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?
Working for a Fortune 500 and hearing executives talk is surreal. They straight up say things like "if you're not growing, you're failing". No thought at all as to how that's supposed to work in the long run. The post-pandemic surge in profits doesn't help; companies that usually don't get 15-20% profit margins suddenly saw that, and the expectation of shareholders is that they can keep doing that forever. That's insane.
Conversely, I'm also active in my local makerspace. We've grown massively in less than 10 years, and deliberately stopped taking new members for a few months because our volunteers were getting burned out. When we reopened, we kept the new member signups intentionally limited so certain areas (woodshop, mainly) would be able to absorb turnover without driving the trainers too hard. We still have net growth, but way slower than we were before. We're far from failing, and the MBAs running Fortune 500s can go fuck themselves.
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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(3 replies)
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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(1 replies)
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.
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(6 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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A lifetime in sales, bulk in venture backed world.. the indefinite growth of growth expectations still boggles my mind.. you need servers to do stuff, I sell you servers. We make a living. We go home. The boss is satisfied that they make decent money and create jobs for all these people to support their families. That was fine.
Now.. EVERYthing you rely on comes from shareholder investments. We've watched the barbarians at the gates quietly get back on top (regulations matter; vote if you can't afford your bills) as PE has driven the entire trillion dollar consumer goods market into margins driven late stage startup practices. Homes and real estate are unoccupied market driving investment assets more bundled up in funds than before '08.
That's fine when I'm taking a risk bringing a new product or business to market to innovate a business process or introduce a new consumer product. Not when people need to be able to afford a loaf of bread, rent and a car payment.
It drives me fucking nuts that continued growth isn't enough - 10% growth two years in a row will tank you.
Nope you have to gain an ADDITIONAL 10% growth every year or RIP your company.
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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(1 replies)
“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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