It is in my opinion that over time a capitalistic free-market economy will always as a necessity allocates resources. For example, Walmart used to be all American products, but to make more money, they started buying goods from different countries. Since their standard of living is cheaper, therefore their products are cheaper. Another example would be farmers and their cows with their grassland. Farmers know that when as their cows graze, they start to ruin the grassland. Each year a farmer may want to get another cow for dairy products and food so he could make more money. All of the other farmers will do the same. Even though they know it is doing harm, they don’t think it matters because it is benefiting them. If we had a capitalistic free-market then everyone is going to want to buy another cow even though it is depleting the land. They would eventually have to move, but then they would do it all over again like a snowball effect. Also, we can do things that benefit ourselves and others, but it could affect a third party. An example of this would be the harvesting by one fishing company in the ocean that depletes the stock of available fish for the other companies and overfishing may be the result. This is an example of the Tragedy of the commons. We do things all the time which benefit us, but does not benefit others or other things. Just like the use of burning fossil fuels. It benefits us and we use it as much as we do, because we can. But, we don’t stop and think if it is causing a negative effect on ourselves, animals, plants, and the earth.
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