"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest"
When companies make profit, it doesn't mean we get screwed, nor even that they have a high profit margin. The grocery chain stores are a prime example. They typically make 2-3% net margins on revenue, and provide fresh, clean, reasonably well-tested groceries close to our home for that margin. Imagine trying to get equivalent quality fresh groceries ourselves from the producers, and I'm guessing it would cost at least three times as much.
ngl I don't think a quote from 250 years ago is all that relevant in discussing capitalism as it exists today. Adam Smith wouldn't recognize the world we live in. Nor was my point "pRoFiT bAd" but rather growth for the sake of growth is not the way to actually improve lives. Infinite growth is impossible (something I'm sure even Adam Smith would agree with me on) and yet our system is currently designed around the idea that it is not only possible, but good and necessary.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard for their own interest"
When companies make profit, it doesn't mean we get screwed, nor even that they have a high profit margin. The grocery chain stores are a prime example. They typically make 2-3% net margins on revenue, and provide fresh, clean, reasonably well-tested groceries close to our home for that margin. Imagine trying to get equivalent quality fresh groceries ourselves from the producers, and I'm guessing it would cost at least three times as much.
ngl I don't think a quote from 250 years ago is all that relevant in discussing capitalism as it exists today. Adam Smith wouldn't recognize the world we live in. Nor was my point "pRoFiT bAd" but rather growth for the sake of growth is not the way to actually improve lives. Infinite growth is impossible (something I'm sure even Adam Smith would agree with me on) and yet our system is currently designed around the idea that it is not only possible, but good and necessary.
Worst system, apart from the other ones.