Capitalism does some things well. The speed of innovation, the breadth of creativity, the streamlined practices. But it comes at a cost, at least eventually.
I think it’s a self-cannibalising system, bad at preserving the conditions from which value is extracted. It optimises so well that things lose their souls. Btw part 1 is here.
Decisions can be rational for one company while becoming disastrous when every company makes them. Cut staff. Reduce quality. Remove anything that can’t be directly linked to revenue. Minimise tax. Each makes sense on its own spreadsheet. But together they produce exhausted workers, hollowed-out public services, brittle supply chains, and customers who can’t afford to be customers
The Race to the Bottom
Competition ignites a race to the lowest price, sacrificing staff and quality or using tax wizardry. You’d think corpos could focus on offering the best service, but humans prefer simpler choices and lower prices, a preference reinforced, ironically so, by the precarious jobs created by the same optimisation.
When rent, food, energy, and childcare costs are rising, you’re not spending evenings considering the long-term social consequences of your summer holiday airline choice. You’re clicking “sort by lowest price” and hoping the wings are included.
Ryanair always looks cheap until you want luggage, leg mobility, or to sit next to your baby, partner, or grandma. I’m convinced there’s a way to go yet: a discount for passengers guiding the plane to its bay, or popping on a high vis to drive fellow passengers to the terminal.
I guess the dream life for a company is monopoly: jack prices back up while retaining all the cost “efficiencies”. Terrific for shareholders. They can have all that they ever wanted, perhaps even, their parents will finally say they’re proud of them. Whenever I’m seeking meaning in my existence, I remind myself – it’s to create shareholder value.
Who Pays?
Tax optimisation is a clear example of the self-cannibalising instinct. A corporation relies on educated workers, roads, courts, healthcare, public infrastructure, and customers with enough money to buy things. Yet the tax supporting those conditions is treated as a cost to be minimised. Sometimes the money leaves the country altogether. Which is why “shop local” makes sense.
So I get to thinking, sure corporations are great at delivering value, profits, and watches shinier than a Casio. But what condition have the cumulative effects left society in?
Where Does the Money Go?
Imagine an economy with 100 gold coins. It creates five more every year, but four continually find their way to the richest 1%. The economy is growing, technically. But who loses access to the old wealth, and who accumulates enough new wealth to influence the rules governing it?
In my view, the government’s job is to redistribute coins, not only to keep the economy flowing but to maintain social cohesion. After all, aren’t the gov essentially risk managers?
What we Lose?
I don’t quite lean towards a particular ideology, I think about sustainability. How long can this last? And even if the answer is “a long time”, will that long time be a good time?
We’re social animals, wired to cooperate and form relationships. But when resources accumulate in the hands of a few and everybody else adapts to insecurity, we become less generous because generosity feels dangerous, less trusting because one mistake could cost us our home, and more transactional because the surrounding system has taught us that anything can be taken away.
Dignity, trust, community, resilience, and quality of life are harder to put on a spreadsheet, so they’re treated as expendable. The cost of ignoring these intangibles arrive later, dispersed and difficult to attribute: burnout, loneliness, resentment, deteriorating public services, political anger, and the vague feeling that everybody is trying to scam everybody else.
But the question that keeps me from taking the occasional nap is:
Can a system remain sustainable when its internal incentives steadily undermine social cohesion, distribute gains upward, and convert every human need into an opportunity for extraction?