Quote:It is meant solely as a means to make individuals more prosperous, and in turn, make the country more productive.
That is one side of the dichotomy. The other side is that capitalism is innately immoral and exploitative.(Marx 101)
I reject both views.Capitalism is a pragmatic economic system with some interesting fantasies, such as the intrinsic value of objects.The system is amoral, as indeed is politics. Capitalism and politics both work on one and only one principle "the ends justify the means".
Most individuals are moral at least some of the time, few are consistently moral. Some individuals seem to work for the common good,most do not.
The most powerful motivator of humans as a species is self interest,not the common good.
I do not claim my position is an absolute truth.I assert only it's how I interpret human behaviour. The underlying philosophy is called 'egoism'. (specifically,psychological AND rational[/quote])) I present my view as one of the alternatives to yours.
Quote:Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so. It is a non-normative view, since it only makes claims about how things are, not how they ought to be. It is, however, related to several other normative forms of egoism, such as ethical egoism and rational egoism.[quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism
In ethical philosophy, rational selfishness, or rational egoism or egotism is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest[1]. The view is a normative form of egoism. However, it is different from other forms of egoism, such as ethical egoism and psychological egoism.[2] While psychological egoism is about motivation and ethical egoism is about morality, rational egoism is a view about rationality (where rationality may or may not be tied to morality). Ethical egoism is also different from amoralism.[quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_egoism