What do you think of Marxism?

Hmmm. What if culture can decide if ethics and business are interrelated? For example, in old Japanese culture doing business was largely connected to the societal reputation of the family or business. If they were well respected ("honored") socially, they'd have more opportunities for trade/etc.

Imagine a culture in which any amoral company receives a strike... Where the population (and thus the overall politics) is more actively involved in prohibiting certain socially harmful marketing trends.

I feel like it's a society's ideology that disallows certain things to be plausible in their ecosystem. In something like the USA, which has kept the capitalistic "American dream" embedded in its culture for so many decades, it's hard to imagine a switch in values happening. Greed isn't really shunned in Western ethics.

As the vid said, "profit" is a fancy word for exploitation, but culturally there's a belief that profiting big is the way to go -- without realizing what it means to profit big (i.e. taking from others in large sums while you do comparatively far less work to achieve that revenue). If this was frowned upon, and thus regulated by the gov because of the cultural shunning and laws they'd want to pass, then economics would be different. (or so says my inner idealist )

Interesting. Well, Marx had a quite historicist view of social organisations. This is probably his biggest mistake as he could not see another horizon than working class leading other classes through radical revolution, and he could not predict the rise of mixed ideologies like social-democracy or modern liberalism. But he provided a lot of precious work describing why the working class was not profiting from capitalism in his time.


Auburn

Prohibiting and popular/political involvment are always valued within economical progressive opinion, and those are surely needed at some degree because freedom needs a conscious process. However, these methods always shows their limits when the market economy rather works using people seduction and fatality of systematic rules of the market, not political involvment so much.
So, what I mean is, an economical progressive ideal would benefit from including more economical stimulations and psychological elements within. Not the amoral ones, but let say the "ethical and seductive-stimulating" ones. If not, I guess the majority of people efficiently rises only when in very hard conditions of living and never really persevere through conscious involvment as economical stimulations of the market are omnipresent thus stronger.
Considering history and the way progressive initiatives have been often considering market in a very dualistic struggle, this more immanent approach may be a way to not overstimate people endurance in struggle and instead provides an economical system basis for efficient social progressive policies like healthcare, more economical power for employees, free education, etc.
I guess the solution lies within what the most elemental exchange in market is. For now, money is not created for both customer and trader during an exchange. One becomes richer and the other becomes poorer, one wins economical power while the other loses it and becomes more dependant of people like one. Actually, if this paradox was resolved then, I'm sure liberalism itself would get more sense and meaning because there would be a real initial freedom of people, an ability to exchange, and not just one of leaders and bosses over all, and thus a more emergent economy.


Zweilous

You mean a kind of barter. Thus, it works except if one has not the economical power to exchange, which is symbolized by money possession. And I don't think eating means only a different value. I mean, If one do not eat, then he/she dies, and if he/shes do not keep an initial power to exchange then, he/shes can't buy whether it is what he/she needs or what like, thus dies. I guess what you say supposes that the two of you and your wife have the economical power to propose a deal, to not be only the subordinated one agreeing the rules of the other (not subordinated like a moneyless employee), and not one being in dependency from the other like having to absurdly and endlessly going to work for another person in order to make money before doing the deal that was supposed to happens. There must be an initial principle in money creation  and in the exchange so that one can invest and not just getting poorer and poorer while the other get richer and richer. Also, the rules and consequences of market are a bit different when one speak about small trade and when one speak about industries and big societies.
Well, of course I do not speak especialy about that easy kind of salad exchange but, the whole kind of exchange that can be made in this world.

I agree Zwei, but I think your going off in a direction no one was really going... The critique against profit is the scenario in which a owner takes the profit that a worker generates. Even on that critique there is a lot to be said about how exploitation matters in degree and kind. I'm sure an argument would be made that it was actually an improvement depending on that balance. In the scenarios that you brought up where people barter or trade, they are profiting from services/goods that THEY created. Such is not the case in the critique of Marx.

Auburn
Yeah, that's something I really need to look into. After I had typed that out my brain started filling in all the exceptions to the business and ethics dichotomy I had built up. When you bring up businesses being regulated by the culture my immediate thought is of the strength of the said culture.

One of the things I railed against in my rant was fast food places. There are plenty of *earnest* consumers who aren't exactly proud of their decision. Food can be just like an addiction and the treatment is remarkably similar. One important factor when it comes to dealing with addiction is social support. This combined with the notion that people can unify to strike against a business brings about a strange paradox in my mind. If people were socially cohesive and had the values to strike against say... McDonalds, then wouldn't they have already not been eating there?

I kind of think that poverty and social disintegration just cycles with low wages from the places that sell addictive products creating a rot(slowly, gently, this is how a life is taken!)

I say this knowing full well how many times I've succumbed to McDonalds.