The Problem of Profit

Bill Maher penned an article (“Health Care Problem Isn’t Socialism, It’s Capitalism“) a number of months ago that arguably captured an essential problem in American culture: the commodification of every aspect of our society. This is to say nothing about the merits of the current proposals of health care reform, but the increasing philosophical materialism and reductionism permeating through the American social fabric. The logic of this distorted view reduces material goods to dispensable goods that are only valuable insofar as subjective value is placed on that good. This unbridled consumerism has even led to human life being reduced to a dispensable good contingent on the subjective value placed extrinsically by society, or in certain situations, by another individual (the obvious examples being abortion and euthanasia). It is from this perspective, particularly, that one might argue that Maher’s article is spot on. Continue reading →