| Yes, this. My take is that capitalism is corrupted because people are unable to meet basic needs. We pretend that capitalism is a system where everyone is able to make informed decisions. We pretend that in capitalism, a 10% chance of making $1M a year in income has the same value as a 100% chance of making $100k a year. This is just not the case. People have two different types of risk they can take. Income risk, and personal risk. Personal risk is your shelter, your food, your health, your family. Income risk is your expected income beyond what is needed to meet those basic needs. If your personal risk is covered for some reason, then you are able to objectively evaluate income risk. But if your personal risk is not covered, you have to be more conservative. The downside is not that you might not make as much, it's that you might lose your home, health, or starve. You can't be logical about that. If we have a system where personal risk is largely covered, then the free market will actually pay people what they are worth because people will feel free to actually take risks and (for instance) start companies and pursue their passions. This is some stuff I wrote on it a while back, it's better written than what I put here. http://neltnerb.tumblr.com/post/58818804903/an-entrepreneurs... |