CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

310 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
longer serves to maximize good, then the promise can be broken. A
popular example in the literature is the deathbed wish. A competent
but dying person secures a commitment from a family member or
friend to take some action after the funeral. If a greater good is served
by breaking that commitment, the utilitarian position would generally
approve outcome in preference to obligation.
5. One of the major complaints lodged against strong utilitarianism
is that within its principles there is inadequate room for rights.
Bentham vehemently opposed any notion of rights existing prior
to or outside a utility calculation. To be fair, his primary targets
were the clergy and their rigid moral certainties and the aristocracy
and their special privileges. But in reducing rights to a question
of utility he is seen by many to have sacrificed rights to the
sum total of group interests.
6. Closely related, the idea of selective sacrifice is scorned by many
commentators. Bentham’s statement, “make sacrifice of a portion of
the happiness of a few to the greater happiness of the rest,” has led to
the question whether strict utilitarianism would justify slavery if it
could be shown to contribute to the greater happiness or productivity
of the society as a whole. Within Bentham’s formulations it is difficult
to arrive at any answer other than yes.
Ends justifying means, selective sacrifice, greatest good. These features
of strong utilitarianism emerged from the pen of Jeremy Bentham and his
immediate supporters at the same time that capitalism’s formative ideas of
free trade and laissez-faire were being accepted. Arising simultaneously, capitalism
and utilitarianism melded together into a structure that attempted to
address several issues in English society: the Industrial Revolution, the
clamor for wider political participation, a need for judicial reform, manifest
poverty, and burgeoning city populations. Utilitarianism found in capitalism
a system dedicated to maximizing advantages. Capitalism found in utilitarianism
a creed that allowed selective sacrifice and approved ends
justifying means. The two systems marched in tandem through the next two
centuries, presenting future philosophers—and capitalists—with problems
requiring careful reexamination.