Comment by sdellis
5 hours ago
Thanks for being a good sport about my joke! And also thanks for answering a gazillion questions here on HN with care, patience, and curiosity.
I have to say, to your first point, that exploitation (of humans, labor, resources, consumers, etc.) has always been the primary driver of accumulating large wealth under capitalism. Sure, "innovation" sometimes has a role in softening the blow, but let's be real.
That was true in our grandparents' time... and their grandparents' time... and their grandparents' time. While their economies looked very different, the same structural incentives were in place and certainly did not curb unethical behavior one bit.
It has taken a long time for the piper to come for his full payment, but we can all see now that the world is burning, poisoned, and suffering as a result. We can no longer eat freshwater fish due to the massive amounts of PFAS in our lakes and rivers. The billionaires are trying to pretend they can escape the disaster by building their bunkers on remote islands or trying to colonize Mars.
I want to have some optimism in the newer generations to create positive change here, but I can't help but look at what happened to the idealism of the 1960s. The counter culture was right about the societal benefits of renewable energy, organic food, vegetarian diets, ecology, egalitarianism, civil rights, and more. But somewhere around Reagan many in that generation sold out and those great ideas were simply appropriated and fed back into the profit-machine that rewards exploitation. Today we have "certified organic" labels on food products, but that term has been watered down to almost nothing by the marketing departments, politicians, and lobbyists.
Anyhow, I obviously need to keep my pessimism at bay. LOL You have convinced me to give it a read!
>"I have to say, to your first point, that exploitation (of humans, labor, resources, consumers, etc.) has always been the primary driver of accumulating large wealth under capitalism"
Under all forms of human civilization, since the beginning of agriculture allowed one person to accumulate more cattle than another. Capitalism is actually a great equalizing force from that yoke - it allowed for the first time to get out of it through ingenuity and hard work. The rule for practically all of existence before that was "you do what the biggest baddest guy around tells you to do or you die", and your entire life and your children and their children's will be the exact same, with no hope of betterment whatsoever. It's what led to the rise of slave morality religions like Buddhism and the Abrahamics; if you have no chance at happiness in this life, best to believe there's something better after, and that those responsible for your suffering will be punished.