Embed Notice

Of course, this merchant got *something,* some satisfaction, from doing this, or else, presumably, he wouldn’t have done it.

But this merchant did spend an enormous amount of money to purchase the land, hire the laborers to construct it, and fund an endowment that has kept the hospital in operation for centuries. At the end of all that, he gave it away, for free.

That is to say, he did not engage in a commercial transaction with the residents of the hospital. They paid him nothing. Whatever benefit the merchant gained from this endeavor, he did not gain it by exchanging or trading with the residents of the hospital.

It’s a trope in capitalist modernity that human beings are naturally greedy, that we’re acquisitive and have infinite hedonic wants. We will not, I’ve been told over and over, work “for free,” something that proponents of capitalism see as a slam-dunk case against anti-capitalist systems that lack the incentives of wages and wealth.

2/