this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Yeah, it's the ultimate midwit take. Smart enough to realise it's an abstraction, not smart enough to realise that there's a base reality (goods themselves being scarce) beneath it.
Food isn't scarce.
Capitalism must create scarcity to justify its existence.
We live in a post scarcity society. It blow my mind that more people aren't screaming that from the top of their lungs.
We could have automated trains delivering food to every corner of this nation - but instead billionaires launch cars into space and build death tunnels to nowhere.
This is one of those sayings that took a long time to sink in for me, despite my undergrad economics minor.
It feels like it shouldn't be true but that's only if you don't really understand that business exists to maximize profits, not maximize goods and services provided. Next, that profits can increase even if units sold decreases. In a for profit company the number of units sold or services provided will be the number where profit is the most, not the number where the units/services are the most (unless they happen to be the same).
Think of this old trades saying, if you double your price, but only lose half your customers, you still make the same profits. Data driven business knows this, especially in oligopolistic fields like food production, and it's likely the reason inflation on food is so bad. They can double the price of a loaf, and half as many people buy, so profits go up , they literally don't care if you eat, they generate scarcity by producing below their maximum output. They trade production for profit.
That's just my long ass way of saying "Capitalism must create scarcity to justify its existence."
Yes it is. Is there enough food for everyone to have whatever they want? No. Then it's a scarce good.
Yes there is.
There really isn't. There's enough for everyone to have what they need, but that's still a scarce good.
You're contradicting yourself in the same sentence.
And without imaginary money we'd still be trading cows and chickens for things.
That's a myth. Bartering wasn't really a thing as it's presented in most lower level history classes.
Most civilizations dealt in community sharing before currency was invented.
It wasn't a case of "I have 3 chickens for your 12 loafs of bread." It was more like "I grew more wheat than I need this season and my neighbors goats are producing more milk than they need. If we put it together, we both have a nice meal."