Past a point of wealth, it seems a lot easier to increase wealth through things of no intrinsic value to society.
If I have enough money, I can buy a lot of businesses (or be in a controlling position) and run them poorly (read: efficently) and as wealth concentrates the capital for a new entrant to compete becomes scarcer and regulation on new competition mysteriously materializes, and without any new competition I can raise prices and no one can really do anything.
And now I have more money to do this more times in more places, and wealth is more concentrated, and legislation just seems to go my way more and so on.
That vague playbook is being applied to just about everything today.
Spirit Airlines went through two bankruptcies, and the people who lead the first one were liquidating it while it was still running to pay themselves back for the first one, and turning debt they had forfeited for equity back into debt to increase how much they'd take out of the remains.
I mean you can't even escape that playbook in childrens sports! That playbook is being run into making children sports league a profit squeezing cartel as we speak.
It's just such a simple playbook that if we really go all in on the idea that anything that's technically legal to make money will be allowed, then having more money and basic "high agency" mindset will lead to making money in increasingly perverse ways.
To me the end game seems to be a race between authoritarianism (will these high-agency wealthy types just be able to keep the poorer class under lock and key with TikTok feeds to placate) and collapse (maybe they don't get the poor under deep enough control before the poor realize they've been given a deal that justifies trying to raze it all and start again)(edit: or maybe better framing, they realize they collectively have no meaningful part in the wealth and raze it)
To me everything you've identified is either 1) Corruption or 2) Consumers being sheep.
If the kids sports is a profit seeking cartel that you do not agree with, then do not give them your money. If enough customers do that they will not be profitable and will cease to exist once they can no longer extract investor capital from the very class this post seems to dislike.
Really roughly speaking the American consumer needs to stop being so complacent and naive, the American voter needs to get a good bit more politically active, and people need to stop choosing comfort over action. the average 2.5 hrs a day on social media could easily be spent to make their lives much better.
The market is not able to fix corruption. Regulation is needed. For example, exploitative labor practices weren't ended in the early 20th century because of customer preference. Laws had to be passed.
If I have enough money, I can buy a lot of businesses (or be in a controlling position) and run them poorly (read: efficently) and as wealth concentrates the capital for a new entrant to compete becomes scarcer and regulation on new competition mysteriously materializes, and without any new competition I can raise prices and no one can really do anything.
And now I have more money to do this more times in more places, and wealth is more concentrated, and legislation just seems to go my way more and so on.
That vague playbook is being applied to just about everything today.
Spirit Airlines went through two bankruptcies, and the people who lead the first one were liquidating it while it was still running to pay themselves back for the first one, and turning debt they had forfeited for equity back into debt to increase how much they'd take out of the remains.
I mean you can't even escape that playbook in childrens sports! That playbook is being run into making children sports league a profit squeezing cartel as we speak.
It's just such a simple playbook that if we really go all in on the idea that anything that's technically legal to make money will be allowed, then having more money and basic "high agency" mindset will lead to making money in increasingly perverse ways.
To me the end game seems to be a race between authoritarianism (will these high-agency wealthy types just be able to keep the poorer class under lock and key with TikTok feeds to placate) and collapse (maybe they don't get the poor under deep enough control before the poor realize they've been given a deal that justifies trying to raze it all and start again)(edit: or maybe better framing, they realize they collectively have no meaningful part in the wealth and raze it)