Like at some point won’t all of the profit be squeezed out of society?
Theoretically? I’d imagine it’s equal (or close) to the difference between global money supply and global money supply but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking
This article explores that. The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth
You’ve discovered capitalism’s super hidden secret; infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.
[Muse performs “The 2nd Law:Unsustainable” in the background]
How the hell did I miss this? I physically own that album. It’s kinda like orchestral dubstep. 🤘
It is if you count your profit in terms of percentage of global profit, and then, should that break down, in terms of global wealth.
Similar to how it’s impossible to reach the speed of light, it’s not possible to reach 100% of global wealth unless you’re the only sentient being left alive, but you can get arbitrarily close. And getting closer requires more and more human suffering, as reaching light speed requires more and more energy.
Only time will tell whether the rich will (publicly) switch to this metric because so far, “Newtonian” measurements of profit have been sufficient, and fractions of global wealth generation look piddly by comparison.
Isnt that why there are transnational conglomerates?
Tendency of the rate of profit to fall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall
No. Or at least not while inflation exists.
Inflation or deflation always exist. The question is to what degree. I would revisit your understanding of this topic if possible.
Inflation and deflation are mutually exclusive they can’t both exist at the same time.
I didn’t contradict what you just typed despite what you think I intended.
That’s not the point of inflation.
Our economy needs inflation to discourage saving and incentive investing.
If there was no inflation and 3% interest on savings, that’s all people would do.
So they make inflation more, and people lose purchasing power in a savings account, and instead invest, which pumps up stock prices for the whales who knows when to cash out.
On a smaller level it incentives people to spend as soon as they get it, because next year a $100 is worth less, so they spend while it’s worth more.
It’s a house of cards and when the wealthy owns the government there’s no one to hit the brakes on profits before the economy crashes and burns.
So they make inflation more, and people lose purchasing power in a savings account, and instead invest, which pumps up stock prices for the whales who knows when to cash out.
That’s… not really how that works. I mean inflation is there to keep people from saving when they could be investing their money, but that’s not to make money for the whales. Money sitting in a bank account doing nothing is bad (economically speaking) even when the owner of the money isn’t rich. More money moving is better for everyone.
More money moving is better for everyone.
*Gestures broadly at “the economy” Biden kept bragging about
Lots of money is moving, it’s not good for the majority of us
I mean real wages have been increasing under Biden so he’s not 100% wrong about the whole economy thing, but either way that’s not relevant to my point.
Lots of money is moving, it’s not good for the majority of us
Because it’s moving to the top. The latest round of price gouging inflation is a special case and not representative of inflation at large.
Because it’s moving to the top.
When the fuck hasn’t it?
We used to take it back with taxes, now we don’t…
Have you learned anything about economics outside of a classroom?
We used to take it back with taxes, now we don’t…
I mean exactly. I’m not sure when in my replies you saw me say anything otherwise; you need strong and well-enforced taxation or the whole thing falls apart. That has no relation to the value of currency, which is a far more fundamental issue in a capitalist system.
Where do you think profit comes from? Spending is what makes profit happen.
Huh? At any point in time, even if there are 2 humans left in society, and one human procures something and gives it to the other guy in exchange for something more than what cost him, it will be profit?
absolute or percentage wise. in absolute terms all of the universe. in percent terms nope because like gambling allows for infinite profit. ie guaranteed profit on rolls that will most times not result in any loss.
Once one person has all the power, they de facto have all the wealth. Slaves don’t own anything.
There’s a limit with any particular set of tools and labor, but a universal limit doesn’t exist, no. Profit comes when you take money and use it in a more productive way than letting it sit under your mattress, and there’s no theoretical limit on productivity.
This is a great take
Maximum profit would be achieved by charging the most for the least stuff. And minimizing the cost of that bare minimum. You can do that by eliminating competition so that your prices are the only option. You’d end up with something like feudalism.
But it also depends if you target maximum profits as compared to the population, or maximum profits over all. If maximum profits over all, you’d want to grow the work force as much as possible, maybe colonizing other planets or inhospitable regions of earth.
But maximizing the value of those profits to you requires development to get you more value for less resources. Being a king hundreds of years ago still didn’t get you decent plumbing. So you’d want effecent ways to maximize your pleasure for the lowest cost. Some brain computer interface could be useful there, so that you can create full planets more cheaply.
What happens after all of humanity are enslaved as software devs for the god kings personal virtual reality, I couldn’t guess.
One way historic economic systems prevented total market capture by family dynasties was large families.
A big family dividing a concern will eventually sell it, break it up so it can be split.
With smaller families this division will take much longer, and with corporate personhood we are in a new weird self perpetual bureaucratic regimen
Yes. It’s when the workers are driven to the point that they cannot do enough reproductive labor and/or they revolt.
In case you want a serious treatment, for nominal profit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics#The_Keynesian_multiplier
For real profit, labor productivity must put some limit on it somewhere, but I have never seen anybody look at it.
Either way, “profit” is not something you squeeze out of society. The nominal one can’t be unbalanced, and the real one is hard to even track.
You may get some better answers if think in terms of wealth inequality. But that one won’t appear on the coarse level of the wikipedia article.
I beg to differ, how the modern shareholder capitalism works is nothing but squeezing profit out of society
There’s an actual limit to profit, they are called profit margins and different industries have different profit margins.
