MONEY AND CAPITALISM

Money is an excellent way to tell if a group of people are willing to pay for something. Money tells us what CAN be done. Money does not tell us what SHOULD be done.

Money is one of the ways that we make collective choices. Money tells us what people can make that other people want to buy. How much something costs and what people will pay for something, is one of the main functions of money.

But money only works for THINGS. Money can be spent on selling ideas, but the morality of whether the idea is a good idea for society is not entirely a monetary decision. What to do about homeless people, what to do about sick people, what to do about diseases, all of these questions are not entirely an issue of money.

We are uncomfortable with issues of morality. We do not want to label something a immoral.

Capitalism is a great system for efficiently getting people what they want to buy. It is not such a great system for people without the money to purchase basic needs, like food, shelter and health care.

Is is also not a great system if large numbers of people are purchasing things that are not real, such as fraudulent securities.

The balance between having a capitalistic system and taking care of our children, our poor, our sick, and preventing fraud is not easy to achieve. Anyone who says there is a simple solution is wrong.

In trying to find to correct balance, we sometimes go wrong. What we think will fix something can actually make things much worse. The prohibition of some drugs is an excellent example of trying to do good and discovering that instead the policy is causing corruption and violence and is ineffective in stopping drug addiction. We have a really hard time facing even clear indications that a policy we adopted is causing huge problems.