Confronting Capitalism

FIVE

COMPANIES NOT COVERING THEIR “SOCIAL COSTS”

The only way you may correct the bad things in your past is to add better things to your future.

—SHILOH MORRISON

Capitalism works best when there is perfect information and perfect mobility characterizing all of the market participants. A producer would know the costs of producing in different places and be free to move production to lower-cost areas. And consumers would know where the best-paying jobs are and be able to move to the best-paying jobs.

But information and mobility are far from perfect. Each producer and consumer has to bear the cost of information search and mobility. A move to another location for production or consumption would pay as long as the gross improvement in the producer’s ...