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 Originally Posted by OngBonga
Sure. Let's look at what profit does to food. Large industrial farms and major supermarket chains destroying small family dairies so people can buy four pints of milk for a pound, then there's the quality of processed food compared to fresh food. Clothes... yeah I probably wear clothes that some kid in India made for a few rupees, I wouldn't know where they came from because of blissful ignorance. Internet... pretty sure this was initially made for the military, ie not motivated by profit. My home? I don't own my home. I rent. But hey, there's more empty homes here in the UK than there are homeless people, because so many people have second homes, or foreign owners who fail to replace outgoing tenants, etc.
The world and its people are better off by several orders of magnitude due to what you're calling a problem. Things are constantly, rapidly improving too.
If you're in a drought, it's a mistake to call the rains a problem since they get your shirt wet.
That's because people are selfish and greedy, and the system actively rewards such behaviour.
Cronyism rewards the stuff you're thinking of. Capitalism is an acknowledgement of human behavior. While it would be nice if people were innately altruistic in the ways you want; we have no choice but to acknowledge the reality that we're not and instead use the tools that create the most good within this reality.
People aren't just motivated by money. Most people in the world are motivated by family, or religion, more than money, mainly because they don't have much money. It's not about wealth, it's about health and happiness. Not here though. Here, money is king, even to the detriment of our schools.
People are motivated by economic utility (in economics, "utility" has its own unique meaning, which is similar to happiness). Economic utility is influenced by capital (capital is any resource that can be used to affect other resources). Capital is in part represented by money. Money isn't remotely comprehensive in representing capital, but it does a substantially better job than anything else created.
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