Capitalism has an infinite hunger for profit and expansion in a world of finite resources.
Interesting comment and maybe practical 100 years ago.
Hunger for profit — I would suggest its more of a need. A company that makes negative profit would cease to exist. But a company could survive with zero profit.
Perhaps you think the profit should go to the workers since without them it would not exist.
So where does profit go?
There are many costs associated with the operation of a business. Most are unavoidable.
But some are discretionary. Most discretionary costs are at the quasi-discretion of the company. Duh. In other words you could avoid the cost at your own peril. Maintenance of equipment and facilities is a good example.
Others are discretionary within boundaries. Should a company build another production line and hire more people? Should they issue dividends to shareholders? Should they increase salaries? Expand to another city?
You could consider all of these discretionary costs as profits and not spend them.
Certainly some companies might buy other companies and do this.
They re-employ that capital where they get better returns.
Creative destruction.
Obviously this system is working with finite resources. But what is new destroys something less productive.
Whereas this company is expanding, all companies together can only expand as much as there is growth in total consumption.
There is no depletion of resources but there is an increase in the efficiency of capital employed.
Why do you think Facebook and Google are two of the largest companies in the world today?
What finite resources are they depleting?
They are extremely capital efficient.
The extractive industries are not. Extraction of physical resources like copper, iron, oil, natural gas and a thousand other substances are not capital efficient.
And yes there is a finite amount of copper, iron, oil and natural gas in the world.
Of those 4, the last two are consumed but the metals continue to exist and can be recycled.
At some point the number of consumers will hit a peak and a market can no longer grow.
Then there is creative destruction where efficiencies are gained.
By the end of this century the planets population will continue to drop, as long as capitalism expands to all areas.
In the distant future when the population has dropped in half, we won’t need so many car manufacturers (and thousands of other things).
What of growth then?
Only through creative destruction.
Ask yourself-would creative destruction exist without capitalism?
Better yet-would creativity exist?
So back to why not increase salaries.
Salaries are governed by supply and demand.
But that said, an industry could unilaterally raise salaries.
If only a few businesses in an industry did this, it could lead to their (creative) destruction.
I think capitalism is based on fear of creative destruction. You want to be the creator, not the destroyed.
If things were not “finite” this would not be the case.
So you could argue that capitalism exists because it is finite world.
You might see this as dog-eat-dog or survival of the fittest.
And it is but not in a derogatory sense.
It has strengthened the human race. It has extended our lives, increased our comfort, increased our personal safety, given us freedom.
And your better idea would be what exactly?
