> Exponential growth isnt possible in a finite world. That the world and its resources are finite is irrelevant. You probably mean "finite economy". Resources

> Exponential growth isnt possible in a finite world. That the world and its resources are finite is irrelevant. You probably mean "finite economy". Resources and work done upon them may be the basis of cost, but the economy is not so tightly coupled to resources because cost is not equal to price. Price is whatever the market accepts. If we have a finite economy you're not wrong about this, but you're omitting a few corollaries. 1) A finite economy implies a zero-sum game. 2) "Exponential growth" is only exponential for a window of time. Nothing lasts forever. 3) Bankruptcy exists. It's the safety valve that releases the pressure of compound interest. So, for there to be exponential winners there must also be one or more losers. This allows for the growth you're skeptical of. You see this all the time on the stock market. "Growth" is most often money being moved around. Assume the trivial case where there's one "loser" and one "winner". If the loser is worth a lot more, a tiny drop in its value can be a massive win for the winner. If it keeps accelerating for a while it will look like "exponential growth" for the winner. As for bankruptcy, that loss is someone's gain. The value can be recovered and growth at any rate can still occur. Just because the loser couldn't keep up with their debt doesn't mean their assets aren't enough to pay it back plus interest with different people driving. Anyway, the total value of the world economy is not really finite. It doesn't go up just because of inflation, but also from new value being added. New value can be due to efficiency gains on work, not just the discovery of new resources. The rate at which new value is created is unpredictable though. Whew ok final nail here: before modern capitalism, economic systems of the past definitely had these same properties and successfully operated in scarce environments before the industrial revolution. Shuffling money around to keep things afloat is not a new idea. It might be the oldest idea we've got and all modern economic systems have this in common. What you quoted from the article is not a strong argument against capitalism. It's an argument for anarchy.