[squarefoot]

I think the context is vital here. In the ideal situation of 5 people hungry and the only shop in town with exactly 5 sandwiches ready, nobody loses: shop sells, people eat, workers get paid. But in this world there are more products and services around than people wanting to buy them, so people have to be convinced, and engineers usually are really poor at lying.

A revealing sign that an engineer isn't running that shop would be the production climbing to 50 sandwiches. The same 5 people would be fooled into buying all of them by advertising, special discounts etc, then they would eat 5 each instead of 1 becoming obese, thus helping the medical business, and throw away the rest helping the trash collection and disposal business.

[drb91]

> But in this world there are more products and services around than people wanting to buy them, so people have to be convinced

Or, the products could shut down, or lower their prices. If there’s no demand, why put energy into making demand rather than making something people want? It’s the lowest bar of achievement in this society; while I understand money can be a powerful motivator, this lowers the value of the entire work force.

[bicubic]

That's literally the endgame of capitalism.

Capitalism is, and always has been, about reaching a state where supply exceeds demand. One could argue that once a business reaches that stage, they can put up a Mission Accomplished banner and fire most of their workforce. But because of how wealth is distributed, workers always need to be working so they're incentivized to extend the work and market as long as possible.

The same mechanism is responsible for the situation where institutions tasked with solving a certain problem (crime, cancer, etc.) invariably end up perpetuating the problem so they can continue existing.

You think some shmuck MBA setting up a devious pricing structure at Disneyland is bad? Consider that the US has more empty houses than homeless people, and more unsold cars in lots than people who lack reliable transportation.

[drb91]

Agreed! A good reason not to like capitalism.

[squarefoot]

Or implementing limits to it so that we get mostly the good of it.

[drb91]

Right, it's a spectrum. I don't think there are many cogent adults (even "democratic socialists") that wish to do away with the majority of capitalism in our society: the nordic model.