[ale] Defeated by the offshoring of America....

[George Carless]

> But all of this is beside the point.  The real point is, when does capitalism
> fade into greed?  When does a CEO, CFO, or whatever decide to pursue profit at
> the expense of the national good?  This only happens when corporations grow to a
> size where that even becomes a possibility or if several corporations act in
> concert to have the same effect.  Selling of customer data is an example of
> that, as is offshore development in mass quantities.

Well, there's the thing: capitalism doesn't really allow for such concepts
as "national good" - at least, not directly.  "Greed" is a difficult term;
I suppose your good capitalist would argue that it's not "greedy" to
demand appropriate remuneration for goods or services rendered.  And,
given adequate visibility as to what's going on, the consumer should have
the option as to whether or not to buy from corporations that do naughty
things.

But, of course, it's in precisely these areas that the whole concept of
capitalsm starts to have difficulty: in natural monopolies, in inadequate
visibility, in unscrupulous behaviours that lead to 'unfair' contracts,
and so forth.  And so, the government decides to impose a few checking
mechanisms.  A few, at first...

--George

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