The problem is that seeking growth at all costs allows the accumulation of economic and political power. The people in charge do not distinguish between personal success and a better world, and therefore see no difference between economic growth and a better world.
this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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Where they call plutocracy democracy and democracy is basically plutocracy
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(3 replies)
but what of the shareholders?
/s
This is the biggest problem with economical growth.
All the FAANG or whatever their called these days can hit 1000% growth tomorrow, and suddenly, our economical growth skyrockets.
But that doesn't mean anything for the average person. At all.
The constant need for growth really bothers me. I live in a rural area. People move here because it's natural and quiet and cost of living is low. Then they complain that there is no Target and no Chik Fila and not enough jobs. The board of supervisors is full of developers. Once they finish building out the county we will be just like every other suburban hell.
Not just the constant need for that sort of growth. In our late-stage capitalist society, companies are expected to make more profit than last year every single year. As if that is somehow sustainable.
Exactly, that is a ridiculous, anti-consumer and anti-environment standard.
Apple has made record profits of $X billion dollars this quarter. However, that is only $3 billion more than last year same quarter.
You're right, Greg. One has to wonder: will Apple be bankrupt next year?
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And then they will leave for a more idyllic life in the country because it's so noisy.
I'm pretty sure the large open field behind my house, which used to be full of trees, is going to be turned into another gated neighborhood full of cookie cutter houses. And I just know someone is going to be close to my back yard, and they are going to whine about my wife's chickens, especially since one of them is a rooster.
So they will piss and moan and try to make us get rid of the rooster. And then they will probably get a small dog that yaps all night.
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Destroy capitalism.
Got it.
Capitalism has one positive, and that's the notion of competition leading to the best outcome as they try to win over consumers.
We've lost that though with how unfettered it's become in general. Companies merge and conspire, eliminating competition.
Public universities and research actually produce the most amount of innovation. Another one of capitalisms lies
There's a difference between lab bench research and discoveries and then actually making them into usable products on a mass scale. That's a big part of where engineering comes into focus, on that scale up. There's a lot of research that proves impractical in reality because the synthesis of a material is really finicky or the purification of it is exceedingly difficult.
That said, I actually agree that private industry shouldn't be part of this space. Companies shouldn't be sponsoring research and picking winners like this. We need something analogous to national labs that's focused solely on the scale up of discoveries -- taking something discovered in a university or national lab and making it usable for the everyday person. And from there companies can get licenses from the government to offer the technology to consumers and make their own innovations, all of which must be reported to the government.
... So I think I've just convinced myself that you're right and I agree with you, actually.
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It's become more of a competition as to who can fool and subsequently fuck over the consumers more.
Exactly. We've let them become way too powerful. They shouldn't be able to do this.
Competition doesn't lead to innovation in improving people's lives, but company profits. See: enshittification.
I see that as a consequence of the absurd monopolies we have. The best product should be what's the most popular, and enshittification is counter to that. It tanks the product quality, and in a market with lots of competitors, it would be punished.
It is one of the consequences of monopolies, but monopolies are a consequence of economic competition.
The "winner" gets the losers stuff and customers (mergers for example), making the winner bigger and more able to manipulate the market to their benefit.
When there are few enough companies profits can be chased without consideration for anything else (planned obsolescence, shipping jobs outside the country, lay-offs, etc.)
So, like you said except in a for profit market, monopolies are inevitable.
In the absence of regulation, absolutely. If we had more stringent anti trust legislation though it might be possible to avoid.
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(3 replies)
This is how capitalism has always worked.
When companies compete, eventually some of them lose. This means they go out of business.
The remaining companies become more powerful.
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Billionares:
"Fuck more!"
How can we expect those lines to keep going up without a steady supply of fresh recruits for the grinder.
I'd bet at a certain point of societal development economic growth is linked with many positives. Unfortunately, we probably adopted it as our only metric and the min/max'ers have taken it to its most extreme. Now when we look at the data we are way outside the range where it's a useful indicator. Our targets are too high and we need to monitor other indicators of prosperity.
The wealthy have certainly reinforced growth as the ultimate metric.
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“Lol. Um, what.”
- capitalists
If your only goal is that most people can live decently and reduce exploitation, abuse, and such, yeah, sure.
But if you just want to amass money, then, no.
A choice was made.
Economic growth is fine to a point. Problem is measuring economic growth through the arbitrary price of a small group of companies using a market system designed for gambling rather than long-term investing. Better is to base it on the amount of goods exchanged across all levels of society. When the top has all the money and increases their stock prices by buying and selling their own stocks, and the rest can't afford to participate in the economy beyond necessities, that's not a good economy.
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