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Comment by njharman | Hacker News Reader

Sure, whatever. It doesn't matter what "Capitalism" is. Evolution has made human-nature greedy. And all these systems (capitalism, consumerism, socialism, communism, anarchy, have one overriding commonality; they're implementors, regulators, and constituent parts are all human. Whom, in the aggregate, follow human-nature (by definition).

No matter what system you think we have (or should), what system they tell us we have, or what system people actually try to enact, human-nature morphs it towards greed.

And if you're irrationally alienated by the word "greed", feel free to replace it with the comfortable alternatives we've rationalized; "saving money", "efficiency", "winning", "being successful". They and others are all rooted in "getting the most for me" aka greed.

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Instincts are all well and good. The problems arise when they get out of control: whether it's the instinct for food, the instinct for sex, the instinct for more, the instinct for curiosity. When you are in control of your instincts, things work. When your instincts run you, you're headed for trouble.

Greed, under control, can be valuable. Greed uber alles, leads to parasites like Romney getting filthily richer by doing things like bankrupting KP Toys.

> parasites like Romney getting filthily richer by doing things like bankrupting KP Toys.

If you're a major league batter, sometimes you strike out, but at the end of the day you still get paid.

If you're a Senator, sometimes your bill gets defeated because your party simply doesn't have the votes, but at the end of the day you still get credit for fighting for it.

Beating up on Romney for not being able to bat 1000 as a consultant has always seemed a little harsh to me. Sometimes in life, you're simply dealt a losing hand, and nothing you can do will lead to the outcome you wish for. Without knowing more details of the circumstances, I'm willing to give Romney the benefit of the doubt on this one.

I'm not beating up on him for not batting 1000, I'm beating up on him for being a looter. KP was a solid, profitable company. Bain bought it, saddled it with debt (shame on the bankters, too), paid themselves massive management fees and "dividend". They made lots of "profit" from this exercise, but left a lot of people much worse off.

I have no problem whatsoever with people making a lot of money.

Appeals to some evolution-determined human nature fall flat for me. The greatest thing evolution endowed humans with is conscious reasoning that can overcome our cognitive instincts. You will see even great humans revert to their instincts when situations are dire, but the project of civilization is to eliminate those situations.

Trying to frame _every_ human goal as a form of greed/self-interest/winning is tautological. There are substantial differences in the way humans experience altruistic, compassionate self-interest and individualistic, combative self-interest.

Certainly we can experience varied social arraignments emphasizing different negotiations between every individual's self-interest. When one's argument considers the vast history of human societies and reduces them to all to self-interest enablers, is it saying anything at all?

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