Saturday, September 7, 2019

Clarifying The Nature Of Vulture Capitalism

The core tenets of capitalism, like those of basic communism, are often misrepresented by a society that would rather distort or deny facts than concede that it is largely ruled by its emotions.  Capitalism is often described as an inherently predatory system, and sometimes even its proponents might describe it in such a manner, only to embrace what they perceive to be its predatory aspects as long as they can benefit from them.  A particular strategy for wealth-building called vulture capitalism even bears a title that many might regard as negative.  However, vulture capitalism is not an intrinsically unethical approach to business.

Venture capitalism entails the purchase or financial support of companies with a high potential, with venture capitalists receiving some sort of returns for their investment.  Vulture capitalism, more specifically, is a subset of venture capitalism that pertains to the purchase of struggling firms with the intent of rescuing them from bankruptcy or dissolution--for personal profit, of course.  Due to the vulnerability of the acquired companies and the aggressive tactics some purchasers employ, vulture capitalism tends to have a distinctly negative reputation even in the Western world.

Some who otherwise like capitalism might criticize vulture capitalism due to some of its exploitative applications, especially when the emoyees of an acquired firm are tossed aside without regard for their futures or for any company loyalty on their part.  Is firing unnecessary employees immoral, though?  Of course not!  It is only the reasons for the firing, the execution of the firing, or the motives behind the firing that can be unethical.  There is neither a corporate benefit nor moral obligation to keeping unneeded employees in a firm's workforce.

Even vulture capitalism does not have to be executed with a predatory lack of concern for the wellbeing of employees in the acquired firms.  Reputations can be heinously deceptive, and the general reputation of capitalism can be quite misleading, as those who love capitalism often treat it as a moral or practical necessity (sometimes only because they particularly benefit from it, rather than because they have sound arguments in its favor), while those who despise capitalism are often reacting to the actions of specific self-proclaimed capitalists that are irrelevant to the nature of capitalism as an ideology.

Both an intense love or hatred of capitalism are nothing but subjective states of mind that have nothing to do with the morality of the system.  Loving or hating the potential consequences of an economic stance is irrelevant to the issue itself, and yet many conservatives and liberals alike exaggerate the moral aspects of foundational economic ideas in order to appease their emotions.  Neither capitalism nor communism (which can be entirely voluntary), contrary to common myths, is oppressive in itself.  The ways in which the two are implemented determine whether or not a given application of either is morally flawed.  Capitalism can be pursued without greed or disregard for others, and communism can be applied in a voluntary manner.

Like technology, capitalism--even vulture capitalism--is amoral on its own, although it does certainly have the potential to enrich the lives of those who participate in it.  The idea that capitalism is an inherently benevolent or malicious economic system is logically false; it is the people who engage in capitalistic practices who decide if they do so in a selfish manner or one that benefits others--or at least does not exploit them.  Baseline capitalistic ideas do not have any intrinsic gravitation towards one moral idea or another, but there are many fools eager to proclaim otherwise.  Most claims about economics, like most claims about philosophy, politics, and ethics in general, are nonsense.

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