written 25 May, 2025
published 1 June, 2025
Capitalism lowers costs to provide more affordable products. Labor has long been viewed as a cost to be reduced. Using machines, and now robots, which are fixed cost hardware, productivity increases, making human workers redundant. Some large factories have more robots than humans, and the ideal is no human workers at all. But we live in a consumer economy, which grows by encouraging people to buy ever more goods and services each year. With fiscal concerns demanding a lowest cost economy, and fewer people are employed to make what is consumed, can the economy support any customers?
Can a multi billionaire be expected to know anything about our life? Does our standard of living depend on others being impoverished?
A robust economy needs long term investments in infrastructure and manufacturing. For example, the housing market is based on the 30-year mortgage, often at a fixed interest rate. The US economy has been relatively stable for decades, so the US dollar has been a global standard where people around the world can invest reliably. The chaotic turmoil of extreme tariffs, changing weekly with the whims of our leader, brings that economic stability into question. Do we benefit if the macho economic bullying of the rest of the planet sinks the US dollar?
Should a political office be for sale to the highest bidder? Is public corruption OK if it is blatant?
Most people of color have directly experienced racist discrimination, or know others who have. Most women have experienced misogynistic sexism, or know others who have. Most white men are ignorant of this experience. Does that ignorance explain their arrogance?
Is money constitutionally protected speech? Are corporations really people, with rights over actual humans?
Ideal capitalism assumes all the costs in producing a product or service are reflected in the price. But economic reality includes "externalized costs", which are not factored into the sale price, and wind up being paid by other people, who may not be included in the transaction, and may not know the costs for decades. This may be intentional fraud, or the result of ignorance, but the costs get paid eventually, which distorts the entire society. How can we know if the best deal is really the cheapest price in the moment?
Is it OK to make money selling a product that poisons people? Is it better if the people being poisoned don't know about it at the time? Is it more acceptable if taxes are paid?
We have seen explosive changes with the rise of computers, the Internet, and smart phones. How we communicate and do business has radically changed, driving some businesses to extinction, speeding the pace of all transactions. People now have unprecedented power in their pocket, with access to the information from around the world, and the ability to communicate with anyone almost anywhere. The underlying unity of the world is manifested materially. But that connection has also spawned global scams and frauds, massive disinformation campaigns, and the rise of cyber terrorism by criminals and hostile nation states. Can we be connected without being ripped off?
Which is more important, competition or cooperation? Which is more important, breathing in or breathing out?
Our existing global economy is only possible with relatively cheap energy to power production and transportation. But we have already consumed the most affordable fossil fuels, and are moving too slowly to renewable sources and living on our global energy income. As more people consume more material while living on a finite planet, how does it end? Are humans no smarter than beer yeast, explosively populating, eventually dying in their own waste? Will extraterrestrials show up, bottle our atmosphere, and sell it for a good time somewhere else?
The rest of the world is going green. Why should they listen to the ignorant scold in the White House? What happens when America is left behind?
Boosters claim the free market is best for the economy. But short term gains are more valued than long term gains. The first hostile takeover was a relatively sustainable lumber company. Then harvest rates were tripled, completely clear cut in a few years, workers were laid off, and the company was then sold off in pieces. Such processes are now a global. What happens when the entire planet has been clear cut, and shut down?
Money is a concept, but life is an experience. Which is more valuable?
