Like at some point won’t all of the profit be squeezed out of society?
You’ve discovered capitalism’s super hidden secret; infinitely growth on a finite planet is impossible.
Is there a theoretical limit to profit?
Submitted 4 weeks ago by Lexam@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
Dasus@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
EffortlessEffluvium@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
[Muse performs “The 2nd Law:Unsustainable” in the background]
Kolanaki@yiffit.net 4 weeks ago
How the hell did I miss this? I physically own that album.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Technically, money is just a number on a ledger. Practically, there’s a finite amount of wealth in the solar system, much less on earth, significantly less accessible to humans and only a slim amount can be taken from the working class before people start starving. We already have little enough that the population is going to start contracting.
murmelade@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
So the limit is when everyone is dead and can’t purchase anything.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Well I’d say it’s when the proletariat revolts, destroying the machine of exploitation, at which gathering further profit is impossible.
workerONE@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I would argue that banking is a number in a ledger but money and banking are not the same thing.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
I’m making a distinction between money as a system of abstracting wealth and what wealth practically means. You’re making a highly disputable philosophical argument about the ontological nature of money instead of engaging with the germaine ideas. Simply put: I don’t consider a physical representation of money in-and-of-itself; I consider the bill to be a part of a grand fragmented ledger. Furthermore, bitcoin is literally a public ledger for which there is no physical exchange of any representation of money. As a final example, the Yap isles famously have a monetary system that has physical Incarnations but no physical exchange among the people of the isles. It’s literally just a public ledger that exists in the minds of those who use it.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Yes, there is a limit.
First, you need to look at the difference between 1. money and 2. value.
That theoretical one rich person (or company) might own all money printing facilities in the world, and therefore can make endless numbers. That is money, not value.
There is theoretically no limit for the money. But this is meaningless, because this kind of money would be valueless.
The one rich person might own everybody else, and all their belongings, and all that they can produce.
That’s all the value then. That’s your limit.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
And further on point 2, the limit would determined by all that people can produce as well as, on the minus side, the costs of keeping those people alive and producing.
As it so happens, people will produce more under better conditions, so spending the least amount possible keeping those people alive doesn’t yield maximum profit - there is a sweet spot somewhere in the curve were the people’s productivity minus the costs of keeping them productive is at a peak - i.e. profit is maximum.
Capitalism really is just a way of the elites trying to get society to that sweet spot of that curve - people are more productive than in overtly autocratic systems (or even further, outright slavery) were less is spent on people, they get less education and they have less freedom to (from the point of view of the elites) waste their time doing what they want rather than produce, but because people live a bit better, are a bit less unhappy and have something to lose, they produce more for the elites and there is less risk of rebelions so the whole adds up to more wealth for the elites.
As you might have noticed by now, optimizing for the sweet spot of “productivity minus costs with the riff-raff” isn’t the same as optimizing for the greatest good for the greatest number (the basic principle of the Left) since most people by a huge margin are the “riff-raff”, not the elites.
bear@lemmynsfw.com 4 weeks ago
[deleted]Aeao@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That is probably correct to the phrasing of the question but I don’t think it’s correct to the spirit of the question .
If I have a billion dollars and everyone else has one dollar, I am powerful.
Time moves forward, inflation, whatever.
I have 2 billion dollars now and everyone else has 2 dollars.
Nothing has substantially changed in that scenario.
But even if we only allow me to grow:
Again I have 2 billion dollars now and everyone else still has 1 dollar.
Nothing has substantially changed.
That’s my disagreement. There is a limit. Diminished returns.
The difference between a one bathroom house and a 2 bathroom house is huge. The difference between a 20 bathroom house and a 21 bathroom house is basically meaningless.
inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
Likewise people can only get so poor before the concept of currency breaks down completely. We kind of see a glimpse of that with credit scores. I have bad credit. I don’t care that I have bad credit. I’m not going to own a home anyway. I don’t care if a credit card company sues me because I have no liquidatable property or items. Even my wages can’t be garnished because my child support maxes that out alrwady. My debt and credit score are meaningless. Money itself can get that low as well. If the imbalance gets too far the money becomes worthless.
Fucking real
cheese_greater@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Isnt that why there are transnational conglomerates?
marcos@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In case you want a serious treatment, for nominal profit:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics#The_Key…
For real profit, labor productivity must put some limit on it somewhere, but I have never seen anybody look at it.
Either way, “profit” is not something you squeeze out of society. The nominal one can’t be unbalanced, and the real one is hard to even track.
You may get some better answers if think in terms of wealth inequality. But that one won’t appear on the coarse level of the wikipedia article.
orrk@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I beg to differ, how the modern shareholder capitalism works is nothing but squeezing profit out of society
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Maximum profit would be achieved by charging the most for the least stuff. And minimizing the cost of that bare minimum. You can do that by eliminating competition so that your prices are the only option. You’d end up with something like feudalism.
But it also depends if you target maximum profits as compared to the population, or maximum profits over all. If maximum profits over all, you’d want to grow the work force as much as possible, maybe colonizing other planets or inhospitable regions of earth.
But maximizing the value of those profits to you requires development to get you more value for less resources. Being a king hundreds of years ago still didn’t get you decent plumbing. So you’d want effecent ways to maximize your pleasure for the lowest cost. Some brain computer interface could be useful there, so that you can create full planets more cheaply.
What happens after all of humanity are enslaved as software devs for the god kings personal virtual reality, I couldn’t guess.
Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
No. They can always print more money. Money is no longer backed by anything other than faith; if people believe money has value, there’s no hard set limit on that value
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
But people do stop believing money has value, or more specifically, their trust in the value of money can go down - you all over the History in plenty of places that people’s trust in the value of money can break down.
As somebody pointed out, if one person has all the money and nobody else has money, money has no value, so it’s logical to expect that between were we are now and that imaginary extreme point there will be a balance in the distribution of wealth were most people do lose trust in the value of money and the “wealth” anchored on merelly that value stops being deemed wealth.
crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 4 weeks ago
Well profit can be defined as money_in - money_out therefore the maximum profit is the least amount of money_out with the maximum amount of money_in. So let’s assume that the minimum amount of money_out is 0. So it becomes a question of what is the maximum of money_in well currencies are generally just numbers. So we need to know the total amount of matter in the universe and the value that an organization of that total amount can represent. If the universe is infinite then infinite profit, if not then there is some number. However, at this point we delve into the zone of philosophy as we might need to take some of that matter out to have some witnesses. But still might not buy you a house in 2024.
it_depends_man@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
In a sense yes. Once a company has captured the entire economy, including banking, it would control who to give credit to, who to employ, what to pay them, what their own products are priced.
They could at most reap as “profit” what they give out in credit and payment.
dutchkimble@lemy.lol 4 weeks ago
Huh? At any point in time, even if there are 2 humans left in society, and one human procures something and gives it to the other guy in exchange for something more than what cost him, it will be profit?
JackLSauce@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Theoretically? I’d imagine it’s equal (or close) to the difference between global money supply and global money supply but I don’t think that’s what you’re asking
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
No. Or at least not while inflation exists.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That’s not the point of inflation.
Our economy needs inflation to discourage saving and incentive investing.
If there was no inflation and 3% interest on savings, that’s all people would do.
So they make inflation more, and people lose purchasing power in a savings account, and instead invest, which pumps up stock prices for the whales who knows when to cash out.
On a smaller level it once tives people to spend as soon as they get it, because next year a $100 is worth less, so they spend while it’s worth more.
It’s a house of cards and when the wealthy owns the government there’s no one to hit the brakes on profits before the economy crashes and burns.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Where do you think profit comes from? Spending is what makes profit happen.
Orbituary@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Inflation and deflation always exist. The question is to what degree. I would revisit your understanding of this topic if possible.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Inflation and deflation are mutually exclusive they can’t both exist at the same time.
workerONE@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
There’s an actual limit to profit, they are called profit margins and different industries have different profit margins.
hperrin@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
Once one person has all the power, they de facto have all the wealth. Slaves don’t own anything.
DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
No, let me know if you find one though
Toes@ani.social 4 weeks ago
This article explores that. The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth