Capitalism rests on the assumption that accumulating wealth and human interests are aligned. That may be true at smaller scales, but it sure doesn’t seem all that aligned at the scale of 300m Americans…
In part I’m thinking about how our government is suddenly shifting towards oligarchy. You may think this is straight up democracy in action, you might think it’s due to the undue influence of the extremely wealthy. Regardless of how we got here, it doesn’t seem like a good direction for most of the humans who live here.
I’d like to believe this is a modern problem (with modern solutions), but I learned recently that the Mayor of Seattle settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of the local sawmill in the late 1800s. The suit was filed by the owner of the mill, who was also mayor. A sneaky hack on the governance of the local economy, and he seems to have gotten away stock free. So… Modern problem? Probably not.
If this conflict between financial interests and human interests is old – how have we survived in the past? And how? Who survived, and how does that shape our sense of fairness and governance today?
Add in: corporations as people (or at least self-interested entities), and the emerging present of self-interested algorithms and you’ve probably got something interesting to think about.
Back to being jet lagged…
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