Making the World Safe for Predatory Capitalism
by DEAN BAKER
▻http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/07/making-the-world-safe-for-predatory-capitalism
... in today’s economy, getting rich does not necessarily require better serving your customers. A series by the New York Times on arbitration clauses in contracts shows that one of the best ways to make money is to find ways to rip off your customers.
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The outcome is not only unfair in allowing these debt collectors to prey on many low- and moderate-income people, but it also represents a real failure by the legal and economic system. In a capitalist economy we expect people to be motivated by the desire to make money. But we should be structuring incentives so that the best way to make money is by developing better technology, better products or better ways to service customers.
Instead, recent Supreme Court rulings holding up these arbitration scams mean that one of the best ways to make money is to rip people off in writing contracts. Expertise in writing deceptive contracts is not a way to a better economy or a better country.