One of the interesting things to me in the current discussions over capitalism, is that those who talk down about capitalism typically blame the profit model of the free-market for the ills of life under capitalism. Some are convinced that the government ought to be involved in certain things because if you remove, health care, for example, from the free-market, then the profit motive is removed and the system can become more humane and reasonable. 

I don’t buy that for the reason that profit motive (greed) is just one instantiation of a larger problem of human nature: self-interest. Removing the profit motive doesn’t remove self-interest. Self-interest works just as insidiously with someone in a government role as it does in the free-market. Someone working in government, or even whole departments of the government, are just as self-interested and greedy as those in business.  Individuals, or departments, will want to make sure their personal livelihoods are as protected and prosperous as anyone else. They will have the same desires to see their lives bettered as anyone else and they will do whatever they have to do to ensure that. People don’t miraculously switch from greedy to altruistic simply because they went from a free-market to a government job. 

Maybe worse, at least in the free-market, consumers can choose whether they want to buy from a particular vendor. But if the government is the only vendor, then there is no way to ‘vote with your dollars’ in a sense. You simply get what you get with no recourse to other options.