Why has the world gone to shit?
In the last 5 to 10 years everything seems to suck: product's and services quality plummeted, everything from homes to cars to food became really expensive, technology stopped to help us to be something designed to f@ck with us and our money, nobody seems to be able to hold a job anymore, everyone is broke. Life seems worse in general.
Why? Did COVID made this happen? How?
Covid made things worse, but the fundamentals were bad.
We are in the middle of a massive tightening of the labor market as boomers retire and there aren't enough young adults to fill the gap. This is causing major ripples in the market, with a very antagonistic relationship forming between capital trying to keep labor costs down and labor tired of the bullshit.
This is causing some mild inflation, so companies are jacking up prices since they have an excuse to. This increased inflation is making the time value of money cost more. So now you have companies that were losing money having to scramble to finally generate a profit. This is causing the enshittification of the Internet and the loss of jobs in the tech sector.
The worse economy is causing political problems as it is harder for politicians to justify their positions in power. This encourages conflict between nations and the justification to deny some people of social benefits to create an underclass to benefit voters.
I agree with this, and I'd like to add that the wealth gap focusing on funneling money to the top is obviously not helping the quality of products, responsible production , or fair compensation for most of the world.
You see it all started when some dumb motherfuckers decided to leave the relatively plentiful African Savannah for the dead-land that was the desert. Then they had to invent agriculture and it was all downhill from there.
I've seen the argument made that there was no mental illness (non phyiso-neurological, I suppose?) And therefore civilization is worse per se.
I mean.. animals, disease, murder, rape, starvation, hydration.. but still not living in the same ongoing trauma anxiety state of today
There's no objective "answer" to this, just sharing an idea I've seen
Thank you for this excellent writeup.
A lot of mistakes/repercussions was readily documented beforehand and could have been avoided by proper regulations (even by not removing sane ones such as the Glass–Steagall legislation).
Moreover, Climate Change is affecting a larger and larger part of the stochastic increases in instability: from extreme localized weather and regional aberration to global temperature anomaly affecting every part of the planet differently.
However, we live in a world whereas bombastic contrarians are lauded, even elevated to positions of power or at the center of important decision making processes. No wonder we keep being surprised by avoidable disasters.
In the UK, 14 years of Conservative government has really made the rot grow.
Y'all have been going hard at Americanism for a minute now. I remember the beginning of the new world media thinking, "oh shit, there as obese and decrepit as us"
Shareholder value. Companies are cutting everything they can to increase stakeholder value: wages, quality, support, ownership, etc.
Capitalism is the answer. We're in the part of capitalism where regular people are almost completely out of money. Bezos is building company towns preparing for a huge influx of new desperate Amazon employees.
The question "Why has the world gone to shit in the past 5 to 10 years" has routinely been asked every five to ten years throughout history. It's largely due to the perceptual biases of the human mind.
That's true, but the information age allows us to be more keenly aware of problems that aren't just local. Our new ability to be online has contributed to an uptick in mental health issues.
Fortunately, being able to shine a spotlight on problems in the world also puts pressure on us to improve. We do have issues like financial inequality and global warming that have recently gotten worse, but if you look at trends like violent crime, illiteracy, global hunger, extreme poverty, child mortality, or deaths to many longstanding diseases, it is hard not to realize that we're actually collectively doing a good job of making the world better.
One of the major reasons is that Milton Friedman had a thought back in the 70s that fucking everyone in the western world latched onto, and the consequences have been getting worse and worse for the average person for most of the time since then.
Of course, neoliberals don't actually believe in neoliberalism, they profit off it's failure.
If you give a rich person even more money and it never trickles down, you just gave a rich person money. If you're claim companies will regulate themselves and they don't, you just gave companies the freedom to do exploitative, dangerous things in search of bigger profits.
If neoliberalism actually delivered on any of its promises, neoliberals wouldn't support it.
It's nothing more than a book of pre-made lies that sound plausible enough for a press conference and signal to other neoliberals that their feeding trough is being filled.
Knew the what. Not the how/why we got there. Thanks for sharing.
Indeed. Knowing how we got here is the first step to fixing it.
Shareholder primacy is older than that. Check out Dodge v. Ford
Sure, but him writing that op-ed in the NYT popularized it to the degree that it became an explicit goal of pretty much all corporate leadership people from that point on.
I think the enshitification of the Internet was sort of just what happens to everything once it gets monetized. It was already happening before COVID.
On the other hand - when I was growing up, my city was rough. So much violent crime, bands would not come here, it was notorious. Now? No. Violet crime has decreased sharply, my kids grew up in a different world than I did.
Jobs haven't become less secure, or at least not in my experience, that change happened in the 1980s, and it's been about the same since.
Everyone is broke because of Ronald Reagan, for lack of a better way to explain it. Deregulation. Workers have gotten ever more productive without getting their cut of that increase in productivity and this is the endgame of that trend.
The rise in interest rates meant easy money dried up for corporations. They all had to "monitize" at the same time. That's why enshitification happened everywhere at the same time. Things are easing. Enshitification will slow down.
You see, it all started in May, 2016 with this Gorilla being killed. That's when this timeline split off....
RIP. We didn't know what we had until it was gone.
Things were getting really good in the late 1990's to early 2000's. Pay was up, more people were making money and starting companies.
Then 2008 happened.
Since then the lower 99% have been fighting over less and less. Some people try to build, but it often gets destroyed by others. Some take their anger out on the physically near them.
Every major crisis, the bourgeoisie claim more and more while the Proletariat loses more and more, because they have to spend their money on survival while the wealthy can swoop in and claim cheap Capital.
Then 2008 happened.
I am going to assume you reference the financial meltdown that had been brewing for years and had been fore-ordained by the weakening of regulations by prior administrations... correct?
edit: but, of course it could also he the incoherent rage of the right over a non-white president. so many options, so little thoughtfulness from a certain segment of the electorate.
They're obviously talking about the recession. You're ascribing malice for absolutely no reason in an attempt to distract from economic realities
I meant the financial meltdown. I debated calling it the 2007, as that is when the cracks started. I acknowledge that the financial meltdown has is roots far earlier, but all financial meltdowns do.
If you haven't watched The Big Short, you should. Michael Lewis breaks it down nicely. He does really good books and movies that show the rot and corruption that we need to root out with regulations and better funding.
You missed the 80's. The 90's could've been even better if it didn't get fucked by Conservatives.
The powers that be realised that a non-stop feed of bad news for you to Doom scroll makes people apathetic and apethic people don't protest, or revolt, or even vote against you. They go through life scrolling on their phone and just accept whatever life gives them.
It's not even a concious conspiracy, it's just the result of "the attention economy".
Greed
like.. seriously this.
Normal function of capitalism. It has superseded law. Just "accumulate".
Greed, wanting stuff, precipitates giving value in return for value. Regardless of motives everybody benefits. This is a free market.
Throw in an institution that can manipulate & distort free market forces - government - then you get parasites that use the violence of that institution for non reciprocated greed. This creates distortions in wealth and power in favour of the scrupulous.
Are you American? Because I seem to recall between five and ten years ago a particular event that changed the way we ran a lot of the government.
People underestimate the depths of the fuckedupedness of practical every day functioning regulating govt shit as a result of it
Thing is most people on earth would do the same if given the opportunity to become ultra wealthy.
The issue is the system allows people to become ultra wealthy
No, most people would not.
Most people would share, or hit a point and think "OK, that's enough for anything I really want personally... I'm gonna try and help out now.."
Nobody in their right mind should want a world where they are privately wealthy, but publically impoverished.
Because then, you have no security.
Someone will always be gunning for you.
You can stave it off by layering brute force, and laws, but there is no such thing as 100% secure. Eventually something will make it through, and wreak havoc. And because all you now care about, over everything, is whatever paltry "wealth" you've managed to secure, the catastrophe is magnified orders of magnitude. You have no real friends or community to turn to, nobody who would support you if you didn't have the most, and the rules didn't make you "king" because of it.
It's a sickness.
The issue with the system is that we are locked within it. You can't escape capitalism. It has superseded law. We are just tumbling around in the algorithm.
Nah, only about 5% of the population have antisocial personality disorders. That's a lot of people, but not "most."
I think it is the natural result of capitalism, that's what happens when you let it run. The system makes it inevitable.
Yeah, this is why capitalism should be treated like a dangerous dog and kept on a short leash. It can kind of work out for a while when a government restrains it, ensures that legislation exists and is enforced to protect workers, the environment, and consumers. Strong unions are a good sign. This never seems to last though, because the governments get bought eventually.
Who came up with the "end game"? O.o
The scale and proportions of this are all fucked, the rich take substantially more from the state than the non-rich. Is this a sarcastic meme or is this like shaming 'welfare queens'?
nice meme, bold of you to assume however that all rich people don't take all the money from the state they can get their hands on
For the US it all started (well more accelerated) with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CitizensUnitedv.FEC#Opinionofthecourt and since we have a knock on effect with the rest of the world...
Wtf I didn't know that there is a clear reason for corpos getting political! Thank you for this, I really had no idea about it!
bernie talks about it. rails against it really. to bad the rest of congress is releatively silent on it given the damage it did.
Don't forget that global climate change has really kicked into gear the last few years. Just 10 years ago, summer in Arizona was terrible, but you wouldn't get third degree burns from falling on the ground. The polar vortex is getting all screwed up, causing severe cold in winter on one half of the northern hemisphere while the other half experiences very very mild winter weather. global weather phenomena are getting more and more severe, and still the people who actually can effect change on large scale are loathe to do so because it would hurt their bottom line. Hell in a hand basket would be an apt descriptor for where we're going and how we're getting there.
*Pitchfork, and I'd rather have nuclear weapons if that's what we're up against.
Religion, tribe mentality, greed.
Paraphrasing TE Lawrence
So long as people fight against eachother, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are.
Succinct
Capitalism arrived at its limit. Now it must do these shitty things to continue to grow profits. Basically it's now cannibalising itself. Next there will be fascism and war so that it can reboot the machine.
Someone is gonna come in here and complain like "ohh those commies are always blaming capitalism for everything!" But seriously, every point listed by OP is because we live under a system that requires endless growth for profit, this is the logical conclusion.
So, before I say "capitalism" like everyone else id like to argue many of the monetary/economic policy can be used by either authoritarian state capitalists or free capitalists alike.
https://42macro.com/education Edit: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjqe6xtZYTfvA4pHs0HgJsQ
This can be useful^ it's a brief read. Also I love Adam Taggart, he's a really good person to follow on YouTube for economics.
Things were getting bad for a while, and we kick the can down the road until an exponentially worse problem arrives, then repeat. Let's look at COVID for now tho instead of going back decades
COVID happens, society has to adapt, and now there's growth issues with the economy (growth domestic product or gross domestic income)
First, government gives a shit ton of stimulus checks to the consumer market. A market is a collection of buyers and sellers. The consumer market is a collection of buyers and sellers who spend their money on one thing and don't retain that value. So most of the stimmy money went from consumers to corporations. To give you an idea, over the last 3 years we've seen 35% of inflation that is never going away, it will forever weigh on the consumer market (and that's the market that needs to be well off for an economy to be anything more than the stock/financial market)
Second, Fed sees an incoming recession so they lower interest rates to make banking loans cheaper to encourage investment to increase growth again. This means people who are not suffering from the economy can easily afford another house since they're basically not paying any interest on it, then rent it out to Airbnb or whatever.
All these things cause growth in the short term, while making inflation a much worse problem in the long term.
FED starts raising interest rates slowly over the last year or 2. Now they're about to lower them again which is a sign we're in for another recession, but let's look at what raising interest rates did:
Banks operate on a very tight margin and raising interest rates hurts banks in the short term and takes a while for markets to react to (which is part of the reason why we saw so many bank closures like silicon valley bank)
But raising interest rates also makes it more expensive for people to afford mortgage payments.
H.O.P.E: housing , orders, profits, employment
When mortgage payments got more expensive housing got expensive. When housing gets expensive orders go down and/or credit card usage goes up (which is another separate problem / indicator). When orders go down profits go down, and when profits go down employment goes down.
It should be worth noting the one thing J Powell did right was creating slack in job openings to prevent a complete crash in the labor market, but that's the last thing to crash in a recession so we're still just kicking the can down the road.
That's the best analysis I can do with respect to COVID, but some other interesting things:
The average boomer is 2 years into retirement. The labor force is going to continue shrinking for the next 7 years. It won't be this bad in America, but in south east asian countries, there's going to reach a point where there are more old people than young people, and when that happens there's not enough people to care for the elderly and support the rest of the economy, so both tend to suffer. America will feel this pain as well, but our population "pyramid" is more of an hourglass, where south east asian is an upside down pyramid
Also, geopolitical tensions are likely going to get worse over the next few years. China manufactures everything consumers like that don't have to do with defense, so things like smartphones are going to get much more expensive , and tech stocks are likely to suffer. Edit: not to mention food and gas prices increasing from Ukraine war (which isn't in the Feds basket of goods for inflation which is HILARIOUSLY STUPID considering that's their excuse for inflation)
Also, there's tons of shadow banks with stealth liquidity where there's no information how much money they have. So however bad inflation was the last few years and will continue to get with the Fed cutting rates, it can get MUCH worse once those banks start releasing their liquidity.
So, things are bad and they're going to get worse before there's a chance things get better. I really recommend listening to Adam Taggart and the people he interviews to help form your decision making
Your post was highly informative and surprisingly apolitical given the topics at hand. High five man.
I’ll read your link later.
Thanks! 42macro is by Darius Dale, he was interviewed by Adam Taggart and on wealthion
Gas prices feed through to consumers by raising the cost of energy for everyone except those not using gas. So it seems reasonable to not double count it by adding it to the basket as well.
The only real gas consumers use is for heating and cooking - and that is very low volume compared to the impact on us from costs to producers going up.
Where can I find an unbiased list of these shadow banks?
From Google:
Examples of shadow banks or financial intermediaries not subject to regulation include hedge funds, private equity funds, mortgage lenders, and even large investment banks
Shadow banks aren't illegal, just have loose regulations
Capitalist governments are pro-finance, not pro-people. Totalitarian gvmts (China etc) are pro-system, not pro-people. They're just different ways of maintaining classes of people who control the power/finances.
There's always been an uber-rich elite, all the way from the first tribal chieftain or Pharaoh or whatever until now and there's always been a huge underclass of the rest of us. The first law of any hierarchy is to protect the people at the top.
What we see today (in Westernised countries) is the natural, logical progression of economics driven democracy. Economic theorists say wealthy people create wealth by purposefully distributing it via jobs etc but in reality they do everything possible to minimise the loss of what they see as their money by abusing labour laws, privatising everything, trying to kill unions, creating convoluted laws to protect their fortunes, avoiding taxes and hiking prices up to the point most of us are just about surviving with enough carrot to ignore or pretend we don't see the stick.
And we're willing participants in that system. We know this is happening but we're dazzled by lotteries holding out the chance to join the rich, promises of work making us rich and a media which lionises the elite as some kind of fabulous aspirational status to the point we have people on social media faking a rich lifestyle for internet points.
The uber rich believe they're better than us and our acquiescence with this system really means we agree with them.
I agree broadly with much of your assessment of history and many of the problems that bely current western society. The rich might be exploiting capitalism to their benefit but a capitalist system with proper regulation will always be better (in terms of Quality of life and freedom) for larger groups of people Than a planned economy.
Planned economies were the means to the end not the end. Basing it around authoritarian, suppressive, dictatorial government is what made it the end. That said, apart from freedom of speech issues. Capitalism struggles in most aspects to truly be better, even at its best. Because capitalism ends up authoritarian and suppressive as well. Those with all the wealthy and resources don't tolerate those who are against their theft.
We should be moving past both.
Possibly but I can't think of a time that's been attempted, let alone successfully implemented. Capitalism always (it seems to me) ends up morphing into a system to protect wealth and the wealthy. They would never, ever allow 'proper regulation' (by which I assume you mean regulation to protect workers as much as the rich) to happen.
Capitalism isn't a national thing - its global - there's always going to be places where what one country forbids another country allows. All a rich person or company has to do is transfer their base of operations there to circumnavigate most laws and pay lip service to the laws of the countries they operate in. Look at Amazon or Starbucks.
It'd need some pretty strong regulation, but it could work out very well
Here's the thing... There's always shit hitting the fan, that doesn't change. What has changed is our perception. We see everything that happens everywhere all the time right in the palm of our hands. Our ability to have control over any of it hasn't changed much. I was born in the 60s when a president, presidential candidate and a civil rights leader were assassinated which is pretty intense and everyone is aware of it. There were other events that were "big deals" at the time that younger people today aren't aware of. It's a thing that strikes me as I get older. I guess that's how it goes, we all together stress over one thing or another. The first one I remember getting wrapped up in was the Swine Flu outbreak in the 70's. My 5th grade class got a new textbook with a picture right inside the cover of a kid getting an inoculation shot. The needle device looked more like an industrial staple gun than a traditional needle and I was scared shirtless of it. I waited for my turn to get that shot and it never came. The next news headline replaced Swine Flu and the whole thing blew over. My point is these things come and they go, it's nothing new. I'm not saying don't be concerned about the state of things just don't stress out too hard. It's not on your shoulders to save the world at least not yours alone. You do have an effect on things just not everything.
A significant part of it is that for a couple decades our economy was based on bullshit. Instead of companies being profitable, especially in tech, their primary goal was to attract venture capital. There was a lot of money floating around with not many easy options to make it grow. Investors were willing to take big risks for the possibility of big future returns. Executives ywe're happy to spend as much as they could and hire as much as they could because the more they spent the higher the company's valuation would be, regardless of current profit.
With the interest rates rising, money is abandoning riskier investments. All these places that had tons of cash flowing in because they might be the next big thing are suddenly trying to be profitable now.
This is compounded by companies wanting constant growth, and flat out refusing to take any of the hit. Investors want companies to show profit now, and goddamn if they're not going to deliver. (Even if it does cost future revenue and stability.) So instead they're trying to push the entire burden onto consumers and are just testing how much they will tolerate.
Are you still buying coke and Pepsi products? Because their prices have doubled in five years. For a lot of cheap things, especially food, demand is fairly inelastic. People gotta eat, and they're not looking to change any habits based on prices.
I, for one have cut way back on coke/Pepsi products. It's not because I can't afford $13/case, because I can. I can afford $20/case without really noticing. I refuse, mostly out of spite. (Unless there's a good sale.) Those companies don't need to improve their 2019 profit margin of 20% (it's now 23%). First, that profit margin excludes the ridiculous salaries of execs. Second, 20% of $13 is already a bigger number than 20% of $6 was. They don't need to both increase their profit percentage WHILE increasing their prices. They're double dipping. And they're passing none of that windfall to consumers or the government or to their employees.
I don't know how to phrase this, and it's just my silly opinion, but I also think the thing that has changed is that our populations have gotten so large with enough chunks of it financially illiterate that it's become impossible to put pressure on corporations.
What I mean is, for every one of YOU there are 3 idiots that will pay the inflated price and put it on the card because they don't know / care how to spend.
It's the same trend everywhere.
Cars, heated seat subscription? Something that should instantly nuke a company, barley does anything because enough idiots with money are buying it.
1000 $ phones with less features? Again, idiots buy it.
You can go down any of the enshitification targets and you'll find a ripe group of consumers allowing the company to hold out and wait until you and I HAVE to buy their product at inflated prices because we're reached a point where our old item has died.
That is the trend that I've noticed. Bad behavior isn't getting punished because enough morons are oblivious.
I rarely buy sodas at all anymore and it's not just due to prices. They changed the recipes of those things and turned them into oily, disgusting messes. I'd bet dollars to donuts they overloaded the sodas with cheap corn syrup and cut out the spices and flavorings they normally would have had to lower overhead.
More enshittification from an economy in collapse.
I tried to look for local alternatives, but no one competes on the cheap end.
I've just turned to a lot more tea. Just got a second infuser.
My theory? The Mayans were right. 2012 was the end of the cycle, and so the 12 years before and 12 years after are the transition period.
So we're in the final lap, we just have to make it to December
(I'm not coping, you're coping)
Greed !!
I want more, you want more , everyone wants more.
With Globalization from the 80s onwards, the income from work (which in turn feeds consumption) in developed countries started going down, and on the consumer side that income shortfall was compensated by growing debt.
Then in 2008 the debt growth and hence Economic growth under that new model were jobs were outsourced, was stopped, hard, because too much debt had been accumulated and the Economy was becoming unable to service the interest on that debt (think about it: if $1000 are lent today and in a year's time $1050 is due, to repay the principal plus interest, those $50 of interest have to be created as new wealth in the meanwhile. Now expand that to the whole Economy - more debt = more wealth has to be created to pay interest).
Central banks intervened by lowering interest rates to historically low levels (the so-called Zero Interest Rate Policy) supposedly temporary but not really, which in turn extended how much debt the whole Economy could stand without sinking under the weight of servicing the interest on it (lower interest rates = more debt for the same amount of interest needing servicing).
We're running out of runway again, so what's been hapenning is that, to maining profitability in an environment were all but a few are getting poorer (the ones getting richer are those will all that money which they lend, who have been receiving the interest for loaning money) companies are cutting on the cost side, so manpower, product quality and even trying to push consumers into new and more profitable models such as everything as a service.
This is just one side of the whole thing. There's also a resource depletion side in that most of the easy and cheap stuff to extract - from minerals to oil - has long been extracted and that too goes against continued growth, which is another pressure on companies to keep profits growing by other means.
The list of resources we are running out of should include resiliant ecosystems. Apart from that, to me, the entire comment could be summarized as "capitalism".
Look Im a socialist leaning centrist but anyone who critiques just capitalism doesn't realize communists are authoritarian state capitalists. I agree there are serious economic flaws in our system, but saying capitalism explains everything just doesn't make sense.
As bad as things are here, the cost of living and costs of energy grew much more outside of America. Additionally, look at China's housing economic crash and demographic issues. Those are decisions made by State Capitalists, and their people are suffering from it.
Again, America has several reasons to fuck off, and I want some socialism, but for the sake of argument, saying "capitalism" doesn't amount to much you can critique about America's response to COVID versus any other country's strategy
Because we elect people who promise things. Then incumbency bias takes over.
(This is not US centric. There were a lot of promises in the 1920s worldwide, too.)
Edit: The only solution I can see (and it's regrettably too slow to tip back the suck gracefully) is routine, vigorous primaries. Do you see how bad those adjectives suck together, "routine and vigorous"? Plus primaries are a snooze-fest.
I dream to see 60% engagement in primaries. And I mean for Congress. Was your congressperson challenged at the primaries? Yes? Did you weigh the arguments or just hope those primary voters know what they are doing?
No? Were they perfect? Or did they know the primaries would not be engaging enough to unseat them?
The establishment will say "no one comes out of a primary smelling pretty". But people that come out of a primary should have their plans defended. The promises made should be what the people of the party like best, not what they think will run best against people who can't agree with the party about who gets human rights. (See how I snuck in a both sides phrasing.)
Sorry for being a bit of keyboard warrior.
It is totally OK to be a keyboard warrior. Where else would we be warriors?
I just hate the solution. It's unfeasible. And just words. No actionables. But keyboard warrior is better than tongue biter.
Chronic disease and general poor-functioning has been skyrocketing and the vast majority of people just ignore it like it's no big deal.
Obviously it's a big deal when the intelligence and competence of a majority of people has been severely diminished. We're now living in Idiocracy. And it's why for two elections in a row we've ended up with the choice of two senile old white men.
"What's wrong with me, Doc?" "Well, you look like a fag, and your shit's all retarded."
Go away. ‘Baten.
People elect Conservatives. Don't elect Conservatives. They want to make the world shit.
Conservatives such as Joe Biden. It's all the same scam, stop falling for it
I'll do my best to explain what I can. But it's hard, and many PHD dissertations will be written on this. It's not exactly something that can just be explained.
But yes, Covid was probably the most easily identifiable source. In addition, you could make a claim that Putins' moves, the support from Russia to for various "alt-right" groups, and their eventual war in Ukraine (assumedly, aiming for culmination in reuniting the Soviet Union) have an impact. Lastly, we have various AI projects reading "maturity" (or at least public notoriety), and various services realizing they were missing out on a piece of the "AI pie".
Covid was.... bad. It's a new, deadly disease that potentially leaves people with life altering side effecs (long covid). The Vaccines are good, if not great even for having been developed so quickly and drastically change your likely outcomes, but they aren't full immunity (like we have for Polio). This left governments in a dammed now if you don't support people, or damned later if you do. They all chose various levels of later. Some governments supported businesses directly and left people alone to suffer, others supported people and left businesses mostly alone. Either way: Cash injections into an economy produces inflation.
Fighting inflation... the most commonly accepted method in the western world is to raise interest rates* and then let it play out. With the loss of cheap money from low interest rates, many businesses are now being pushed by their owners and shareholders from focusing on growth to make profits (eg: Raise prices, crack downs on password sharing, API use).
There are other claims you could make, and construct narratives with. For a few years now companies have been growing by expanding into growing countries, but now the number of countries left is short, and companies are running out of places to expand into to grow. Once again, as growth becomes impossible or undesirable, the focus shifts to extracting profit from your existing base. We are reaching maximum saturation.
*Alternatives: If you would like to slash government spending... see Argentina's inflation (it's bad), for windfall taxes see Spain (it's good).
My take: the result of decades of incompetent leadership, at all levels from the government to individual households, that ultimately lead to a society that mainly uses dilatory tactics instead of finding solutions to its issues.
What happens when the economy crashes? We push the goalposts back a few yards so that it's actually better now and will become a problem later instead. Notice how the frequency of market crashes is increasing? It was every 50 years or so, then it was every 10, now we've had 3 in 5 years, yes I'm fucking counting COVID you had literally over 60 years to prepare for a worldwide pandemic and you sat on your asses.
What happened with education? Well let's see. Why do we pay for education in the first place? To increase our knowledge and push the boundaries of human civilization, or to put it bluntly: we don't wanna live in a world filled with idiots. But like why do we need education? Cuz like jobs or something...Ever wonder why you MUST have a degree for a job? That's a legal requirement, if something is on the job posting as a requirement then it's a fucking requirement. Suddenly everyone needs a higher education, because the job posting is a legal requirement that must be met, else ye suffer the consequences of immediate disqualification. Fortunately the law miraculously doesn't really care which degree you have, the companies get to choose how narrow the scope is and if they don't do that well that's on them lol xD! So we need a degree, but let's say we don't wanna put in the effort to learn all that hard shit. Besides, we just need survivabile minimum wage, so let's aim for that. It sure is convenient that all these now impacted universities made up all these new bullshit degrees so they could pretend to deal with the influx of morons that are getting intimidated and bribed into their schools via their parents. This sounds like a game to me, and I love games. Wait wait wait wait. We said that we want education because we want people to be smart, but like technically we only need education to get a job. Suddenly education is like this super fun game where you get sorted into a socio economic class in a fun and interesting way. And then people realized they could influence that as early as elementary school, and well gee fuckin golly! They get to vote and control the public education because that's how public school works. And if we loosen up the restrictions on what our kids need to get good grades, their chances of getting into college get better. Guess what? Money also works too, if we have money we can avoid the tiring scramble of public education and just pay to win baybee!!!!
Why does the everything suck? Because it's owned and operated by investment firms and run by people who are the result of decades of systemic degradation. And who's to blame? The worse generation in human history. The only generation in United States history to have a losing record when it comes to war lose, while simultaneously being the single generation to have started and sustain the most wars! The same fucking generation that didn't die off at 55 because their children didn't huff lead gasoline like they did for Christmas and actually got bothered to learn medical science - as much as I shit on the education system as a whole, there are always some tryhards that slip through. The same generation that still controls 60% of the political offices in this country, while at the same time being composed of the top 1% of mentally unstable weak and decrepit elderly part of the population. The same generation that voted to fuck over retirement pensions from the previous generation back in the 70s or whenever it was, and then now in past decades have undone all of that to secure retirement protections for them suddenly now as they reach their sunset years. The same generation that still currently in the current fucking year of two thousand twenty-four are the two frontrunners for Presidential candidacy.
And you know what the funniest thing about it is? It's not just the United States. How's Japan looking over across the Pacific? A problem with a top heavy elderly population? Wow who could've guessed. What about the boys across the pond? What does the British parliament look like? Who are still the leaders of China, Russia, North Korea? What families are still in power in the Middle East?
Our ancestors have failed us. They have failed their brothers and sisters. They have failed our entire goddamned species. I am embarrassed and ashamed for all intelligent beings anywhere and everywhere in any reality where intelligence is possible that we are capable of such idiocy.
I take great solace in the fact that they will not be around long enough to etch their final memory into the stones of history. And we will.
Despite all of that it feels to me less like things are getting worse and more like a loud death rattle from a bloated creature - the final shout before the eternal void. I see the same feelings as mine in both my cohorts and in the future generations. I have hopes for the future and strongly believe that the world is just now entering the upswing. It's painful and awkward right now while the old skin sheds, but I am confident we will emerge from our chrysalis transformed into something greater. Maybe that guy who brought up the 12 year delay on the Mayan calendar shit earlier in this thread was on to something; the timing is just too coincidental.
Late stage capitalism. The ownership class has accelerated the widening gap ever more during the pandemic, out of simple greed. Control and wealth distribution systems, even governments are increasingly beholden to their wishes, and do nothing to help aside from lip service. The ecosystem dies of the same disease, endless greed and growth. Number go up is all that matters.
Capitalism
Capitalism, etc.
Stallman was right.
? Link?
Richard Stallman is the patron saint of Open Source. Stallman, like all "saints" is a pig headed extremist who is maniacally single minded. I'm very glad he came along.
Richard Stallman is indeed a pivotal figure, but not in Open Source. He founded the Free Software Movement, which is distinct from Open Source. The Free Software Movement emphasizes the ethical implications and the users freedoms, while Open Source focuses more on the practical benefits of sharing code.
People keep electing conservative fascists like morons
America, in particular, doesn’t exactly have an alternative.
To wit,
“Americans are served by three political groups, but are represented by only two political parties.
“The alt-right have a party all to themselves, while the centre-left share a party with the centre-right such that they cannot effectively function.”
You take a look at any president since the Carter administration, and they have all been right of centre. Obama was solidly centre-right. Biden is on the threshold of being fully right-wing.
About the only people who sit anywhere to the left are people like Bernie Sanders and AOC, and in most other countries they would be considered solid centrists and milquetoast moderates. They are not extreme-left in the least.
America has no left-wing politicians, much less any on the far left.
But on the far right? pretty much the entire GOP is sitting there with their asses hanging off the fascist end of the political horseshoe.
I'm coming across this post after reading an article about how Netflix is bathing in money and now making their options worse for customers, how the most wheel of a Boeing 757 fell off, and a how a country has been so free of criticism for decades that they're able to commit genocide for over 3 months.
I'm having a hard time seeing hope in our future. Every company operates solely to extract as much profit as humanly possible (and not as Artificialally Intelligently as possible) without considering for a single moment how a decision they make may effect their relationship with customers or the quality of their product. I know companies are in it to make money, but they used to at least correct decisions in the face of public outcry. (Hell Microsoft did an about face on Xbox One features in 2013 after public outcry)
But things seem different now. Since the pandemic and the overall regard for human life went up, companies almost feel vindictive and emboldened to do even more to fuck customers over. Its almost like they're holding a grudge over consumers for considering anything in life over their spending habits from March 2020 - September 2021. After all, the biggest push to "return to normal" was to get the economy back on track. I'll never forget some asshole on a fox news segment saying "We gotta return to normal people. Yes some people will die, but grandma would sacrifice herself for the economy." That's when I lost all hope of things getting better.
We've had the chance many times to change the way we act as a species and potentially make the world better, but somehow we always fail to do so. We're just fucked.
In terms of cost, the cost of doing business likely rose due to inflation over the past few years. Those costs have supposedly plateaued but costs for consumption continue to rise. My two cents are markets will continue to increase prices until demand goes down. Eventually they will lower their prices out of necessity as they compete for those who can still afford their products and services.
Leaded gasoline.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
For anyone else curious but unfamiliar, this is from "The Second Coming", a poem by W. B. Yeats written shortly after WWI.
Because Nash Equilibriums, prejudice, and freeloaders.
Are things demonstrably worse? I'm reading that they are but I'm not seeing that they are. I don't live in a great area, but people generally seem as they've always been. Some struggle. Most are fine. Life goes on.
Late stage capitalism is your answer, my friend.
Every generation feels this.
I believe the reason that each generation feels this way is the different ways that each generation is exposed to information about current events, wars, etc. and now more than ever with the internet, it's hard to escape. The internet also makes echo chambers worse than before because not only are they easier to get into, they're much louder and have more influence.
As for products, companies are focused on user/subscriber growth more than ever instead of having a good product. The idea is essentially “why have a good product people pay for when you can half ass it and get people to pay”.
Have you read Cory Doctorow’s book on enshitification? I think he focuses more on the Internet but might help answer your question.
Because corporate greed and the economic elite around the world hoarding more resources than ever before.
And we let them.
We don't just let them, we cheer them on. Look at the celebrity worship culture we humans have. If you took away the person and left only their actions, most of us would happily throw the rich into a woodchipper. But they use their money to convince us that they're special and deserve praise, and most of us go along with it because we're sheep.
That is such a lazy argument. More people then ever before are out of poverty in the history of mankind. Doesn't mean there are not problems. In regards to COVID, we took millions of people out of the workforce while printing money and still paying many of them? Of course that will result in massive reduction of inventory levels that we will feel for a decade. That results in inflation as what do people expect when less items available to the same amount of people that want them.
Regards to qualities etc. That varies. We have more access to products then at anytime in history as well. And many of these products have come down significantly in price. But that also means quality products and their prices get compared to shit products at lower prices. What do you think people buy? Secondary, people do far less informal work and that effects your perception of income. Our parents and grandparents maintained their own cars and houses for example and grew far more food. Now every hires that out and buys all their groceries at a store. That leaves you with far less money.
Then there is one industry that has made gains but their costs has gone up ten fold. That is healthcare. You have access to some of the best medical procedures then at anytime in history. But some of those costs can be North of a million dollars. Our parents and grandparents simply did not access that and in some cases died. I am happy I have now options but this is coming at a huge cost of which much of it has to be paid for upfront before you retire.
You could kill off every billionaire tomorrow but that won't result in much more houses being built or available. Wealth inequality is an issue but if more cogs are not manufactured, our standard of living will not change much.
People in cities have not sustained on growing their own foods for hundreds of years. Refined crops and goods have been machined into the cities ever since the industrial revolution and before that it was farmers that brought their goods to be sold at the markets. The greatest achievement of humanity over other species on the planet is our ability to delegate and cooperate. You grow food, I make tools. Together we thrive.
Yep, you have a rampant problem with housing and healthcare over there in America-land, I agree. But why is that? Because of massive hoarding of resources. Human essentials and needs are commoditized like a "smart" investment for the ruthless opportunists. Hell, your entire societal system is built around it, and it's spilling into the rest of the world. It's a dog eat dog economy that is hailed like an ideology by useful idiots bought by the elites by the trickling of pocket change. Then the ideology has been turned into a culture of over consumption, again hailed by other useful idiots to convince the regular people that it will give them purpose, fill the hole, numb the pain of the aimless grind for nothing meaningful ever. And who does all of this benefit? Where do all this wealth and all these resources end up that could transform the entire planet for something that benefits all mankind? To the owners of the owners of the owners, and the money that doesn't crawl it's way up is a good investment to keep the system intact.
But no, let's concentrate on the tools we use and not what they do. Let's focus on the monetary system. Let's get stuck in inflation and regression and unfortunate loopholes "but-what-can-you-do" and tax havens and desired unemployment rates and spoiling of food while people are starving - for the economy. Everything can be explained with the economy, and if you disagree you're clearly uninformed or ignorant don't have enough the smarts.
People have done the double think and now the economy is no longer the tool, is no longer a representation, but it is the real thing. And more so the current economic system is forever and eternal and unchangeable like the word of God.
It's funny and sad that people actually believe this is all there is.
I mean, graded on a wide curve of history right now isn't complete shit. WW1 saw entire generations of young men slaughtered uselessly at the hands of unelected kings. It was so horrific we actually still try not to use chemical warfare. Absolutely brutal combat with casualties that have hardly been seen since. Absolutely nightmare conditions. We baulk at the deaths of 25,000 over a few months of conflict where WW1 regularly saw those numbers in as little as a day. I do not want to minimize the absolutely brutal conflicts going on now. A newly orphaned child is not comforted by history, but your question seeks context and what else is history for but to contextualize the present?
To me, history shows we have not even begun to experience the the depths of the horror people are capable of. At least in the states decenting voices are not carted away into slavery camps, actively trying to wipe out whole populations with starvation at least has some voices calling out the brutality, I do not see people trying to sell their children to survive like in the depression. These are not far away times where these things happened on a scale they do not now.
Long story short, history has shown the measure of brutality and uncaring to be significantly worse at times. Raw and unquestioned genocide, slavery, persecution, war, child beating, women opressing, and all manner of the lowest acts of evil are the norm of humanity, not the relative peace we have known over the last 80 years. This fact does not make life suck less, but can at least act as a measure for how horrid is has been.
Most of the planet seems to be a shit hole. Western Europe and USA seems to be the exception. We complain about privacy and big tech but we don't complain about having our kids shot by police at least (unless you are black in America).
Actually the USA is a shit hole too but much better than Russia or China at least. And if you have money in the US, it's a ticket to living like a king.
We complain about privacy and big tech
And having no money to buy our own living place while we're being assfucked without lube by landowners.
It was those damned churches staying open during COVID
Because anyone who was old enough to remember how bad the great depression and world wars were are all dead and the people in power fell like they have something to prove.
I mean why should it be just their parents and grandparents that made the history books?
Corporate capitalism.
Profit before people in literally every facet of modern western society.
Years of believing the adage that "we should just be happy to HAVE a job", which ultimately gave carte blanche for companies to treat their employees like line items on a spreadsheet; something to be minimized as much as possible in order to squeak more pennies into a stock price.
Literally every bad thing today is the wholly expected endgame of 80s trickle-down economics.
Two words:
Willful ignorance.
Lots of stuff involved. For one, globalization and mechanization are driving forces. The Wikipedia page for pretty much the official term enshittification has a link to another page describing another term "rent-seeking behavior" that means:
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society.
i.e. when something just takes takes takes and never gives, that describes the broken state.
Also in the late 70s, corporations were given enormous power and now they have more power than any individual human beings - even their CEOs exist as slaves to their whims, except to the extent that they also are shareholders in their stocks. Humans have to do things like breathe, eat, die, and pay their debts, but corporations have special legal exemptions and don't have to do any of this. And this even without the extra special stuff done on top of the normal when they are deemed too big to fail - e.g. banks can smuggle money from genocidal terrorists and get away with it, but don't try that at home unless you too are a corporation of at least a certain size, and can afford to bribe/threaten the life of your own personal judge!
And underlying it all is the dirty word politics, an ancient Greek word meaning "how (the process by which) we all agree", or another definition is "who gets what, when, how". Every time something happens, whether it be genocide or school shootings or even just allowing corporations to claim one thing on the internet while delivering the exact opposite of that (without consequences), it is this "politics" that decides the outcome - like WILL we support Ukraine (financially and/or otherwise) to defend itself from Russian aggression or WON'T we? And on that note, there is a fascinating series of videos on YouTube called "The Alt-Right Playbook", which explains why conservatives like what has happened the last 10 years - e.g. not paying taxes is "smart" and Musk taking over Twitter is "his own business/matter", and corporations having all the stuff while we merely working stiffs have none of it is very much not a byproduct but the literal point of the systems, which is very much working as designed. You may call it words like "inflation" and "price gouging", but companies charge what the market can bear, so according to that philosophy, whatever you call it is a good thing, very much not something that government should be doing anything to stop, and in fact perhaps corporations should be given even more power on top of that.
Like everything else - e.g. physics, biology, chemistry, economics, etc. - you are not going to understand everything in less than let's say a year, or possibly a decade, but you will get there if you really want to know. The short answer imho is that giant corporations now have more rights than mere human beings and thus normal folks are fast becoming obsolete. We will either be killed off (a large number anyway) and the rest absorbed into becoming slaves for them, the same as has happened many times throughout history. And we will be shocked, shocked I tell you, shocked, as if this entirely predictable outcome had never happened before and never would again. Basically they are putting in huge efforts to do these things, and very few people are bothering to lift a finger to try and stop it so... how is it not inevitable? About the only thing I see working against corporate enshittification is FOSS and piracy, each providing for free what corporations want you to pay for.
Unregulated capitalism...
This is the natural result of that.
COVID factored in because the handful of corporations that own a shit ton of companies figured out 8% inflation could be used as justification to double/triple prices, and if they all did it, consumers had no options.
In regulated capitalism, the government would step in to prevent this type of price fixing.
But when both political parties are "pro business" and take donations from those huge corporations...
Then corporations get away with lots they shouldn't
In regulated capitalism, the government would step in to prevent this type of price fixing.
like this?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/us/yale-columbia-price-fixing-settlement.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/19/rice-university-price-fixing-lawsuit/
The US has this bizarre setup where we "regulate" companies through the courts rather than directly through government agencies (this is not always the case, but it often is). The problem is that even when this "works", i.e., the court punishes the company, they get a fine. So it becomes a financial decision: if we can get away with this, does that outweigh the risk that we might not? Sometimes it ends up profiting the company regardless.
Related to this is that prosecutors have total discretion in the realm of plea deals. If you do a crime here, it becomes a negotiation with the prosecutor. What can you offer them to get off the hook? Sometimes it makes sense to do a crime, because the advantages you gain become leverage to negotiate your way out of punishment.
I looked at some of those, and it's private citizens suing corporations...
Even the rent one with the DOJ, it's just them becoming involved in private lawsuits...
That's not the same as the government regulating capitalism.
And while that one is sort of related to the topic, not really. It's because the price fixing is automated by a computer program a bunch of landlords used.
In the future if you only give one link and some kind of explanation other than "like this?" The person you replied to can probably do a better job of helping you understand.
Company makes a billion dollars and then it's fined 200 million, ten years later because a private citizen sues them...
Is this government regulation?
You're a meme. And by that I mean, you're a joke.
Greed won.
Inequality
Covid, war, alt-right fascists, AI, TikTok, capitalism maxed out, climate change, where should I stop?
Capitalism seems to run in a cyclic manner. If you remember in the 80s we had movies like Wall Street and Other People's Money, because I think things were at a similar point then to where they are now. But, through the 90s (and I joined the workforce in the mid 90s) I recall a more customer-centric view, and even some level of consideration for employees. This has gradually deteriorated starting in the new millennium.
The last 10 years I think has seen this accelerate such that the only consideration for a company is to the shareholders (public or private), customers are in the equation somewhere but way, way after providing value to shareholders via cost-cutting in any way possible. Employees are absolutely just a cost of doing business and if they could eliminate them too, they surely would.
The only hope I have is that I've seen this reverse before, so it CAN happen again. But what makes me place some doubt about this is headlines like the four richest people doubling their net-worth in an incredibly short period. The economy is a zero-sum game, if they doubled their worth other people lost everything, MANY people needed to lose everything to achieve that. Those people need to lose, and lose a lot to bring us back, and I can't imagine they will let that happen.
Maybe things will improve, maybe there will be a revolution/uprising when it just gets too bad. Who knows?
The economy is a zero-sum game, if they doubled their worth other people lost everything, MANY people needed to lose everything to achieve that.
I was with you until here. The economy is anything but zero-sum. I'm not sure if you mean nation wide or worldwide but a simple thought experiment about the population booming over the years proves it is not. I can help lookup better explanations if you don't believe me. I'm sure people have already spelled it out better than I could.
Shallow consideration, multiplied by technology and laziness.
Globalization. Exploiting developing countries, export jobs and environmental damage, hiding profits. Not so long ago corporations had to be careful not to shit where they eat. Now they can shit in Asia and eat comfortably in USA/Europe. Everyone lost on that.
It's always been in shit, just in diffrent ways. For example, between 1950s and 1999, people were worried about government tyranny due to Ruby ridge and the Waco seige, but they were also worried about killers like the unabomber and the zodiac killer. Today, we're worried about government tyranny because both sides can't agree on not only sides, but even presidents in a party, and rather than serial killers, we now have corrupt corporations.
No. Not the same OP is talking about.
Hang in there kitty.
Late stage capitalism
Anybody who disrupts capitalism should be punished. We've done it before and we gotta do it again.
The whole point of capitalism is self determination. Not to dominate the world, we're not anarchists. But these criminals are pulling massive amounts of money out of the economy and that's not acceptable.
The thing is, public corporations by design have the self determination that they want everything they can get. Dominating the world would be the cherry on the top.
Because most people have stopped giving a fuck.
I'm serious. Remember all those memes a couple of years back about not giving any fucks? Their chickens are now coming back to roost.
A lot of people have simply decided that it was no longer worth the effort to try and be a good person, and to just shut themselves off and take care of their own needs. And perhaps it was necessary at the time because they were simply tired of putting in effort while others decided to take and take and give nothing back, but clearly, this isn't a viable long term solution. The Roots put it quite well in their song How I Got Over:
Out on the streets, where I grew up
First thing they teach you is not to give a fuck
That type of thinking can't get you nowhere
Someone has to care
The less people care, the colder the world grows. If no one does anything charitable, every interaction becomes a matter of win or lose. Now I'm well aware of just how difficult it is to be kind in a world full of greed where everyone seems to want to take advantage of you the moment you show any sign of weakness, but unfortunately, that is the only way anything will ever change.
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do so?
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:46-48
I really liked your comment until you dropped a Bible verse.
Yep.. Turns the post from somewhat interesting/meaningful to preachy and judgemental.
I'm not religious, but I think that was a justified bible quote, it describes the point made, and theres even an alternative example. I get that religion has done a bunch of bad things, but that was a harmless quote.
Well I'm sorry that upset you, but doesn't the song more or less convey a similar message?
People are generally fine. The problem is that we're all getting squeezed by a handful of rich fucks who own the politicians.
Yeah but that's literally been the case for pretty much all of human history. Remember that even Jesus had to deal with people complaining about having to pay taxes.
Or maybe we need better solutions than expecting people to allow themselves to be abused. 🤷
I find it crazy how basically every Marxist since, well Marx, has pretty much clairvoyance powers. It’s of course not that, it’s just that material analysis really is the best way to understand reality. But when all you have are vibes, ideology and moralism, Marxists do seem like witches.
But basically, just read and watch some Marxists my friend. Even light-Marxists like Yanis Varoufakis are good at “predicting” the future.
We have all been expecting this since the 1800s lmao.
Material analysis fails specifically because it fails to take ideology into account. People are not rational and do terrible things for idiotic reasons even when it doesn't serve their best interests, and that's why materialism just doesn't work.
Maybe overpopulation is a factor?
It's not overpopulation. We are seeing the results of late stage capitalism coming into effect. When you design the economy around an owning class vs a working class, the owning class will use its inherent leverage and capital to beget more leverage and capital. That happens at the expense of the working class. If your income mainly comes from working for money, you are part of the working class.
The obvious solution here is to change the economic structure to not have an owning class at all or at least to keep it in check, but liberalism is not good at keeping it in check and leftism doesn't have the momentum needed to change the world economic structure. Right now all we can do is make progress where we can, which means passing legislation that taxes and weakens the owning class in favor of supporting and empowering the working class through social programs and better pay and benefits. Unions will help you a TON here and more quickly than legislation, so look into joining/forming a union. Biden has changed the requirements for forming a union to make it really easy now. The other thing we can do is prevent fascists from tearing apart the systems we've built to allow that to even happen in the first place. That means not voting for or supporting right-wing politics.
None of this is caused by overpopulation, and the myth that overpopulation is the main source of your problems directly benefits the owning class who is currently winning the zero-sum dynamic of owning vs working class. That dynamic is the reason things are bad and worsening. Join a union and vote for the most progressive viable candidate in both local and federal elections.
Read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Collectivism
You misspelled "capitalistic greed". If there were more social collectivism the world would be a better place.
Capitalism. The longer Capitalism exists, the more it has to find new ways to stop/slow its own built-in death clock. If it doesn't, it dies, due to problems like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall and rising disparity. Enshittification, so to speak.
With each economic disaster, the wealthiest of the bourgeoisie can claim large swaths of cheaper Capital at a discount, compounding the issue into a form of neo-feudalism that will eventually collapse under its own weight.
God forbid a post-scarcity world where the only currency is our reputation, honor, and credibility.
Make it so number one.
It's not "Capitalism", it's governments not doing their job in regulating capitalist practices, and instead embracing neoliberal economics. I don't accept that all ownership is theft. Trade in goods and services benefits both parties. I am so sick of people using this shorthand word "capitalism" to describe what's going on here. We've had capitalism for millennia, and it's brought us longer, healthier and happier lives, and reduced warfare. It's Thatcherite/Reaganomic practices by governments that are the problem, not the system of ownership of capital.
At the core, the issue is still deeply rooted within capitalism but governments should absolutely be doing their fucking jobs and curb the worst aspects of it a little until we're ready for something better.
No we haven't. The historians that think capitalism started the earliest place its birth in the XIVth century. I think you're confused about the definition of capitalism.
Liberal Democracies are of, by, and for the bourgeoisie. Because Capitalists have immense influence, the state will bend to their will.
Trade is good. Capitalism is not. Capitalism is not trade, its a Mode of Production by which there are individual Capitalists and non-owner workers. We have not had Capitalism for millenia, but a few hundred years.
Capitalism did not bring us healthier, longer, and happier lives, nor reduce warfare. Development did. Capitalism drives profit, that's it, anything else is tangential to that end.
I think you would do yourself a lot of good by reading theory.
You may enjoy this read:
https://www.infinitescroll.us/p/ugh-capitalism
Capitalism is not millennia old. Capitalism (as commonly defined) only stared to take root after the black death (1350ish) flipped feudalism on its head. Suddenly the free and unfree peasant class had some control of their own destiny and could sell their skills to whomever they wanted at whatever price they could get. Serfs could declare themselves free. Land was often up for grabs.
Hmm, I'm trying to remember what economic system both these countries have... Let's call it "Bappitalism". And if the economic model is so powerful that it influences the governmental one (lobbyists, military spending, etc), then yes, that is a problem.
Alas, the alternative to capitalism has never been socialism, but feudalism.