Capitalism is rotten at every level, and yet it adds up to something extraordinarily useful for society over time. The paradox of capitalism is that adding a bunch of bad-sounding ideas together creates something incredible that is far more good than bad. Capitalism inspires people to work hard, to take reasonable risks, and to create value for customers. On the whole, capitalism channels selfishness in a direction that benefits civilization, not counting a few fat cats who have figured out how to game the system. You have the same paradox with personal energy. If you look at any individual action that boosts your personal energy, it might look like selfishness. Why are you going skiing when you should be working at the homeless shelter, you selfish bastard! My proposition is that organizing your life to optimize your personal energy will add up to something incredible that is more good than bad. . Scott Adams
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  1. The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal,... - Karl Marx

  2. If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then... - Herbert Marcuse

  3. Latter-day capitalism. Like it or not, it's the society we live in. Even the standard of right and wrong has been subdivided, made sophisticated. Within good, there's fashionable good and unfashionable good, and ditto for bad. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>Within fashionable good, there's formal and then... - Haruki Murakami

  4. The justification of capitalism is not that the economy grows faster than it grows under any other system. . not that the goods pour forth. The justification of capitalism is that it is the only economic system consistent with the requirements of man's rational nature,... - M. Northrup Buechner

  5. What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate... - Inga Muscio

More Quotes By Scott Adams
  1. I love you like a fat kid loves cake!

  2. Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt.

  3. You're thinking I'm one of those wise-ass California vegetarians who is going to tell you that eating a few strips of bacon is bad for your health. I'm not. I say its a free country and you should be able to kill yourself at any...

  4. Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant.

  5. Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching. -- Dogbert's Motto

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