Profit in a Free Market Society

[newernever]

The issue is beyond purchasing luxury excess goods like iPhones and brand name clothes. People are realizing that their struggling comes from the fact that we have a lot of CAPTIVE MARKETS, not FREE MARKET capitalism.

In a free market economy, it pushes owners to drive the prices down and make sure it's a price people are willing to keep up with, and the economy has to be growing at a reasonable rate.

[sofia.eris.bauhaus]

not the greatest example, because apple doesn't operate in a free market, they benefit heavily from copyright and patent monopolies. their income is at least partly a result from suppressing competition.

[kylemccormack]

Antony Davies is the lecturer by the way, people. He has his own podcast with a VERY funny political scientist, the show is called Words & Numbers. This man helped FOUND the Economics Major program at George Mason university. He's a genius.

[FourthRoot]

YES! Dollars are actually just transferable I.O.U.s people earn by working for an economy. As such, it would be incredibly altruistic for someone to make tens of billions of dollars and then just make it all go poof. Burning money doesn't burn the value it represents. That value would just manifest as deflation, increasing the wealth of everybody who owns more dollars than owes in debt.

[eliasmontanez]

Preposterous that single individuals have more money than some countries combined, it erodes democracy. Businesses do not “improve the world” with their products/services, they do so by paying workers well and paying their taxes.

[pmyou]

So what you are saying is that business should ideally be conducted like this:
I go into a store and buy a loaf of bread. I pay my $5 and turn to leave.
The clerk says, "wait! I made a profit. That means you own me more money."
I look at him strangely. "I paid the $5 for the bread."
Clerk: But I made a profit. In a free market that means you owe me. You wanted the bread and benefit from it. Pay me more. I deserve it for making a profit from you.
Me: No, you are a member of society. You are only able to make any sale at all because you are in society. If anything, you should give me a rebate for patronizing your store.
Clerk: Hey, I am a Capitalist and my ultimate value of greed. You own me more money!
Is that really what you are saying?

[rachelk]

You missed the other sides: Steve Jobs exploited people who did the ACTUAL work of building the iPhone. Any business owner knows profit isn't the only metric that needs to be measured; there is an associated cost per good sold that has to be considered. Did Steve Jobs owe it to his workers to pay them fairly?

Did Steve Jobs owe it to his community to do a better job managing the waste created by planned obsolescence, not only in terms of adding to the garbage, but also in terms of rare minerals that could be used elsewhere?

Billionaires are not gods. They are people who also have a cost to the community associated with their lives. People paid more than the cost of an iPhone, even if those people were not his consumers, and he owes for that.

I get very tired of the sycophantic attitude towards individuals who do not profit off mere brilliance, but also of their willingness to abuse and trample on other people.

[txemanovelo]

One thing here is missing, Steve Jobs created his company world known as Apple in the 80’s with money he received from Steve Bushnell CEO of Atari in order to create a new video game for the company, and there was a plus, if he could come up with one game using less chips that usual he will receive a substantial bonus. Since Jobs couldn’t program sh^t just had a big mouth and ambition he gave the job to the other Steve at Apple, the actual genius who created both the first apple computer and its first operative system, the great Steve Wozniak. Wozniak created the game “Breakout” with a minimum amount of chip, Atari was the very pleased with it, and Jobs received the money for the commission and the bonus and that money was invested into Apple. What Wozniak didn’t knew until decades later was that the existence of such bonus. So what this fine apologetic of capitalism is not telling you is that a big part of American Free Market ethics are actually based in NO ethics at all. A recent example for this will be Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. When you are raised in a society were the only value as a human being you receive is based in your money (Not your talent, not your art, your literature, your philosophy, your cuisine, just your money) you also create a society of aspiration. Ask any educated Asian, European or Latin American if they give two sh^^ts about Steve Jobs, they have better and bigger examples to follow in film makers, writers, philosopher or chefs, than a dude who went around been praised for the billions he made on other people’s ideas and companies. Learn Liberty is bias you tw^ts, it should be called Learn capitalism. 🖕🏽

[bingeltube]

Please shorten the video to 10 seconds! (Caution: Irony) Video is too short for the topic!

[marlondowney]

That is a horrible explanation of the free market. It ignored patents, ecosystem, speculive investment and other advantages Jobs used to dominate the market place. If you want to do a simple lesson pick something simply. Like dollar shave club. People wanted a razor more than they wanted a dollar.