Morality has its incentives

We must stop our torture. We must end our nationalistic outcries against “outsourcing.” We must allow Dubai Ports World to manage our ports because they were the highest bidder.

Because morality has its incentives.

Here’s the deal. There are facists getting fat off of oil in the Middle East and in Africa, and there are those who are willing and able to protect them for a slice of their greasy pie.

China, Russia, and India with their burgeoning economies will get their oil-bargains where they can. We cannot blame them for this. This is what we want and have always wanted them to want and we cannot be two-faced about it. This is a global economy we have wrought and should continue to want.

Capitalism depends on the individual, on individual innovation, on individual consumers. Societies that depend on the individual tend toward democracy and freedom because control hampers commerce.

Also, no one kills their customer. So we with our wealth should continue to buy Chinese, Indian, and Russian.

And Arabian port management.

Because if we don’t, they’ll sell their goods elsewhere. They want to sell to us first because we are rich and free. We promise long term stability. And if we can just get over our racism, nativism, and xenophobia we will fulfill that promise and nations (those things that fight wars) will all but dissolve.

But if we cannot, China, Russia, and India will sell what they can to others who are merely rich, even if only oil rich. And they will not sell port management or toys or cars or call-center services, they will sell arms and diplomatic protection to those who kill, torture, and control their countrymen most effectively. They will sell to those with their bloody hands on the oil font.
They don’t want to. They want to sell to those who are morally superior, those who do not torture, kill, and divide the world into segments of us and the hated them. The morally superior make better customers. The morally superior practice empathy and respect for the individual. The individual in pursuit of happiness innovates, buys, and sells and makes for the best of customers. No one kills their best customer.

Morality has its incentives.