Question

Ethics deals with morality and I would contend that capitalism is an amoral economic model!  (Amoral means without morals, neither good nor bad.)

What do you think about this statement? Please briefly comment.

What about other economic systems, say socialism? Do you have the same answer?

Answer 1

Ethics is a discipline which deals with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong

The society which we live in has certain obligations like reduction of poverty, improvement of health and increase in general welfare of people. Although there are examples of how capitalism has caused the life expectancy to rise and also has helped in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, morality in capitalism is that it requires humans to deal with each other as free traders on the basis of mutual consent and it is just only because value of things are determined by the judgement of consumer.

But the issue is that it has a tendency to distribute it's benefits unequally i.e, rich gets richer and poor gets poorer. Other major drawbacks are:

1 Disability to account for the needs of future generations

2. It does not value things which do not have a market value or example climate, environment, human dignity, disabled population, elderly etc.

3. Countries with monarch form government where trade unions and social movements are weak often observe capitalism which feeds upon individual vulnerability to generate profits

Thus accounting for unethical capitalism.

On the other hand socialism is also not purely ethical because under socialism a handful of ruling class or bureaucrats decide what people what and what is good for them and then they execute their powers by the way of taxation, regulations to redistribute wealth of those who earn it by working hard under the name of welfare in other words we can state this act as legalised theft. Socialism creates lacunae in a sense that motivation factor to work hard is very low because the results /profit/outcome are to be shared equally.