‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’

&quot;More precisely, I will come to the following conclusion. Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance (of fortunes accumulated in the past) predominates over saving (wealth accumulated in the present). In strict logic, it could be otherwise, but the forces pushing in this direction are extremely powerful. The inequality r &gt; g in one sense implies that the past tends to devour the future: wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly, even without labor, than wealth stemming from work, which can be saved. Almost inevitably, this tends to give lasting, disproportionate importance to inequalities created in the past, and therefore to inheritance.&quot; (20.3)<p>&quot;The inequality r &gt; g implies that wealth accumulated in the past grows more rapidly than output and wages. This inequality expresses a fundamental logical contradiction. The entrepreneur inevitably tends to become a rentier, more and more dominant over those who own nothing but their labor. Once constituted, capital reproduces itself faster than output increases. The past devours the future.&quot; (27.6)<p>- Thomas Piketty, Capital in the 21st Century

&quot;I read him McNamee&#x27;s reply: &quot;I buy the basic thesis. The US kept interest rates at near zero from 2009 to 2022. This encouraged business models that promised world-changing outcomes, even if they were completely unrealistic and&#x2F;or hostile to the public interest (eg the gig economy, self-driving cars, crypto, metaverse, AI). This came at a time of no regulation of tech and an accepted culture in business that said executives should maximise shareholder value at expense of everything else (eg democracy, public health, public safety)... had rates been at 5% the past 14 years, I doubt very much that the gig economy, self-driving cars, crypto, metaverse or AI would have gotten even 10% as much funding.&quot;&quot;

The chatty style (tourist journalism?) of the article detracts from the proposition that readers want to understand.<p>FTFA: &quot;We’re now in servitude, Varoufakis argues, to the fiefdoms of our new global masters, Lord Zuckerberg of Facelandia and Sir Musk of the rotten borough of X.&quot;<p>tl;dr The working people live as <i>interest serfs</i> in an economy that has become impossible to afford for many. Meanwhile, enormously wealthy people have unchecked power over politics, technology, and public policy. These wealthy people can alter the workforce and fund movements according to their unrestrained and unscrupulous caprices.<p>Public policy in the US is in tatters (and is under heavy strain elsewhere), affordable lodging is a quaint hypothesis, and the current <i>middle class</i> cohort (i.e. anyone with what used to be a good salary) is trying to characterise its debt despair as temporary embarrassment.

I wish I could read the opinion without the entire account of the journalist&#x27;s trip to Greece and the scenery around their meeting place.

This... This <i>is</i> capitalism. Consolidation of big companies ruling their fiefdoms? That was what capitalism was literally doing until the various consumer and worker protections were slowly and painfully developed.<p>Yes, painfully. See, for example, Battle of Blair Mountain <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Battle_of_Blair_Mountain" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Battle_of_Blair_Mountain</a>

I believe it’s a good thing if the HN crowd steps out of their bubble and inform themselves a bit more on topics of capitalism, socialism and communism.<p>I feel more and more that those in power - the capitalists - have done a tremendous job of conditioning us from birth in the last 100+ years that capitalism is “the only way”.<p>Yet if you read a book like “Debt: the first 5000 years” by David Graeber, it put things into perspective. And there is so much more to read.

Ultimately I&#x27;ve firmly believed that the problem is investors and public companies. Investors tend to warp the economy solely to suit their needs as the rent-seeking class, which results in negative effects on how a company is ran because the needs of the shareholder are often against the needs of the customer and the worker.<p>Both privately owned companies and worker owned companies tend to have far less issues in this regard and helps stymie the cycle of capitalism. Grocery stores are an example of where our choice is increasingly non-existent because all grocers operate under the same company.