Capitalism is not mutually exclusive with ethical intentions – the aff’s charity cannibalistic representation of capitalism is not holistic, falling victim to “or” rather than the possibility of “and”.

We have learned under principles of quantum physics not to see reality as separated “things” walled off from one another by boundaries. Subatomic activity arises from the interaction of fluid potentials, not from hard particles bouncing into each other. Whatever there is both matter and energy. Whether it is one or the other depends on how we humans conceptualize it. Reality can look like matter and yet act like energy. As these subatomic chameleons interact with one another in our bubble chambers, they appear temporarily in our scientific instruments as up to 12 different particles. But are they really 12 different Newtonian and Cartesian “things”? As Margaret J. Wheatley writes: “There is no need to decide between two things, pretending they are separate. What is critical is the relationship created between two or more elements.” Similarly, at the level of the human ,both virtue and self-interest can inhere in the same action. Which human potential prevails—either virtue as a check on self-interest or self-interest as a deviation from virtue—depends on the actors, the energy fields surrounding them, and the issues of the moment. To say that an action is either pure virtue or crass self-interest reflects intellectual poverty, conceptualizing only the two polar extremes, while ignoring the zone of overlap where self-interest is “considered upon the whole.” Looking at the effects of time gives another perspective on the overlap of self-interest and virtue. Decisions made for our short-term advantage often bring negative long-term consequences that can far outweigh in their effects any advantages we have initially gained. Thus, in business, the results of fraud are short-term profit but, once discovery of our deceit occurs, our fraud brings about long-term and possibly permanent corruption of our ability to get what we want from others. Whenever we focus on the short term, we tend to minimize our goals, falling victim to the tyranny of the “Or” and forgetting the genius of the “And.”