I’m not making a claim about what capitalism causally produces. I think that is fairly clear from the fact that I say that I am making a conceptual distinction. These are separate questions:
Capitalism is defined as a system in which people are selfish.
Capitalism causally makes people more selfish than socialism.
Capitalism is all-things-considered the best system.
I am arguing for 1, and saying that we need different information to evaluate its truth to both 2 and 3. I’m not denying anything about social systems causing different motivations in people; it is obviously true that they do.
The point: you don’t get to argue against capitalism by suggesting that it is all about selfishness, as a conceptual matter. Rather, you’d need to show that it makes people more selfish than socialism does or that it produces less good outcomes overall than socialism. So, you’d need to present empirical evidence.
I’m not making a claim about what capitalism causally produces. I think that is fairly clear from the fact that I say that I am making a conceptual distinction. These are separate questions:
Capitalism is defined as a system in which people are selfish.
Capitalism causally makes people more selfish than socialism.
Capitalism is all-things-considered the best system.
I am arguing for 1, and saying that we need different information to evaluate its truth to both 2 and 3. I’m not denying anything about social systems causing different motivations in people; it is obviously true that they do.
The point: you don’t get to argue against capitalism by suggesting that it is all about selfishness, as a conceptual matter. Rather, you’d need to show that it makes people more selfish than socialism does or that it produces less good outcomes overall than socialism. So, you’d need to present empirical evidence.