Saturday, December 19, 2015

Painful interactions with the capitalist system today:

1. Having to wait about an hour trying to return the Verizon Jetpack (link to previous diary on Verizon)

I cracked. They got me upset, making me wait so long, and as I walked out I told them they should all quit. Another customer, a total tool, responded in a sing-song tone: "They've treated us well." I should've mimicked the inflection of his phrasing in a falsetto, substituting gibberish words for the ones he used: "Mi mi-mi mi me!"

2. Told the car would be hand-washed before getting an oil change, then told after paying that they didn't wash it because the roof-top carrier can't go through the drier. He lied to me at the beginning, because I asked him specifically about the carrier box and he assured me they would hand-wash it. Why didn't he tell me straight out, "I'll only wash your car if I upsell you to buy new tires?" Lying capitalist scum. His reticence in being forthcoming with the real reason for not washing the car indicates the moral problem of capitalism.

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Capitalism's Moral Problem: company employees are morally obligated to increase shareholder profits. If an individual customeris dissatisfied, the company can refuse service on the grounds that accomodating the individual will cost more and decrease shareholder profits; therefore the company is morally obligated to turn the customer away. If investment in financial instruments returns more than producing more widgets, i.e. if r > g as Piketty has asserted, the company is morally obligated to stop serving customers. Customers are treated immorally, rudely, unjustly, because the shareholder welfare trumps General Welfare.