[caconym_]

Money and power inevitably corrupt the systems we build for guiding collective socioeconomic development. Even in Le Guin's anarchist "utopia" on fictional Anarres, it happens: people with a tendency toward consolidating power do so, creating ad hoc structures that actively erode the society's expression of its founding principles in favor of a mindless, jealous, cynical politics.

Whether it's right to classify these people as "sociopaths" is up for debate, but their role is pretty clear. In particular, the career politicians and others existing at the interface between capital and government are looking out for themselves and their careers first, and the mid- to long-term health of the economy last. I do think it's illuminating to practice some empathy for these people, given that most humans are selfish to some degree (and for very good reason), but I strongly believe that they are the problem in a very real sense. We need a system that bends their ambition to the benefit of the people, but it's not clear what such a system would look like or if it could exist at all.

On a somewhat related tangent, I think commenters here are misunderstanding the linked UKL piece. My interpretation is that it's not calling all expressions of economic growth bad, but rather suggesting that growth (in so many words) as a guiding metaphor is incomplete, deceptive, and ultimately harmful.

[seph-reed]

I strongly believe that it is possible.

Basically, there's an arms race between any democratic system and the people who live within it. We haven't updated ours in ages, and it shows.

I'd like to see more people talking about "liquid democracy." It too would be just another tit-for-tat in the arms race of corruption, but so it goes.

The beast we're trying to cage is us, every bit as clever. So we must be every bit as clever in how it is caged.

[streamofdigits]

power seeking behavior is certainly a homo sapiens invariant. feeding this beast while containing it is still the stuff of utopias. one would speculate that actually its an instinct that could be satiated in less damaging ways.

but money (or that other favorite punching bag, corporate structures) are really straw men. they are just recent, transient and evolving constructs. it is conceivable that we could do better with improved versions, or even additional such tools that we haven't yet imagined.

there is, in this respect an interesting data point. this other "pandemic" (cryptomania). this too is mostly depressing in the amount of financial / economic ignorance it reveals - but it offers a silver lining in showing how indeed "made-up" the money system actually is, and thus its in-principle malleability

[posterboy]

Sorry, the cryptomania is no independent proof.

It really took off once that big finance started to invest, keeping the bubble bubbeling up with astronomic inflation rates. This was possible because enough people had been speculating with $$$ as the only goal, ie. involving big finance whethwr they wanted it or not.