None of you are thinking about class. To you, this is a technical problem with a technical solution. Just a math problem. “How do we align incentives?” “How do

None of you are thinking about class. To you, this is a technical problem with a technical solution. Just a math problem. “How do we align incentives?” “How do we set the tax rate to maximize productivity and growth?” etc. As though simply increasing the number of startups and corporate wealth in the world will eventually eliminate scarcity and poverty. No big changes necessary, just keep up the good work and the great Polynomial Curve of Technology will propel us to the end of history. Some of you are more proactive. We should “attack poverty.” Like it’s a disease, and we can “science the shit out of it” and find a cure. But poverty, and disequal distribution generally are not diseases - unpleasant but inexorable byproducts of our evolution - they are inextricable from our political economy. Why? Because we have a society that is stratified by class! Our capitalist economy does solve the problem of distributing resources to everybody (though not equally or fairly, and not without wrecking the planet), and of creating new resources, new products, driving progress, but it also serves the crucial purpose of maintaining class power. Given the massive forward surge in productivity over the last 50 years, why do most of us now work more and earn less? Surely this isn’t the only way it could be. Even Keynes, the liberal economist thought we’d be working 15 hour weeks by now. So why don’t we? It’s because we’re in the working class, and the working class serves the ruling class. It’s not in their interest for us to work 15 hour weeks, and they’re in charge, so we don’t. That’s really all. Until working people have some democratic control over the economy, we’ll always work more and earn less, and wealth will accumulate at the top, because that’s what this system is designed to do. And it works. Our world is not billions of people on equal footing, freely exchanging goods and labor. It’s not woodworking artisans crafting chairs and selling them to each other. It’s owners and workers. Sure you can start a startup. Make a great app that coordinates precarious workers to take out SF yuppies’ garbage for them (yep, that’s a real one!), and transition from worker to owner. Great. You made it. That’s certainly not the norm though, and it certainly won’t eradicate poverty or scarcity. An on a human scale, it’s hardly progress. We used to have a space program, remember? We can do better than capitalism. Anyway we better, or we’re screwed.