Political Memes

Eh, sorry it became kinda a WoT.

I suggest a tweak to the argument that the economic system requiring infinite growth made sense - I don’t think it was a deliberate choice. What probably happened was that someone noticed they could make money off that growth via stocks and slowly we tied more and more of the economy to the stock market. It used to be that fortunes could be lost in stock trading, think the 1920s in the US or even the Dutch Tulip Mania in the 1600s. It was for rich people or people taking a risk. Quarterly reports weren’t a thing. It wasn’t a place for the common person at all. The investment done earlier was wildly different than today.

Now, a huge amount of wealth and financial security of the masses are tied to stocks. Retirement plans in particular. It became profitable to offload defined benefit programs in favor of 401ks. It became profitable to open up brokerages for everyman. CEO’s job security is often tied to quarterly earnings. Personal fortunes are made in stocks with the only prerequisite being lucky enough to have money/given stock options to invest and making the right choice (which is why nobody earns enough salary/works hard enough to be a billionaire or hundred-milllionaire, it’s all stock). The line must continue upwards. Almost nobody makes money by opening new markets or making new discoveries anymore, it’s not 1950. Tesla would be a rare example of a new market. But nowadays company advancement is too incremental to be profitable for most. So they make the line go up by enshittification and buying up the competition.

With so much riding on stocks they’ve become too big to fail. We’ve gone past stock purchases being used to prop up a company’s ability to advance as a gamble on the part of the investor and now we demand infinite growth to prop up a huge chunk of the economy.