Hi, I just poisoned you. Would you like to buy a possible cure? It’s very expensive and probably won’t work, but trust me, its the only way!
Hi, I just poisoned you. Would you like to buy a possible cure? It’s very expensive and probably won’t work, but trust me, its the only way!
Without externalities there can be no profit.
The idea that humanity created a non-zero sum system is pure hubris.
The thing is some externalities are acceptable and how that is to be determined is via the democratic process and for that to work the means of production need to be owned by the working class, not by an isolated, cushioned capitalist class that are isolated from the consequences of i.e. climate change.
We can absolutely create value for our species from natural resources, to imply that something like vaccine research powered by nuclear energy is a zero-sum exchange from elsewhere is deeply absurd and reeks of rightoid socio and bio essentialism (“x people are just y and you cant change that”)
Why do vaccines need to be made by private companies for private profit at all? Why not publically funded research at universities and agencies that charge reasonably for use, where that capital is either turned into more public research or other commons? Other than the fact that we starved public research almost to death to cut private industry for private profit’s taxes.
Also private industry does NOT belong in basic utilities everyone needs AT ALL.
There should not be a single power plant or utility that’s for private investor profit. It’s too important to have any allegiance other than serving the citizenry full stop. There should be no private investor in a position to advocate sticking it to captive customers (or our sole shared communal habitat), who need any common utility like elec-fucking-tricity, to increase their quarterly private profit expectations. But here we are.
The first lie that capitalists sold was that capitalism rewards innovation. It doesn’t, at all. It rewards exploitation. Innovation is occasionally a by-product, but only as another avenue for exploitation. Human beings are naturally creative and will innovate out of boredom or laziness. Competition does not produce creators, it produces predators.
It’s genuinely absurd how companies like Uber get away with positioning themselves as tech companies to investors when they’re really just a booking agency in an app that undercuts the competition through exploitation of labour by using the freelancer/contractor loophole.
Yup. I agree with you a 100%. Value for our species is not private profit and is often at odds with it. Public ownership regardless of centralisation criteria is the way.
This reality hurts, but let me.just say it hurts so fucking much more that people will read this exchange and think “hahahah no. I enjoy being fucked.”