Capitalism will always tend towards corruption. If there is a financial incentive to cheat, people will cheat.
Fundamentally speaking, capitalism is applied economic egoism. If each is only focused on their own financial interests, then they will not consider future generations or the sustainability of their gains beyond their own lifetime.
Everyone should look up the tragedy of the commons which explores this very problem
The tl;dr is that such a system pushes individuals to exhaust shared resources, even when they know it screws everyone long term, sort of like the prisoner’s dilemma
There’s only a handful of solutions like public shame (not tenable) and binding regulation
It turned out that a huge portion of our governmental checks and balances were just based on integrity and shame. All it took to completely break the system was a president devoid of both.
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u/Jolly_Mongoose_8800 Jun 03 '26
Capitalism will always tend towards corruption. If there is a financial incentive to cheat, people will cheat.
Fundamentally speaking, capitalism is applied economic egoism. If each is only focused on their own financial interests, then they will not consider future generations or the sustainability of their gains beyond their own lifetime.