| Ok; let me try again without my "premisconceptions" (not a word found in the Oxford English Dictionary, fwiw). So your earlier comment should be read as: > All business is about making productive use of someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions. The only question is whether that productive use is within tolerable limits. ... Except then that second sentence doesn't make sense now. If we take out the word "exploit", what are these "tolerable limits" of productive use you're pointing to? The original sentence read as if staying within "tolerable limits" is important to limit the implied harm we're doing by trading. It reads like a motte-and-bailey argument[1] to me. Like what you're trying to say is this: > All business is about exploiting ("1. to make productive use of / UTILIZE") someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions. The only question is whether that exploitation ("2. make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand") is within tolerable limits. When pushed on why you think business is dangerous you fall back on definition 1 of exploit. But then you lean on definition 2 of "exploit" to imply wrongness - "The only question is whether that productive use is within tolerable limits.". Or as another commenter wrote, "Are [workers] actually happy? Or are they exploited? That's the issue." The blending together of these definitions feels slippery and underhanded. I don't care what word you use. Do you think trade is good or bad? Healthy or unhealthy for the participants? [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bri... |
Business transactions fundamentally rely on the parties concerned coming to an agreement in order to proceed. If the parties are not in agreement, which is to say if the exploitation (aka the terms of the transaction) is not within "tolerable limits", the business transaction cannot proceed.
Therefore, and I reiterate: All business is about exploiting someone somewhere for your benefit, no exceptions. The only question is whether that exploitation is within tolerable limits.
>When pushed on why you think business is dangerous
I have never said nor implied such a thing.[1][2]
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34461596
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34462392