I feel like there's a difference between making a sustainable profit and squeezing every bit out of a trade or contract. I'm not as idealistic as GP, but think

I feel like there's a difference between making a sustainable profit and squeezing every bit out of a trade or contract. I'm not as idealistic as GP, but think we should aim at improving things. Markets and competition work really well on frontiers in a situation where basic things are covered, because like this more people can participate freely. There are many things that we have figured out to a pretty high degree and that benefit from collaboration and (very) long term thinking. I think housing, transport, basic medicine/treatment and perhaps to some degree food and water belong to that category. You can always have the luxury/explorative version on top with markets and that model works pretty well where it is applied. To contrast, if your under such financial stress so you constantly worry whether some big bill is coming your way or you cannot even afford the very basics, then your stuck in a perpetual loop. Landlords, collectors and even police come knocking. It takes a lot of courage, discipline and enough luck and stamina to get out of this. In my opinion this is a a monumental task and effort _wasted_ on a inefficient and short sighted system of power relations.