• pacmondo@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    I think they’re referring to a common growth projection strategy used in modern capitalism which is basically whatever number we made last year + X% is our goals for this year and if we don’t make that growth then it’s considered a failure and now we have to lay people off.

    No capitalist is ever okay with doing just as well as last year, or recognizing that last year was an extraordinary circumstance that gave us blockbuster sales and it isn’t necessarily repeatable.

    It may not be the textbook definition, but it’s definitely a trait of modern capitalists.

    The closed, finite system we are referring to is of course Earth. Capitalism requires expansion, but what do you do when you cannot expand further?

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      7 months ago

      Capitalism requires expansion

      It actually doesn’t, Capitalism works just fine in a closed system with finite resources. In fact it may be the best system in those circumstances. What doesn’t work is whatever in the fuck you just described is called. It’s absolutely happening and it absolutely doesn’t work.

      As an economic system I’ve long maintained that Communism is a fantastic idea but the “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism” that many people envision simply won’t be possible until we actually reach the state of post scarcity, until then we’re left assigning limited resources in our closed system.

      In the meantime our Governments need to get the Capitalists of the type you described, let’s call them Greedsters, back in line and I’m actually not against them using “Capital” (lol) punishment to make that happen.

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          7 months ago

          As long as there is a system where anything is power corruption will take hold. Want food and only that group over there has any? Well, now they’ve got the power. Do you make clothes and that guy over there wants some? You have the power. Resource scarcity leads to power, power leads to abuse, abuse leads to corruption.

          The only way the cycle is broken is for nearly everything to be accessible to nearly everyone nearly all the time. That, in a nutshell, is “Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism” and the only way it can be achieved is by reaching a true post scarcity society.

          Huh, i just realized where I’m commenting. Hi Socialists!

        • rah@feddit.uk
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          7 months ago

          Corruption doesn’t come from money, it comes from biological life’s need to survive and reproduce. Corruption will take hold, not in systems where money is power, but in any system comprised of human beings.

                • rah@feddit.uk
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                  7 months ago

                  People will prioritise their own benefit at the expense of others’. They will enrich themselves.

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                    7 months ago

                    No, people prioritize thier own benefit. People work to improve their material conditions, doing so at the expense of others is unnatural, because humans are a social, cooperative species.

    • rah@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      Capitalism requires expansion

      No it doesn’t.

    • rah@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      whatever number we made last year + X% is our goals for this year and if we don’t make that growth then it’s considered a failure and now we have to lay people off

      This isn’t capitalism.

      it’s definitely a trait of modern capitalists

      Traits of particular capitalists are not what constitutes capitalism.

      • pacmondo@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        If it isn’t capitalism then I would argue it’s a direct consequence of the incentives it sets up. When a venture is primarily owned by investors whose only interest in it is a return on investment, sooner rather than later, it sort of sets up exactly what I described does it not?

        Maybe the words I should have used were “unfettered capitalism”?