By determining how the base mode of production prioritizes them. It doesn’t matter what an individual prefers, ie we could say Musk as an individual seeks power, but in doing so has to satisfy the laws of capitalism and achieve higher and higher profits to maintain it. Musk isn’t primary, the system he has to abide by is. Capitalists aren’t the masters of capitalism, as Roderic Day says they are the high priests of capital that best abide its laws, ie the pursuit of profit.
Because capitalism is a control system that selects for those that are most profitable. If you don’t grow, you die.
You’re making a distinction between
How would we empirically tell which is happening?
By determining how the base mode of production prioritizes them. It doesn’t matter what an individual prefers, ie we could say Musk as an individual seeks power, but in doing so has to satisfy the laws of capitalism and achieve higher and higher profits to maintain it. Musk isn’t primary, the system he has to abide by is. Capitalists aren’t the masters of capitalism, as Roderic Day says they are the high priests of capital that best abide its laws, ie the pursuit of profit.