this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Degrowth
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Ok, here a clearer explanation : a saturated market is a good example of capitalism without actual growth. Let's say you have 3 capitalists on a saturated market. The market will not grow, because it's saturated, so they will, in turn, increase their share of the market at the expanse of the other. That's what happens for example with graphic cards.
Capitalism doesn't need growth, as long as someone can lose wealth, someone else can benefit from the loss. Growth merely helps to have less losers if the growth is shared (which doesn't happens naturally). That's why I was describing growth as an illusion for people to believe in capitalism. Capitalism doesn't need growth, growth only allow less losers. But growth doesn't fix anything about capitalism, and you need consumerism to fuel it, which in turns destroy the planet.
I see what you mean, but I think it's true up to a certain point. Without growth, wealth concentration converges to a point where one actor owns everything. This is the perfect recipe for political instability and systemic failure.
It is to some extent. Unrest or even revolutions don't necessarily end capitalism. It rarely does actually.
IMO capitalism is inherently unstable. Capitalism cannot gracefully adapt to unexpected shocks (it will cause economic troubles, many people will have their lives ruined and many will profit from thee chaos), and it causes it's own crisis on a regular basis. I once saw a paper that was arguing that crisis were normal capitalist regime, because since the 19th century there were more periods of crisis than periods of stable growth.