 This is George Gilder. I'm George Gilder. He's an investor, a millionaire, and an economist who is deeply in love with capitalism. George Gilder discusses this great love of his in a video put out by the YouTube channel Prager University, which, as you may know, is the only university where you pay your tuition in brain cells. And it's also not actually a university, it's just a YouTube channel. The title of the video is Why Capitalism Works, and in it George argues that capitalism is altruistic, which I kind of respect for being among the ballsiest lies ever told. But look out, George, your ballsy lies are about to get crushed. Down below, I put the link to George Gilder's video so you can watch the whole thing and make sure that I represent his arguments fairly, arguments like this. Only capitalism creates a group of people known as entrepreneurs who have no choice but to concern themselves with the needs and desires of others. These others are their customers, that entrepreneurs, by the very nature of what they do, must shun greed. First and foremost, responding to others is the very opposite of greed. In designing their goods and services, they must, once again, focus not on their own needs, but on the needs of others. This too is the opposite of greed. Okay, so it's true that a business can only make money if people buy what they're selling, and people will only buy what they're selling if they're selling something that people want or need. However, a business that makes people's needs its priority won't be in business for long. A business cannot survive without profit, which means it can only meet people's needs if and when it is profitable to do so, which means it can only meet the needs of those who pay full market price. Those who can't pay won't have their needs met, even if it results in their death, as is the case for untold millions of people. There are people freezing to death because they're too poor to pay for housing or their heating bill, people starving to death because they're too poor to pay for food, people dying of treatable, curable illnesses because they're too poor to pay for medicine, millions of people die because the priority is profit, not meeting their needs. This is a feature that is inherent to capitalism. The goal of production, the goal of all economic activity in capitalism is profit, not the motive of meeting people's needs. To be clear, I'm not talking about the motives of individual human beings who are capitalists. I'm sure there are business owners who genuinely care about their customers and meeting their needs, but we're not analyzing the motives of individuals. We're analyzing the nature of the system that those individuals operate in. And yes, a system is made up of individuals, but that system has rules and those individuals are bound by those rules and have no choice but to follow them or pay a price. And in capitalism, that rule is that you must make profit to stay in business. So let's see what influence that rule has on the individuals within the system. Okay, so let's pretend there is a pharmaceutical company whose CEO is very kind and altruistic. I know that sounds impossible to believe in even as a fantasy, but please, let's just try for the sake of the example. The company produces life-saving drugs and the CEO, kind-hearted soul that he is, orders that those drugs be sold below market price. But even with the lower price, many people still can't afford the drugs and as a result, people are dying. So the CEO wants to lower the drug prices even further and let very poor people have the drugs for free. But he cannot do this without causing his company to go completely bankrupt. Even though he wants to make people's needs the priority, he is forced by capitalism to make profit the priority. Capitalism forces companies to compete and so companies strive not just to make profit but to maximize profit so they can beat each other in the competition. So the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company decide that this very nice and kind CEO needs to be fired. They hire a new CEO who raises the drug prices back up to their market rate. Profit goes up and the number of dead goes up too. This example is made up, but the results it describes are very real. According to the latest research from the World Health Organization, an estimated 1.7 billion people have little to no access to life-saving medicines. The exact number of deaths this causes is unknown, but it no doubt amounts to millions every single year. Speaking of maximizing profit, how do you maximize profit? Let's hear George Gilder thinks. So what entrepreneurs do when they seek profit is far more than self-interest. Rather, profit is a measure of how well a company has served others. Under capitalism, a business prospers only if customers voluntarily trade for its output. And it's only by improving its service to others that a business can thrive and grow. If the entrepreneur pursues his own interests first and his customers' interests second, his business will fail. And sooner or later, an altruistic entrepreneur will surpass him. Hmm, that's very interesting, George, because often companies maximize profit not by meeting people's needs, but by disregarding their needs at times in ways that are reckless, dangerous, even downright deadly. And some of these companies are very successful. Case in point, General Motors. The cars that GM manufactured from 2003 to 2007 had a faulty ignition switch that in some cases caused the engine to randomly shut down. And the result? The first known victim to die in one of GM's death trap cars was a 16-year-old girl named Amber Marie Rose. Government investigators estimate that hers is one of 303 deaths. These deaths could have been prevented because as far back as 2001, GM knew that the ignition was defective and dangerous. They discovered this when testing the ignition before it had even been installed in any cars. GM had another ignition design available, a design that was safe. But GM was like, let's not use that safe design. Well, let's go with the faulty dysfunctional ignition. That's the one we'll use. Why? Don't worry, there's a very rational explanation. I assure you, it's because using the safe design would have added a cost of one extra dollar to each and every car. Yes, a whole dollar. It may not sound like much, but when your goal is to maximize profit, oh, trust me, it matters. And what about the 303 people who lost their lives, who died so GM could maximize profit? Don't they matter? In capitalism? No, they don't. Our needs don't matter. Our lives don't matter. Only profit matters. GM is not unique. It is not simply a bad apple. Companies in capitalism are perfectly willing to cause harm, injury, even death in order to minimize costs and maximize profits. This is why companies spend billions of dollars lobbying governments because they want to get rid of laws that protect people and put in laws that protect profit. Take fossil fuel companies, for example. They lobby against laws that limit air pollution, even though outdoor air pollution globally kills 4.2 million people in a single year. And these companies know that it's deadly, but you know how it is. Gotta keep those profits up. And fossil fuel companies are infamous for lobbying against regulations on greenhouse gas. They know it causes climate change. They've known for decades. Doesn't matter. In capitalism, profit is not only more important than our needs and our lives. It's also apparently more important than the survival of our species. Such a great system. How can anyone be against it? Fossil fuel companies are probably the worst offenders when it comes to lobbying, but there are plenty of honorable mentions. Just earlier this year, lobbyists for agrochemical companies made news headlines for their despicable deeds. What were they up to? Well, they were trying to stop the Mexican government from banning a pesticide called glyphosate. Now, why would the Mexican government want to ban pesticides with glyphosate? Because glyphosate has been linked to cancer. And in fact, Bayer, which is a company that proudly produces glyphosate-based products, they recently paid $11 billion to settle a lawsuit from Americans who say that they got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma from exposure to the company's glyphosate-based products. $11 billion, that's a lot of money. So naturally, Bayer needs to make back that money by selling some more of these possibly cancer-causing products. But then, Mexico comes along and tries to ban it. How very inconsiderate. But don't worry, that's what Bayer has lobbyists for, to stop anyone who stands in the way of their profits. Cancer be damned. If you look into the details of what each industry lobbies for, you'll see the same pattern. Profit is put ahead of people's lives, safety, and overall well-being. Who do we blame for this? We blame the corporations. We blame the CEOs. But we forget to blame the economic system that pushes them along, giving them an incentive for their cruelty by rewarding it with profit. When the apples are bad, blame the tree. And entrepreneurs, by the very nature of what they do, must shun greed. Well, well, well, George Gilder. Your ballsy lie has been crushed. But let's crush it just a little more. Yeah! Capitalism at its essence, then, is a competition of giving. Of course, self-interest is involved, but the genius of capitalism, and only capitalism, is that it channels self-interest into altruism. Entrepreneurs can only help themselves by helping others. Can you make profit by meeting people's needs? Yes. But you can also make profit by manufacturing bombs that get dropped on villages. You can make profit by running a conversion therapy camp that emotionally abuses gay and trans kids. You can make profit by running a law firm that helps corporations get away with human rights abuses. Your Honor, did my client abuse human rights? Yes, they did. But in my client's defense, they made lots of money, and they've given some of that money to me. I rest my case. So in these examples I've given of ways to make profit, what needs are you meeting? The needs of imperialist nation-states to control oil resources in foreign countries? The needs of bigoted parents to destroy their kid's true self? The needs of corporations to get away with murder? I'm sorry, but I just fail to see the altruism in any of this. Capitalism provides plenty of opportunities for people to make profit by serving purposes that can quite fairly be called evil. So long as we have an economic system that literally rewards people for doing evil, then we should not be surprised when that evil becomes commonplace. We haven't even begun to talk about how capitalism treats workers. Oh boy, that's a doozy. But we'll save that for a future video. Altruism is the very reason for capitalism's existence and why it remains the hope of civilization. The hope of civilization! Can you imagine how easy it would be to not be depressed if you believed that? Unfortunately, it's the exact opposite. So, you can start being depressed now or continue as you were. Within the remaining decades of this century, there is a high risk that human civilization will crumble due to the catastrophic impacts of global climate change. And to a great extent, climate change is the result of a system that insists on putting profit first and is willing to sacrifice our lives and gamble with our future in order to do so. The profit motive causes so much harm. And I'm not saying that it has no positive side. The profit motive is a strong motive for economic activity. And for that reason, it's partly responsible for raising living standards over the generations. But the profit motive comes with so many toxic, harmful, destructive side effects that, at the very least, it's outlived its usefulness. It's time for humanity to move on. There are other ways to motivate economic activity and there are other more effective ways to raise living standards. We don't have to have an economic system that is driven by the profit motive. It's possible to have an economic system where the goal really is to meet people's needs, where our needs and well-being is the priority. But the sickness of the profit motive is an inherent feature of capitalism. It can't be fixed by reform or by government legislation. It can only be fixed by getting rid of capitalism altogether. Getting rid of capitalism altogether. Capitalism altogether. Together. Crush capitalism! Crush it! Ha ha ha ha! Ooh, capitalism feels nice and squishy when I crush it. Hey, it's me, Lucky Black Cat. Do you want to not miss my next video? Well then, I hope you have subscribed and also clicked the bell to turn on all notifications. Because if you haven't, you might not see it. It might just, you know, you might subscribe to me and go to your subscriber feed page when I release a video and my video won't be there. Because my subscribers recently told me that YouTube does not always put my video in the subscriber feed page. Please click the thumbs up slash like button and leave me a comment. And, you know, constructive criticism is welcome. You're free to speak your mind. 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