Very well said. I've been thinking along these same lines. IMO, two+ centuries of capitalism have proven its ability to generate wealth for society more broadly than any other system in history. By far. But are the excesses of wealth inequality, environmental degradation, and human exploitation inseparable from the practice? Or are they abuses that can be curtailed or minimized? If the former, we either have to either sacrifice our humanity (by accepting the cost) or our wealth (by throwing the system out for a less successful alternative).
If the latter (and fairness/empathy being the human emotion most likely to be our success-measuring yardstick), it becomes a logistical question. Maybe the trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt was on the right track a century ago: "There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations ... are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare ... [this] is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.
"It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence.”
It would certainly help if our elected leaders weren't beholden to or actively benefiting from those 'criminals of cunning'...
Always enjoy reading your posts, Philip. What shines through for me is your deep thinking - and collective perspective. In a group - like we ALL live in and depend upon - selfishness often is (wrongly) justified with pithy theories (“free markets are ‘good’, for example). NO, it is NOT ok for one person (Musk, Bezos, Zuck..) to personally and solely dictate such vast resources. Justifying as the ‘reward’ for hard work ... is simply wrong. As with all systems we humans create (political, financial, technical, you name it), every eventuality cannot and is not factored in to the design nor the operating of such systems. Eventually, the program or system requires a reset. (With computers and operating systems, we simply pull the plug, wait a few seconds, then plug it back in. It is certainly feeling to me .. that many of our fiat systems are at that point. So rather than blindly continuing to let these systems (accounting is one of them!) run there course without a reset of sorts ... well, maybe they -and collectively we - simply end in a crash!
Thank you for your work, Philip. Your hard work falls in the far right “less than 2%” scree IMHO.
Very well said. I've been thinking along these same lines. IMO, two+ centuries of capitalism have proven its ability to generate wealth for society more broadly than any other system in history. By far. But are the excesses of wealth inequality, environmental degradation, and human exploitation inseparable from the practice? Or are they abuses that can be curtailed or minimized? If the former, we either have to either sacrifice our humanity (by accepting the cost) or our wealth (by throwing the system out for a less successful alternative).
If the latter (and fairness/empathy being the human emotion most likely to be our success-measuring yardstick), it becomes a logistical question. Maybe the trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt was on the right track a century ago: "There is a widespread conviction in the minds of the American people that the great corporations ... are in certain of their features and tendencies hurtful to the general welfare ... [this] is based upon sincere conviction that combination and concentration should be, not prohibited, but supervised and within reasonable limits controlled; and in my judgment this conviction is right.
"It should be as much the aim of those who seek for social betterment to rid the business world of crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body politic of crimes of violence.”
It would certainly help if our elected leaders weren't beholden to or actively benefiting from those 'criminals of cunning'...
“Tech is neither inherently good not evil.” Is “not” a typo? Should be ‘nor’?
Always enjoy reading your posts, Philip. What shines through for me is your deep thinking - and collective perspective. In a group - like we ALL live in and depend upon - selfishness often is (wrongly) justified with pithy theories (“free markets are ‘good’, for example). NO, it is NOT ok for one person (Musk, Bezos, Zuck..) to personally and solely dictate such vast resources. Justifying as the ‘reward’ for hard work ... is simply wrong. As with all systems we humans create (political, financial, technical, you name it), every eventuality cannot and is not factored in to the design nor the operating of such systems. Eventually, the program or system requires a reset. (With computers and operating systems, we simply pull the plug, wait a few seconds, then plug it back in. It is certainly feeling to me .. that many of our fiat systems are at that point. So rather than blindly continuing to let these systems (accounting is one of them!) run there course without a reset of sorts ... well, maybe they -and collectively we - simply end in a crash!
Thank you for your work, Philip. Your hard work falls in the far right “less than 2%” scree IMHO.