As much as I crap on certain leftists, they still have the ideology “I wish people were slightly more kinder” and I would love their ideology to be accepted common sense rather than current one.
I would be just as happier if they were considered the new “centrists.” And current right-wing considered far, far extreme.
would love their ideology to be accepted common sense rather than current one
The crazy thing is that the current economic system we utilize isn’t considered nonsensical.
I guess an economic system that requires infinite growth made a bit more sense during the age of discovery, when people were actively finding new continents to exploit. One would think that now we’ve definitively concluded we inhabit a closed system with a finite amount of natural resources, maybe just maybe we could evolve our economic system to reflect that?
I suggest a tweak to the argument that the economic system requiring infinite growth made sense - I don’t think it was a deliberate choice. What probably happened was that someone noticed they could make money off that growth via stocks and slowly we tied more and more of the economy to the stock market. It used to be that fortunes could be lost in stock trading, think the 1920s in the US or even the Dutch Tulip Mania in the 1600s. It was for rich people or people taking a risk. Quarterly reports weren’t a thing. It wasn’t a place for the common person at all. The investment done earlier was wildly different than today.
Now, a huge amount of wealth and financial security of the masses are tied to stocks. Retirement plans in particular. It became profitable to offload defined benefit programs in favor of 401ks. It became profitable to open up brokerages for everyman. CEO’s job security is often tied to quarterly earnings. Personal fortunes are made in stocks with the only prerequisite being lucky enough to have money/given stock options to invest and making the right choice (which is why nobody earns enough salary/works hard enough to be a billionaire or hundred-milllionaire, it’s all stock). The line must continue upwards. Almost nobody makes money by opening new markets or making new discoveries anymore, it’s not 1950. Tesla would be a rare example of a new market. But nowadays company advancement is too incremental to be profitable for most. So they make the line go up by enshittification and buying up the competition.
With so much riding on stocks they’ve become too big to fail. We’ve gone past stock purchases being used to prop up a company’s ability to advance as a gamble on the part of the investor and now we demand infinite growth to prop up a huge chunk of the economy.
I don’t even think capitalism requires infinite growth. It’s just how we built it. Not even since the beginning. That is, you could buy stock in a company to help them grow. Then they make a profit, and give you a share of that profit. Everyone is happy. You could sell that to someone else, and maybe they pay more than you’d get in a year, but they’ll make more in a long run as long as the company stays alive and can keep distributing profits. Everyone is happy.
It’s this idea that the money you make from investment should grow exponentially. This demand from professional stock traders that they be able to sell for obscene profits. The company must grow, and those profits must grow, or the shareholders will all sell in a panic and abandon them, and even a profitable company may go under.
Like why can’t the company just make some profit and distribute that profit among shareholders and employees and everyone be happy? It doesn’t HAVE to be more profit next year than last year, we just made it that way over time.
don’t even think capitalism requires infinite growth. It’s just how we built it. Not even since the beginning.
Eh… It’s kinda baked into a system of competition modified via supply and demand. If there’s not enough demand to initiate the growth of supply then you enter into a recession. Competition forces companies to invest in their avenues of growth so they don’t get cornered out of their market, which means they have to invest more into the company than other companies year over year.
In the beginning stages of capitalism competition is great for building markets, but towards the latter stages of capitalism, especially in fields with high fungibility, competition becomes destructive. Once this destructive competition becomes the norm the only escape for companies to remain profitable and continue growing is to monopolize, conglimorize, or ironically become heavily regulated.
It’s this idea that the money you make from investment should grow exponentially. This demand from professional stock traders that they be able to sell for obscene profits. The company must grow, and those profits must grow, or the shareholders will all sell in a panic and abandon them, and even a profitable company may go under.
It’s not really an option for companies to stagnate, not only because they legally have to make as much profit as possible for shareholders, but because the nature of competition in the market will eventually force them to go under, or more likely be bought up by the competition.
It doesn’t HAVE to be more profit next year than last year, we just made it that way over time.
It’s kinda always been that way, at least since the emergence of business done on a national scale. A lot of the reason Federalism became popularized was because businesses required unified regulation across state lines. Just look at the economic history of railroads and oil tycoons and you’ll see the same scenarios were undergoing today on a smaller scale.
I can’t tell if you crap on leftists who are too far left, or what I seem to be interpreting this as where you’re crapping on american leftists that are actually not very left at all lol
both are valid. and proper left is somewhere between them imo lol
Some ideologies want to be the boot pressing down on other’s necks and set the world on fire.
The rest aren’t so bad compared to that.
I like this comment.
As much as I crap on certain leftists, they still have the ideology “I wish people were slightly more kinder” and I would love their ideology to be accepted common sense rather than current one.
I would be just as happier if they were considered the new “centrists.” And current right-wing considered far, far extreme.
The crazy thing is that the current economic system we utilize isn’t considered nonsensical.
I guess an economic system that requires infinite growth made a bit more sense during the age of discovery, when people were actively finding new continents to exploit. One would think that now we’ve definitively concluded we inhabit a closed system with a finite amount of natural resources, maybe just maybe we could evolve our economic system to reflect that?
Eh, sorry it became kinda a WoT.
I suggest a tweak to the argument that the economic system requiring infinite growth made sense - I don’t think it was a deliberate choice. What probably happened was that someone noticed they could make money off that growth via stocks and slowly we tied more and more of the economy to the stock market. It used to be that fortunes could be lost in stock trading, think the 1920s in the US or even the Dutch Tulip Mania in the 1600s. It was for rich people or people taking a risk. Quarterly reports weren’t a thing. It wasn’t a place for the common person at all. The investment done earlier was wildly different than today.
Now, a huge amount of wealth and financial security of the masses are tied to stocks. Retirement plans in particular. It became profitable to offload defined benefit programs in favor of 401ks. It became profitable to open up brokerages for everyman. CEO’s job security is often tied to quarterly earnings. Personal fortunes are made in stocks with the only prerequisite being lucky enough to have money/given stock options to invest and making the right choice (which is why nobody earns enough salary/works hard enough to be a billionaire or hundred-milllionaire, it’s all stock). The line must continue upwards. Almost nobody makes money by opening new markets or making new discoveries anymore, it’s not 1950. Tesla would be a rare example of a new market. But nowadays company advancement is too incremental to be profitable for most. So they make the line go up by enshittification and buying up the competition.
With so much riding on stocks they’ve become too big to fail. We’ve gone past stock purchases being used to prop up a company’s ability to advance as a gamble on the part of the investor and now we demand infinite growth to prop up a huge chunk of the economy.
I don’t even think capitalism requires infinite growth. It’s just how we built it. Not even since the beginning. That is, you could buy stock in a company to help them grow. Then they make a profit, and give you a share of that profit. Everyone is happy. You could sell that to someone else, and maybe they pay more than you’d get in a year, but they’ll make more in a long run as long as the company stays alive and can keep distributing profits. Everyone is happy.
It’s this idea that the money you make from investment should grow exponentially. This demand from professional stock traders that they be able to sell for obscene profits. The company must grow, and those profits must grow, or the shareholders will all sell in a panic and abandon them, and even a profitable company may go under.
Like why can’t the company just make some profit and distribute that profit among shareholders and employees and everyone be happy? It doesn’t HAVE to be more profit next year than last year, we just made it that way over time.
Eh… It’s kinda baked into a system of competition modified via supply and demand. If there’s not enough demand to initiate the growth of supply then you enter into a recession. Competition forces companies to invest in their avenues of growth so they don’t get cornered out of their market, which means they have to invest more into the company than other companies year over year.
In the beginning stages of capitalism competition is great for building markets, but towards the latter stages of capitalism, especially in fields with high fungibility, competition becomes destructive. Once this destructive competition becomes the norm the only escape for companies to remain profitable and continue growing is to monopolize, conglimorize, or ironically become heavily regulated.
It’s not really an option for companies to stagnate, not only because they legally have to make as much profit as possible for shareholders, but because the nature of competition in the market will eventually force them to go under, or more likely be bought up by the competition.
It’s kinda always been that way, at least since the emergence of business done on a national scale. A lot of the reason Federalism became popularized was because businesses required unified regulation across state lines. Just look at the economic history of railroads and oil tycoons and you’ll see the same scenarios were undergoing today on a smaller scale.
I can’t tell if you crap on leftists who are too far left, or what I seem to be interpreting this as where you’re crapping on american leftists that are actually not very left at all lol
both are valid. and proper left is somewhere between them imo lol