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This is the thing that makes me sad about capitalism as a whole. The only incentive is to make more and more money, and if you have to do unethical things to do that, you do them, and you're rewarded for it.

It's just not that common for executives at a company to forego revenue in service of the common good. Especially at companies like FB, where exploiting the commons is what makes them money in the first place.



Bryan Cantril had a great rant about this a few years ago. He made the point that if you go back to the 60s, the corporate values of basically every company had "integrity" right near the top. Plenty of capitalist companies past and present choose to act in ethical ways.

This isn't an essential problem with capitalism, any more than food poisoning is an essential problem with restraunts. The problem comes from how some people run their companies. Money gives you the power to do what you want. Whether or not they realise it, people in high up positions at FB, Uber and elsewhere are powerful. They have the capacity to choose what their companies do. Claiming their unethical behaviour is "the fault of capitalism" is like a plumber blaming weak building standards for their own shoddy work.

Do better.

And don't place the blame for unethical behaviour amongst our community on capitalism. People chose to build and maintain all of these system. And people continue to choose to keep those systems running long after knowing the harm they cause.




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