Everything Looks Like a Nail: Capitalism’s Focus on Profit
In American culture, often entrepreneurship and capitalism are valued above the well being of people. Note that this is coming from a 4-year-and-counting small business owner, so I’m not unfamiliar with the plight of businesses. I also love entrepreneurship and creativity, so I encourage and try to help others become small business owners themselves.
As a child, I was taught to value the emotional, mental, and physical safety of those around me, both people I knew and cared about, and strangers. When I was 8 years old, I remember my mom buying a hot dog, fries, and a milkshake for someone who we had seen sifting through a garbage can looking for food. She bought it anonymously because she didn’t want the person to feel obligated to give us something in return, she just cared about their hunger.
Imagine a company or large corporation “giving back.” Without a tax break or marketing campaign to go alongside their donation, it would be seen as a loss, a bad move. It would likely anger stakeholders and cause a loss in profit for the company.
A big problem with capitalism is that if an action or product can turn a profit, it’s seen as a positive move for the business, usually regardless of the impact it might have on people other than stakeholders and CEOs.
Q: Can this coal and natural gas provide profit for the company, leading to increased earning for the CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: yes
Con: Human-caused climate change (not up for debate, is as widely accepted as fact by the scientific community as gravity) will cause a rise of about 45 degrees F in the next 80 years if we don’t stop using it. Causing death, famine, increased severity and frequency in natural disasters and storms. The mining, sales, and use of this product is irreparably ruining the earth for anyone who will live past the next 30 years.
A: Profit!
Q: Can one-time-use plastics provide profit for the company, leading to increased earning for the CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: Cheap and easy to produce. Cheap to consumers so more will sell. One-time-use products can only be used once, so each time the consumer needs this product they will have to buy a new one!
Con: Plastics are all created from petroleum (fossil fuel) byproducts. They further worsen the climate crisis. Additionally, one-time-use plastics cause huge amounts of waste, which is toxic to plant and animal life, including humans.
A: Profit!
Q: If we outsource our labor where labor laws allow us to pay pennies an hour to employees, rather than a living wage, can we increase profit for our company, increasing the wealth of our CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: By outsourcing labor to take advantage of lax labor laws that leave employees underpaid and abused, we can increase profit but thousands of times. This will impress stakeholders and make our business grow unimaginably in a short time!
Con: A worldwide humanitarian crisis, causing workplace injury, starvation, poverty, and income inequality, despite these people putting in a harder and longer than average work day, 7 days a week.
A: Profit!
Small business can make their own choice to cut profit, in order to protect and take care of their employees and the general public (strangers). I do it with my business, which is why my company will never grow to the size of having stakeholders and stocks. My mom’s company does it. Many local businesses do it. But once a company becomes so large that it becomes beholden to stakeholders and a CEO whose sole job is to increase profit for those stakeholders, that company becomes a capitalist hammer. Any question, no matter how harmful the consequences, will always be a yes if the answer is profit. That’s not the outlier, it’s the rule of capitalism. Read about it if you don’t believe me.
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.” -Wikipedia
With the crises we face today - climate change, epidemic world hunger, worldwide poverty, the destruction of ecosystems that our planet depends on - we can’t afford to have unregulated capitalism where profit is the only goal. Can ultra wealthy corporations and individuals give back? Yes. Is that enough to turn around the dire trajectory of our planet in time to avert catastrophe? No, not if the other corporations and large companies continue to operate with profit as their only goal. We cannot wait for or trust that these companies will self-regulate, lowering their own net worth. In a capitalist system, that’s suicide unless every corporation has to play by the same rules: regulations.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, and business are one thing. Capitalism is another.
If we are to approach the big issues facing our world today, it’s important to distinguish between these things. Entrepreneurship, business, creativity, and innovation may help to save our planet. Capitalism’s focus on profit is why we have many of these crises to begin with.
If the question is capitalism, the answer is profit. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
As a child, I was taught to value the emotional, mental, and physical safety of those around me, both people I knew and cared about, and strangers. When I was 8 years old, I remember my mom buying a hot dog, fries, and a milkshake for someone who we had seen sifting through a garbage can looking for food. She bought it anonymously because she didn’t want the person to feel obligated to give us something in return, she just cared about their hunger.
Imagine a company or large corporation “giving back.” Without a tax break or marketing campaign to go alongside their donation, it would be seen as a loss, a bad move. It would likely anger stakeholders and cause a loss in profit for the company.
A big problem with capitalism is that if an action or product can turn a profit, it’s seen as a positive move for the business, usually regardless of the impact it might have on people other than stakeholders and CEOs.
Q: Can this coal and natural gas provide profit for the company, leading to increased earning for the CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: yes
Con: Human-caused climate change (not up for debate, is as widely accepted as fact by the scientific community as gravity) will cause a rise of about 45 degrees F in the next 80 years if we don’t stop using it. Causing death, famine, increased severity and frequency in natural disasters and storms. The mining, sales, and use of this product is irreparably ruining the earth for anyone who will live past the next 30 years.
A: Profit!
Q: Can one-time-use plastics provide profit for the company, leading to increased earning for the CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: Cheap and easy to produce. Cheap to consumers so more will sell. One-time-use products can only be used once, so each time the consumer needs this product they will have to buy a new one!
Con: Plastics are all created from petroleum (fossil fuel) byproducts. They further worsen the climate crisis. Additionally, one-time-use plastics cause huge amounts of waste, which is toxic to plant and animal life, including humans.
A: Profit!
Q: If we outsource our labor where labor laws allow us to pay pennies an hour to employees, rather than a living wage, can we increase profit for our company, increasing the wealth of our CEO and stakeholders?
Pro: By outsourcing labor to take advantage of lax labor laws that leave employees underpaid and abused, we can increase profit but thousands of times. This will impress stakeholders and make our business grow unimaginably in a short time!
Con: A worldwide humanitarian crisis, causing workplace injury, starvation, poverty, and income inequality, despite these people putting in a harder and longer than average work day, 7 days a week.
A: Profit!
Small business can make their own choice to cut profit, in order to protect and take care of their employees and the general public (strangers). I do it with my business, which is why my company will never grow to the size of having stakeholders and stocks. My mom’s company does it. Many local businesses do it. But once a company becomes so large that it becomes beholden to stakeholders and a CEO whose sole job is to increase profit for those stakeholders, that company becomes a capitalist hammer. Any question, no matter how harmful the consequences, will always be a yes if the answer is profit. That’s not the outlier, it’s the rule of capitalism. Read about it if you don’t believe me.
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.” -Wikipedia
With the crises we face today - climate change, epidemic world hunger, worldwide poverty, the destruction of ecosystems that our planet depends on - we can’t afford to have unregulated capitalism where profit is the only goal. Can ultra wealthy corporations and individuals give back? Yes. Is that enough to turn around the dire trajectory of our planet in time to avert catastrophe? No, not if the other corporations and large companies continue to operate with profit as their only goal. We cannot wait for or trust that these companies will self-regulate, lowering their own net worth. In a capitalist system, that’s suicide unless every corporation has to play by the same rules: regulations.
Entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, and business are one thing. Capitalism is another.
If we are to approach the big issues facing our world today, it’s important to distinguish between these things. Entrepreneurship, business, creativity, and innovation may help to save our planet. Capitalism’s focus on profit is why we have many of these crises to begin with.
If the question is capitalism, the answer is profit. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.