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Comment by pretoriusB | Hacker News Reader

>Those things go hand in hand. Ideally, you can't make money without improving human life in exchange.

That's ideology. Specifically, an Adam Smith style ideology.

You can very well make money without improving human life in exchange.

Heck, you make tons of money without improving human life. Like being an arms dealer. Or an African warlord. Or a crack dealer. Or a huge money seeking corporation selling sugar water. Or the very same way Belgium made tons of money for a small elite by royally fucking over tens of millions of people in Africa.

The reverse is also true: "you can improve the human life without making any money". The same way Ghandi or MLK improved human life without selling anything or being involved in any commercial enterprise.

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Well, our best understanding of what generates wealth is that it comes from trade. Trade involves two parties exchanging resources for their mutual benefit. Adam Smith was one of the first to write about this, and yes, he thought that trade and wealth for all was a good thing.

> You can very well make money without improving human life in exchange

Notice that I said "ideally," and that all the counter-examples you give are illegal. As I said before, a certain amount of corruption (and evil-doing) is inevitable. (The Belgians wouldn't be able to get away with that today. In fact, that's more evidence that we're in a golden age—that kind of behaviour isn't acceptable even from sovereign nations.)

I'm not trying to argue the Greed-is-good-Gordon-Gecko philosophy of screwing over everyone in order to enrich yourself. By all means, help your fellow man. But don't be so down on commerce. There's a big, important difference between piracy and trade, though both are driven by the desire to improve one's own lot. Trade is beneficial to both parties, and it's the reason that billions of people live a life of luxury that was unimaginable 10,000 years ago.

> There's a big, important difference between piracy and trade

Not really. What the British called "free trade" seemed pretty much like piracy to the Egyptians, the Indians and the Chinese they imposed it on.

And lest you think trade has become more civilized since the nineteenth century: I'm sure farmers in Jamaica are none too fond of having their livelyhood destroyed because their country imports cheap European dairy in the name of free trade. Which is just one example out of many.

Heck, even free trade loving Americans complain about their country getting swamped with cheap Chinese products.

As with most things, it's complicated.

"The Belgians wouldn't be able to get away with that today."

You're right. Today, it's probably only the U.S. that can get away with such behavior.

Nice try, but no. In fact at the time even the Belgians couldn't get away with what they did. When word came out about what the Belgians were doing in the Congo it caused an uproar throughout Western Europe and it stopped.

You are not the arbiter of other people's values. People drink coke because they enjoy it. Keep your moral outrage reasonable please.

> Or a huge money seeking corporation selling sugar water.

If you remove the word 'sugar' from this sentence, it will still be true and also the problem of value arbitrage will be mostly gone. Bottled water is a worldwide scam.

Last time I bought bottled water I'm pretty sure I got water inside of a bottle, and that was exactly what I wanted. It's convenience, and that absolutely is beneficial.

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