[fiala__]

Very well said. I think what you speak of sounds a lot like degrowth and/or idealised socialism. Unfortunately, I don't see either of those ever becoming viable policy in our world. The only times we've managed to even remotely approach such policy is after terrible, long wars. Other than that, the big man promising you shiny stuff has always won.

[generativenoise]

I agree that they are unlikely to become viable policy, but environmentally imposed degrowth will become increasingly real. Natural physical constraints are tightening and are already imposing into manufactured reality. Hitting the physical bounds hard and having to deal with that is looking more likely since human ecological footprint (population x resource intensiveness) is unlikely to drop fast enough to avoid them.

[mandmandam]

> The only times we've managed to even remotely approach such policy is after terrible, long wars

Or during/after natural disasters. Any time things get real tough, we tend to default to helping each other out mutual aid style - even in America [0]. Seems worth keeping in mind.

0 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28048.Hope_in_the_Dark

[squigz]

The world has changed drastically over the past few decades. Maybe the lessons we've learned historically about socioeconomic systems don't apply so much any more.