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> Why? They're already wealthy. How about just stop allocating the vast majority of that wealth to a handful of people and then focus on total well-being metric

> Why? They're already wealthy. How about just stop allocating the vast majority of that wealth to a handful of people and then focus on total well-being metrics rather than "growth" for its own sake. Because growth is what is required to make capitalism "sustainable". Without constant growth, capitalism eventually fails. Unless you're for abandoning capitalism, you can't abandon the focus on growth. I am for abandoning the focus on growth, and therefore also abandoning capitalism, but there are lots of people who don't want to abandon capitalism, a lot of them the same people who hold a lot of power and connections already, so it's a uphill fight.

usrusr 5y ago
Got to get them a slightly bigger phone every four years so they don't launch rotten fruit at your yacht. And no, capitalism does not require constant growth. The very specific subset of capitalism we practice does. Imagine a small world, an isolated island with strictly limited resources. You could easily run that on a form of capitalism, just with some corrective controls against certain tipover states. Perhaps some very "purity"-focused form of capitalism would inevitably be in the growth-requiring subset, but nobody really does pure capitalism. A lot of people like to pretend they do, but that's just that: pretension, or fooling themselves.
refurb 5y ago
This isn't true. Check Japan with its near zero growth. Nothing about capitalism suggests you can't have a steady state economy. Of course, if you want the latest health care advances, new housing and other things, that costs more money, so growth helps pay for those things that otherwise would be unaffordable.
- Mayora13 5y ago
  >By 2018, only one such company (Toyota) remains in the top 50. Many Japanese companies replaced a large part of their workforce with temporary workers, who had little job security and fewer benefits. As of 2009, these non-traditional employees made up more than a third of the labor force. For the wider Japanese workforce, wages have stagnated. From their peak in 1997, real wages have since fallen around 13% —an unprecedented number among developed nations. -Wikipedia on the Lost Decade (1990-2???)
  - refurb 5y ago
    Of course wages will stagnate, that’s entirely expected. And of course your industries will be eclipsed. But are you arguing their lot has gotten worse in an absolute sense? Or just a relative sense?
    - telotortium 5y ago
      "Real wages have fallen 13%" - that sounds like a pretty substantial drop in living standards to me.
Juliate 5y ago
> Because growth is what is required to make capitalism "sustainable". Also because there are lots of significant debts around (at country/state/corporate/personal levels) that for sure will not be ever repayed if there's not a growth (or jubilee) mecanism somewhere. But indeed, "growth" depends on how you define it, on what you value, what equivalences you define.

usrusr 5y ago

Got to get them a slightly bigger phone every four years so they don't launch rotten fruit at your yacht. And no, capitalism does not require constant growth. The very specific subset of capitalism we practice does. Imagine a small world, an isolated island with strictly limited resources. You could easily run that on a form of capitalism, just with some corrective controls against certain tipover states. Perhaps some very "purity"-focused form of capitalism would inevitably be in the growth-requiring subset, but nobody really does pure capitalism. A lot of people like to pretend they do, but that's just that: pretension, or fooling themselves.

refurb 5y ago

This isn't true. Check Japan with its near zero growth. Nothing about capitalism suggests you can't have a steady state economy. Of course, if you want the latest health care advances, new housing and other things, that costs more money, so growth helps pay for those things that otherwise would be unaffordable.

Mayora13 5y ago
>By 2018, only one such company (Toyota) remains in the top 50. Many Japanese companies replaced a large part of their workforce with temporary workers, who had little job security and fewer benefits. As of 2009, these non-traditional employees made up more than a third of the labor force. For the wider Japanese workforce, wages have stagnated. From their peak in 1997, real wages have since fallen around 13% —an unprecedented number among developed nations. -Wikipedia on the Lost Decade (1990-2???)
- refurb 5y ago
  Of course wages will stagnate, that’s entirely expected. And of course your industries will be eclipsed. But are you arguing their lot has gotten worse in an absolute sense? Or just a relative sense?
  - telotortium 5y ago
    "Real wages have fallen 13%" - that sounds like a pretty substantial drop in living standards to me.

Juliate 5y ago

> Because growth is what is required to make capitalism "sustainable". Also because there are lots of significant debts around (at country/state/corporate/personal levels) that for sure will not be ever repayed if there's not a growth (or jubilee) mecanism somewhere. But indeed, "growth" depends on how you define it, on what you value, what equivalences you define.