Capitalism

1
Capitalism

• Political and economic system
• Ownership of means of production in private hands
• Individual or companies
• Goods and services exchanged via market economy
• Persons assumed to be primarily
• Self-interested and acquisitive

2
Other Political/Economic Systems

• Socialism
• State ownership of means of production in state
  hands.
• Worker workers own the means of production.
• State capitalism
• State owns some or all of the means of
  production.
• State influences production and distribution,
  e.g. state investment.

3
Arguments for Capitalism

• Defended in terms of
• Efficiency better able to satisfy human needs
  and desires than other systems.
• Rights
• Liberty to do what I want as long as I dont
  harm others.
• Property to own things that I create with my
  labor or fairly exchange with others.

4
Core Values

• Liberty
• Right to property
• Trust
• Honesty
• Informed consent

5
Adam Smith

• Core values
• (upon) the duties of justice, of truth, of
  chastity, of fidelitydepends the very existence
  of human society, which would crumble into
  nothing if mankind were not generally impressed
  with a reverence for those important rules of
  conduct

6
Moral Constraints Adam Smith

• Concern for others
• The wise and virtuous man is at all times
  willing that his own private interest should be
  sacrificed to the public interest of his own
  particular order or society.
• Trust
• Humanity does not desire to be great, but to be
  beloved. It is not in being rich that truth and
  justice would rejoice, but in being trusted and
  believed

7
Adam Smith

• Morality trumps self-interest
• reason, principle, conscienceIt is he who,
  whenever we are about to act so as to affect the
  happiness of others, calls to usthat we are but
  one of the multitude, in no respect better than
  any other in it and that when we prefer
  ourselves so shamefully and so blindly to others,
  we become the proper objects of resentment,
  abhorrence, and execration.

8
Limits on right to property John Locke

• Lockean proviso As long as enough and as good
  is left for others.

9
Limits of Capitalism

• It cannot provide public goods.
• Temptation to think that profit is the only goal
  or most important goal for humans.
• It is indifferent to the justice of the
  distribution of goods and services.
• Companies can become more powerful than
  countries.

10
Critiques of Capitalism

• It leads to poverty and inequality.
• It prioritizes material goods over less tangible
  ones (e.g. ethical and spiritual goods).
• If unchecked, it leads to monopolies.
• If unchecked, it leads to environmental
  degradation.
• Workers are alienated and economically insecure.

11
Corporations

• Limited liability and long life
• Publically held versus private
• For-profit versus non profit
• For-profit-- management has a fiduciary
  obligation to prioritize profit, within limits.
• Non-profit--general obligation to further
  corporate goals within limits.
• B corporations
• Managers are required to take actions that are
  good for society.

12
Are corporations persons?

• Moral agency versus moral personhood.
• Agency implies responsibility.
• Personhood implies a duty of respect and/or care.
  
• What are human persons entitled to?
• Are corporate persons entitled to the same things
  as human persons?