Capitalists are always the ones who expect free lunches. They think they can squeeze workers without consequence, but that pressure just erodes the foundation of society and drives instability through various mechanisms. Populism, crime, war, and other destabilizing trends are a natural consequence of fucking around. Propaganda and distractions can only buy so much time before they get to find out.
The meta problem to that is the super rich are gambling on failure just as much as they gamble on success. They have their super portfolios so spread out that if something fails they may lose money on the thing but make more money on the effects of the failure with other investments. And for the most part, they don’t handle that at all, it’s data science run hedge funds that are running trillions of calculations a minute as markets and global shifts occur to ensure that “line go up” for the accounts they manage, which results in a lose-lose for everyone else, because often the bad social things happening are more profitable so they will try to move the market in that way. Hypercapitalism is fucked
The issue is that they aren’t as smart as they think they are. They’ve created a more dangerous world for themselves and their children, and while they’ll still be at the top, their position is far less stable. They’re still trapped on this planet with us, and are still vulnerable to the apocalyptic problems they’ve caused.
Not a great response but… Basically they are gambling they’ll be dead before the bill comes due.
It helps that human made environmental changes are novel, meaning that while we have histories of other disasters befalling our planet, we haven’t seen this particular one before. And since our enemy is the super rich who control much of the media output, they can cast enough doubt over everything to get away with it for long enough for them to die off.
Capitalists are always the ones who expect free lunches. They think they can squeeze workers without consequence, but that pressure just erodes the foundation of society and drives instability through various mechanisms. Populism, crime, war, and other destabilizing trends are a natural consequence of fucking around. Propaganda and distractions can only buy so much time before they get to find out.
The meta problem to that is the super rich are gambling on failure just as much as they gamble on success. They have their super portfolios so spread out that if something fails they may lose money on the thing but make more money on the effects of the failure with other investments. And for the most part, they don’t handle that at all, it’s data science run hedge funds that are running trillions of calculations a minute as markets and global shifts occur to ensure that “line go up” for the accounts they manage, which results in a lose-lose for everyone else, because often the bad social things happening are more profitable so they will try to move the market in that way. Hypercapitalism is fucked
The issue is that they aren’t as smart as they think they are. They’ve created a more dangerous world for themselves and their children, and while they’ll still be at the top, their position is far less stable. They’re still trapped on this planet with us, and are still vulnerable to the apocalyptic problems they’ve caused.
Not a great response but… Basically they are gambling they’ll be dead before the bill comes due.
It helps that human made environmental changes are novel, meaning that while we have histories of other disasters befalling our planet, we haven’t seen this particular one before. And since our enemy is the super rich who control much of the media output, they can cast enough doubt over everything to get away with it for long enough for them to die off.