[splwjs]

It's crazy how most political or economic systems would very obviously collapse in the real world almost instantly without some kind of voluntary moral contract (explicit or implied), yet we've got huge clumps of people demonizing one system or another based on the context of what happens when you implement it in a morally dead societal context.

Like there are a ton of people who smirk at your last paragraph and go "nuh uh, hashtag late stage capitalism"

[roughly]

A hundred percent. I've said this elsewhere, but a primary problem for at least American society at this point is we don't have a commonly-agreed upon moral system other than the market - things like Martin Shkreli buying drugs people need to live and jacking the price up are Bad, but we don't have a common language for describing why it's immoral, whereas our only real common shared language, the market, is basically fine with it as long as it's legal. A lot of the market logic works fine for society within constraints - optimize your costs, but not at the expense of your workers; increase your prices if you can, but don't be a ghoul about it; lobby for your position, but don't just buy a supreme court judge.