Ahang wrote:
>>If the 20th century has proven one thing, it is that the free markets
and capitalist system are the most efficient and most conducive to
societal progress. It's the only system that works. Competition is
good.<<
and capitalist system are the most efficient and most conducive to
societal progress. It's the only system that works. Competition is
good.<<
and Mark responded:
>Should competition be the ethical substructure of an economic system?
>Should competition be the ethical substructure of an economic system?
First, allow me to define my use of the word "capitalism":
By this, I mean simply an economic/political system in which
People who run businesses own the means of production,
and employ workers who trade their labor in return for a wage
or salary.
A small restaurant where the owner provides the building
and cooking equipment, and pays a staff of waiters and waitresses,
is capitalism on a small scale. This restaurant must compete
with other restaurants in the area; if it doesn't compete, by
giving customners excellent food and great service, then
eventually the restaurant will go out of business; it will lose
customers to those restaurants that do compete. If that
happens, those cooks and waiters will lose their jobs.
Competition provides job stability for the employees, and
good food and service for the customers.
While I agree that capitalism on a grand scale has done harm,
it has also done good. For example, there are many people alive
and vigorous today who would have died without the medications
developed by large pharmaceutical firms.
In The Secret of Divine Civilization, Abdu'l Baha makes the observation:
" Self love is kneaded into the very clay of man." It seems
to me that any system which ignores or tries to suppress individual
self-interest, is guaranteed to fail. Granted, self-interest,
like anything else, can be taken to harmful extremes. But
no method of regulating econimic life will work unless it is
realistic about individuals acting out of self interest.
Tim Nolan
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