# How damaging is thoughtless pride in capitalism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 12, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722 "2011-11-12T19:59:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/61 "2011-11-18T20:44:49Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Probably because it’s the only supermarket in the area, so you’re kind of stuck with their overpriced milk. Or because you don’t actually know that it’s really unnecessary to change the oil in a newish car every 3,000 miles. Or because that guy with “extra” blacktop, who just got done doing your “neighbor’s” driveway is not really giving you a deal, it’s just a pitch to get you to pay too much for low quality service. > > Maybe you stick with your current overpriced cellphone provider because you don’t want to change your number and deal with all that hassle just to get a better price. Maybe you want tickets to your favorite band, or any band anywhere, and wish to high heaven that you actually had a choice that didn’t include paying $40 in fees to TicketMaster. The only supermarket in the area is offering milk to an area where none is available, changing oil every three thousand miles offer peace of mind to people who worry about their cars, the blacktop guy is offering you a service without having to arrange it. All of these people are providing a service to their customers. If people would rather pay more to keep their old number who are we to second guess their decisions? Ticketmaster offers a service, if you do not want their service do not purchase it. The oil change example is an interesting one, there is a member of my family who changes her oil every 3,000 miles even though I have told her 5-10K between changes is sufficient. However, she does not listen and insists on doing it more frequently. Maybe it would be nice if Jiffy Lube refused her business but it does not. Because Capitalism gives us want we want instead of what we should want. Capitalism reflects man’s imperfections but by rewarding intelligence, hard work, and service to humanity, it makes us all better than we would be otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/62 "2011-11-18T21:12:41Z")
I think I’m going to cry. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/63 "2011-11-19T00:10:44Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > I think I’m going to cry. Hold it in until you can find a buyer. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/64 "2011-11-19T01:14:48Z")
About oil changes. In California now there is a series of PSAs telling you that you don’t have to change your oil as often as you think, and giving a website where you can look up the right interval. Excessive oil changing is wasteful, but in using oil and disposing of oil. Another funny thing. My Prius now needs changes only ever 10 K, but the oil light comes on every 5 K. Obviously it is advantageous for car companies to encourage more frequent changes, since it can drive service business. When I last got my oil changed (at 20 K) I asked the guy if it could be reset - he said the “Change Oil” message is now there to remind you to rotate your tires. Ticketmaster is now effectively a monopoly, since few people can afford to go to the box office to get tickets (not that they don’t sponge you also.) Some competition might be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Xenocrates](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f14d63/32.png) [@Xenocrates](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xenocrates)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/65 "2011-11-19T02:10:08Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Capitalism reflects man’s imperfections but by rewarding intelligence, hard work, and service to humanity, it makes us all better than we would be otherwise. Whether this is true is an empirical question. You need to provide some evidence that intelligence, hard work, and service to humanity are the largest predictors of income in our current economic system (or whatever you think capitalism is) rather than, say, the socioeconomic status of your family. On a separate note, many people here are talking past each other because capitalism is not well defined. It can include moral positions or it can be strictly an economic system. Even as an economic system, it is not easy to say exactly what it is. It can’t be pure free markets because then there has never been a capitalist economy (as far as I know…certainly the US would not qualify). ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/66 "2011-11-22T19:31:19Z")
> [@Xenocrates](#): > > Whether this is true is an empirical question. You need to provide some evidence that intelligence, hard work, and service to humanity are the largest predictors of income in our current economic system (or whatever you think capitalism is) rather than, say, the socioeconomic status of your family. > > On a separate note, many people here are talking past each other because capitalism is not well defined. It can include moral positions or it can be strictly an economic system. Even as an economic system, it is not easy to say exactly what it is. It can’t be pure free markets because then there has never been a capitalist economy (as far as I know…certainly the US would not qualify). Empirically, it is an easy case to make, [Here is a blog post with some charts about income and wealth for each decile of IQ:](http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/04/iq-income-and-wealth.html) [Here is a link to a study about how consciousness is correlated with job success](http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/neubert.html) [Here is a study about the effect of IQ and personality on Longevity, Divorce, and Socio-Economic Status.](http://illinois.academia.edu/BrentWRoberts/Papers/20231/_b_Personality_b_Development_Stability_and_Change) It finds the effects of IQ on Occupational outcomes to be almost twice as high as parental income and almost three times as high as socio economic status. The effects of personality are not quite as high as IQ but they are much higher than the others. ---
**Author:** ![Serpentine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@Serpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Serpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/67 "2011-11-22T23:25:32Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Sorry to break your nice illusion, but you’ve misunderstood something about cause and effect here. > Someone is getting up early to raise the crops _not_ so you can eat delicious food but to sell to you for money,. Or take billions of my tax dollars. Farmers are the wealthiest welfare recipients I know. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/68 "2011-11-25T07:57:51Z")
> [@Serpentine](#): > > Farmers are the wealthiest welfare recipients I know. I see your (hardly even anecdotal) “datapoint” and raise you another anecdote: I know a few farmers personally, and I’m willing to claim that they are working longer hours than I am and making about half as much as I am. Providing the nation with food, perhaps the most vitally important product for mankind. And BTW, I’m working in the public sector, not in a high-paid private sector job. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/69 "2011-11-25T16:47:17Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > I see your (hardly even anecdotal) “datapoint” and raise you another anecdote: I know a few farmers personally, and I’m willing to claim that they are working longer hours than I am and making about half as much as I am. Providing the nation with food, perhaps the most vitally important product for mankind. And BTW, I’m working in the public sector, not in a high-paid private sector job. But, are they farmers, or hired hands? ---
**Author:** ![abandaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@abandaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abandaman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/70 "2011-11-25T17:04:45Z")
replace it with what? the true enemy of the human race is the bureaucrat. i first realized this when i was in the military. Bureaucrats keep everything in a snails pace nothing can get done in a timely manor. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/71 "2011-11-25T18:41:40Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, are they farmers, or hired hands? I wrote “farmers”, not “hired farm workers”. That’s what I meant, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/72 "2011-11-26T01:34:43Z")
> [@abandaman](#): > > replace it with what? the true enemy of the human race is the bureaucrat. i first realized this when i was in the military. Bureaucrats keep everything in a snails pace nothing can get done in a timely manor. Then you don’t understand what bureacracy does. It actually gets things done faster overall. You were in the military. Did you have to figure out where your meals were going to come from? Or your ammunition? When you were driving a tank across country did you have to figure out where you were going to find fuel for it? Were there procedures for what you should do when you needed air support or medical evacuation? All of these things were acomplished by the bureaucracy you looked down on. They weren’t slowing you down - they were what was keeping you moving. Bureaucracy takes a bunch of incredibly complicated processes and simplifies them down to a routine. Without that routine, these things could never be accomplished - they’d be too complicated to do without bureaucratic procedure. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722/73 "2011-11-26T01:49:22Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Wrong. First, there’s nothing about capitalism that says it has to involve fair business practices, > [@Magiver](#): > > Nobody said it did. It’s regulated by the government. Regulated by a government that is largely owned by the corporations it regulates and run by officials who themselves benefit hugely from unbalanced and poor regulation. and even when they try to create a fair regulation they often get it wrong. in many types of business the customer ends up losing because companies are forced to compete on price rather than quality. in some fields this leads to serious problems in over all quality of service. (I am thinking education in particular) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-damaging-is-thoughtless-pride-in-capitalism/602722.md?page=3)