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Some of my favorite aspects of capitalism are when incentives align people toward things that are also in the public interest in addition to the private interes

Some of my favorite aspects of capitalism are when incentives align people toward things that are also in the public interest in addition to the private interest of the company. Another historical example that comes to mind were some train companies lobbying to end segregation because they didn't want to run separate cars/routes for different groups. Another thing that isn't really an example of this are the bodegas in DC (often run by immigrants) selling both trump and hillary hats (or whatever current political battle is going on) to the public - arguably that could incentivize divisiveness, but for some reason seeing those stands meeting demand without caring about tribalism makes me smile. Tesla is kind of an outlier here though, in that Musk's motives were in the public interest more than the private interest at the start (accelerating adoption of alternative fuels) - so in this case the private interest is in service to the public one and not incidental. [Edit]: I know it's poor form to complain about downvotes, but what I assume must be politically motivated downvotes on this are lame.

wizardforhire 5y ago
Yep. For all its evils and potential evils capitalism eventually trends towards net positive. We don’t have to like the way works but at least its something… and way better than the historical alternatives at scale.
- kbenson 5y ago
  I would say it broadly trends that way as long as you keep some checks and balances around to keep it in track and from descending into a perverse local maxima (or minima, depending on how you want to phrase it). Labor unions and anti-trust legislation are around for a reason.
dash2 5y ago
There's not much reason to expect this to happen systematically in the realm of regulation. As George Stigler put it, regulation is purchased by the industry for the benefit of the industry. This data fits that story.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Yeah - it's one of those cases where effective coordination is hard. We need effective coordination (regulation) to get outcomes that are best for both individuals and the group, but that doesn't make it easy. Risks of regulatory capture, bad regulations, and such are still there and a problem. Policy and good incentives are hard to get right. That's why I'm happy to see them when they happen. At least in the common case capitalism allows for markets to get this right a lot of the time through company success and failure. Even with negatives there's still massive wealth creation that has risen all boats on net. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
H12 5y ago
I think that's an excellent question to ask oneself when starting a company: "Will the financial interests of this business align with or oppose the public's?"

wizardforhire 5y ago

Yep. For all its evils and potential evils capitalism eventually trends towards net positive. We don’t have to like the way works but at least its something… and way better than the historical alternatives at scale.

kbenson 5y ago
I would say it broadly trends that way as long as you keep some checks and balances around to keep it in track and from descending into a perverse local maxima (or minima, depending on how you want to phrase it). Labor unions and anti-trust legislation are around for a reason.

dash2 5y ago

There's not much reason to expect this to happen systematically in the realm of regulation. As George Stigler put it, regulation is purchased by the industry for the benefit of the industry. This data fits that story.

fossuser 5y ago
Yeah - it's one of those cases where effective coordination is hard. We need effective coordination (regulation) to get outcomes that are best for both individuals and the group, but that doesn't make it easy. Risks of regulatory capture, bad regulations, and such are still there and a problem. Policy and good incentives are hard to get right. That's why I'm happy to see them when they happen. At least in the common case capitalism allows for markets to get this right a lot of the time through company success and failure. Even with negatives there's still massive wealth creation that has risen all boats on net. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

H12 5y ago

I think that's an excellent question to ask oneself when starting a company: "Will the financial interests of this business align with or oppose the public's?"