This Analysis is Silly and Useless

There are real reasons to be concern about the state of the world. But the idea that capitalism and or advanced economies are in a death spiral shows a total lack of awareness of how systems evolve and change in general and capitalism in particular.

Capitalism, love it or hate it, is an evolutionary force found in all systems in the cosmos aimed at maximizing the system’s evolvability. In biology it is survival of the fittest within an ecological niche. So, while capitalism seems to be a purely human artifact, it is an agnostic evolutionary process beyond human control.

And, yes, this evolutionary process can be manipulated by politicians and financiers in the short term for specific locales. But those manipulations always fail because capitalism is like water and routes itself around them. One only has to look at the failure of communist and non-aligned countries in the 20th century. Said differently, capitalism is what ended the Cold War.

The real issue with capitalism, which you do not see and understand apparently, is its relationship to technology, another evolutionary force. Moreover, that the start of the modern version of capitalism is co-terminus with the industrial revolution. In other words, capitalism and technology are two-sided of the same evolutionary coin, so to speak.

At this point in history, we can easily see where this capitalism-technology force is going and the consequences. The end point is binary — either a post-scarcity world or civilization’s self-destruction. In either case, the road between here and there will be painful for a couple of decades. This leads directly into the silliness of your analysis.

At this point in economic history, capitalism has replaced expensive labor in advanced economies with cheaper labor elsewhere. This is a leveling process whereby the incomes in less developed countries rise and incomes in advanced countries decline. The result is greater income and lifestyle parity globally.

As parity increases, it becomes clear that capitalism, as a force of nature, demands increased substitution of technology for labor generally. As a result, the depressed incomes in the advanced economies will become further depressed and those in countries having risen to parity start backsliding. The result will be a globally painful transition to a post-scarcity world.

The pain can be mitigated, however, if political systems recognize, as they did in bailing out the banks, that money is a pure human artifact. Thus, central banks and governments can provide “helicopter” money to mitigate the pain. Moreover, central banks and governments ultimately will have no choice in order to mitigate the social unrest associated with lower economic opportunity and mobility.

The only issue here is how proactive central banks and governments will be. Historically, this is where the problem is most acute. As for inequality, it is real and can be reduced if there is political will. But with existing political systems designed to advance careers not civic duty this is unlikely.

Finally, what is most troubling in your rant is that you offer no possible solution. Said differently, it seems as if you are the type of demagogue you warn about seeking to incite unrest for the sake of greater chaos. That is dangerous, and unproductive game.

All of what is sketched out above is detailed in articles on my Medium publication, A Passion to Evolve. A short article of mine in this vein you might want to read is, Funny Thing about Money and Machines. A much more detailed article that connects more deeply with how all sociopolitical systems evolve is, Macroscopic Evolutionary Paradigm. That said, based on other articles of yours I have read, maybe you are not interested in facts, only self-promotion.