pain. This is fine. You're not going to change human nature. I just don't know what kind of system you want to set up where money still exists, yet greedy short-sighted people don't exist or work their ways into leadership positions at companies? I think the current punishments they receive for their bad behavior isn't nearly harsh or immediate enough, but.... They're still gonna do it.
I have lots of improvements I want to make to the world, they just don't involve denying human nature when you keep the fundamental structure of the system they exist in.