Why is capitalism inherently undemocratic and promotes sociopathology? Plus, why true socialism is more democratic than capitalism, and how we can learn to govern from worker-owned cooperatives.
for holding space for such depth—and for continuing the conversation with clarity and care. I want to offer a thread that weaves between the poles of condemnation and romanticization. What I see is this: Germany didn’t arrive at a solidaric system by accident. It was shaped by devastation, loss, and a deep reckoning with how economic power had once colluded with authoritarianism. The resulting structure—what we call Solidargemeinschaft—isn’t perfect, and yes, parts of it have been chipped away by the same neoliberal forces that swept through much of the West. Yet what remains is a legal and social architecture still consciously designed to protect labor, equity, and dignity.
We in Germany still live under a system that—however flawed—contains strong protections for the non-dominant population. It isn't limited to queer rights or women's rights. It includes codified protections against discrimination, labor protections with real teeth, and a solidaric structure around healthcare and pensions that centers the idea of communal well-being rather than corporate profit.
Some of these protections have eroded since the 1980s and 90s. That was a period when many local governments, deeply indebted, began selling off public assets—our hospitals, our postal services, even segments of our national rail system. Energy providers once owned by the people shifted into private hands. Everything began revolving around profit, and much of it mirrored the neoliberal shift that took place elsewhere, especially in the U.S.
And yet, the foundations remain different. The overreach of the American system, especially as it has evolved since the founding of the Union, took a different path—one where deregulation and the sanctification of the “marketplace” went largely unchecked. In contrast, Germany’s postwar system was consciously designed to prevent another descent into fascism—not just politically, but economically.
It’s important to recognize how deeply corporate complicity ran during the Third Reich—not just among German companies, but international ones as well. This wasn’t incidental. It was structural. American corporations played significant roles in enabling Nazi power, often through a mixture of business interest, political convenience, and devastating ethical compromise.
Just a few examples:
General Motors (Opel): Their German subsidiary produced vehicles for the Nazi war effort. Controversies remain around how much control GM retained over operations during that time.
Ford-Werke, a subsidiary of Ford, manufactured military vehicles. Henry Ford’s admiration for Nazi ideology is not an obscure footnote—his views had global influence.
IBM, through its subsidiary Dehomag, provided the punch-card machines that helped the Nazis catalog and target people, including in the logistics of the Holocaust.
IT&T was involved in Nazi telecommunications infrastructure, and there are allegations of financial support to the SS.
Kodak AG, Kodak’s German arm, not only produced for the war effort but profited from the use of forced labor.
And these examples are just the surface. Financial institutions facilitated transactions, helped sell war bonds, and managed money flows for the regime. Many foreign businesses profited, either directly or through plausible deniability. The full extent of that complicity is still being unraveled by historians.
This is what those rebuilding Germany after the war understood clearly: the economic system that had allowed Hitler’s regime to flourish could not be allowed to rise again unchecked. It wasn’t enough to outlaw fascist symbols or parties. What was needed was an economic structure that wouldn’t lend itself so easily to authoritarian capture. That’s why the principles of Solidargemeinschaft were built into our postwar democracy, and why many of them are protected by the Basic Law—our constitution.
It doesn’t make Germany immune. And it certainly doesn’t erase our history. But it does reflect an effort—a sustained one—to learn from catastrophe not only at the level of memory, but in the very systems that govern our lives. The question, for me, isn’t whether socialism or capitalism is "the answer." It’s whether the lessons of complicity have been integrated into our structures. In Germany’s case, some of them have. And that makes all the difference.
And we must not forget the role of the Allied forces in this deliberate restructuring. The decision to rebuild Germany differently—both politically and economically—was not left to chance. The Allied powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, understood how the unchecked concentration of wealth, land, and power had enabled two world wars to erupt within just three decades. They recognized that rebuilding Germany meant not only dismantling its military but also rewiring its economic framework to make such a collapse into authoritarianism far more difficult in the future.
The United Nations itself was born of this recognition—that no single nation, left to its own devices, could be trusted to self-regulate in the face of expanding greed or nationalist delusion. Yet, paradoxically, while the Allies helped shape a more solidaric and rights-oriented Germany, the United States never made a parallel effort to reassess or restructure its own foundational systems. The very safeguards it saw fit to install abroad were never mirrored at home.
Yes, there have been presidents in the U.S. who attempted to integrate elements of solidarity—Roosevelt’s New Deal, Johnson’s Great Society, even parts of Obama’s policies. But each time, progress has been tenuous. The next Republican administration often focused on dismantling what little solidarity had been achieved. What persists is a cyclical unraveling of civic care, a near-religious deference to free markets, and a refusal to confront the systemic roots of inequality—whether racial, economic, or environmental.
The irony is staggering: the architects of Germany’s postwar safeguards knew that democracy without solidarity is brittle. That economic justice isn’t the result of charity, but of structure. That civic health requires more than ballots—it demands boundaries around power and capital. These are not just German lessons. They are human ones. The question is not whether the U.S. can afford to integrate them, but whether it can afford not to.
What a powerful, deeply layered essay—thank you for this. Their exploration of how capitalism entrenches inequality and numbs civic awareness resonated deeply with me. The parallels they draw between Colonial Hong Kong and modern Corporate America are chillingly accurate, especially the way both systems condition people to prioritize survival over engagement. Their reflections added such a sharp historical lens—this really is about much more than economics; it's about the architecture of power and how it replicates across time and culture.
I read this—and while it’s clearly thoughtful and well-argued, I think it misses something fundamental.
The claim that capitalism is inherently undemocratic feels like a category error. At their core, democracy and capitalism are both systems rooted in individual sovereignty—one in the political realm, the other in the economic. You vote with your ballot, and you vote with your labor, your dollars, your risk. That’s not tyranny. That’s freedom.
Yes, when capital is allowed to consolidate unchecked, it can distort markets and political systems. But that’s not a flaw of capitalism—it’s a failure of regulation, of anti-trust enforcement, of civic guardrails. The same could be said of democracy when it’s gamed by authoritarian actors: the tool isn’t broken, the operating system’s been hijacked.
Worker co-ops are great. They should be part of a vibrant capitalist system, not a replacement for it. Socialism, when imposed top-down by the state, has a long track record—and it’s not democratic. Ask anyone who grew up under it.
So no—I don’t think capitalism is the problem. I think concentrated power is. And that shows up in every system, regardless of ideology.
🪷 A Response to “The Long Memo” on Capitalism & Democracy
William A. Finnegan cc Lily Pond
You wrote that calling capitalism inherently undemocratic is a “category error.” I call it what it is:
a refusal to examine the category itself.
Capitalism isn’t just an economic system. It’s a structure of power relations.
It doesn’t merely organize production—it organizes people, into hierarchies of worth, access, and survival.
And while you argue that capitalism and democracy are both rooted in individual sovereignty— I must ask:
Whose sovereignty? Whose dollars? Whose risk?
Because when most people are asked to “vote” with money they don’t have, or labor they cannot withhold without risking homelessness, hunger, or deportation— that’s not freedom.
That’s coercion, disguised as choice.
You claim:
“That’s not a flaw of capitalism—it’s a failure of regulation.”
But regulation doesn’t arise in a vacuum. It requires democratic will strong enough to rein in corporate power.
And when that same capital:
funds campaigns
owns media platforms
writes legislation
outsources accountability
...then what’s left to protect democracy from its slow capture?
You mention worker-owned co-ops as a “welcome part” of capitalism.
I’ve lived in one. I’ve seen how they operate. And I’ll say this plainly:
Co-ops don’t succeed because of capitalism. They succeed despite it.
They run on values capitalism actively erodes:
Equity over extraction
Collective care over competition
Participation over profit
These values aren’t marginal improvements. They are a fundamentally different logic of life.
You also claim socialism, when imposed by the state, “isn’t democratic.” I agree—when power is concentrated at the top, no system remains democratic.
But that’s not the socialism I’m pointing to. And I’m not here to romanticize failed regimes.
I write from Germany. From a system shaped by war, collapse, and the painful reckoning with economic complicity in fascism.
We built something we call Solidargemeinschaft. No, it’s not perfect. And yes, neoliberalism has eroded pieces of it.
But the core remains:
✅ Strong worker protections ✅ Public healthcare not bound to employment ✅ Anti-discrimination laws with real consequences ✅ Constitutional boundaries on corporate overreach
This is not authoritarianism. It’s what happens when a country chooses to remember— and embeds that memory into the very structure of its democracy.
Let’s name this plainly:
Capitalism concentrates power by design, not accident.
That’s not a bug. It’s the system functioning exactly as intended.
To say the system has been “hijacked” is to deny the very shape of the vehicle.
Democracy isn’t defined by ballots or buying power. It’s defined by this:
🟡 Who gets to live a life of dignity? 🟡 Who gets to say “no” without being punished? 🟡 Who gets to rest, breathe, exist—without being extracted from?
Hi William A. Finnegan: I do not agree with the notion that capitalism allows workers to vote with our labor and our dollars. Most workers enter into work contracts that aren't equitable. The employer inherently owns absolute/concentrated/imbalanced power. Differences among individual owners are a question of degree. Due to the need for survival, workers accept the working conditions that are laid out by the employers. They do not have a say in these conditions (unlike a worker-owned co-op).
Let me quote from Tricia Hersey's book Rest is Resistance: “Capitalism is created on the plantations. The roots of it are violence and theft." Hersey is speaking from the legacy of slavery in America. Of course, if we look globally, capitalism came from different but similar roots—yet always from oppression. For example, the industrialization in England, the colonization by European nations all over the world, etc.
As you know, I came from a family who has lived under Socialism (and I lived in it as a toddler). The kind of top-down governance there takes the form of one-man/one-party rule with a concentration of power, which we addressed in the article. I would call this Communism rather than Socialism in its pure form. And if you would prefer more precision, the kind of socialism we discussed is Social Democracy. Socialism is not to be conflated with Communism.
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
What you picked up on is exactly where my focus lies—not in reforming capitalism with a gentler face, but in recognizing that its foundation is hierarchy. Patriarchy, racial dominance, economic extraction—they’re not side effects. They are built into the structure.
There is no compassion where there is enforced hierarchy.
There is no conscience in systems that demand obedience to profit.
I don’t see a way forward through tweaking the model.
I see it through dismantling the illusion that this model ever cared for life—human or planetary.
Thank you, Lily,
for holding space for such depth—and for continuing the conversation with clarity and care. I want to offer a thread that weaves between the poles of condemnation and romanticization. What I see is this: Germany didn’t arrive at a solidaric system by accident. It was shaped by devastation, loss, and a deep reckoning with how economic power had once colluded with authoritarianism. The resulting structure—what we call Solidargemeinschaft—isn’t perfect, and yes, parts of it have been chipped away by the same neoliberal forces that swept through much of the West. Yet what remains is a legal and social architecture still consciously designed to protect labor, equity, and dignity.
We in Germany still live under a system that—however flawed—contains strong protections for the non-dominant population. It isn't limited to queer rights or women's rights. It includes codified protections against discrimination, labor protections with real teeth, and a solidaric structure around healthcare and pensions that centers the idea of communal well-being rather than corporate profit.
Some of these protections have eroded since the 1980s and 90s. That was a period when many local governments, deeply indebted, began selling off public assets—our hospitals, our postal services, even segments of our national rail system. Energy providers once owned by the people shifted into private hands. Everything began revolving around profit, and much of it mirrored the neoliberal shift that took place elsewhere, especially in the U.S.
And yet, the foundations remain different. The overreach of the American system, especially as it has evolved since the founding of the Union, took a different path—one where deregulation and the sanctification of the “marketplace” went largely unchecked. In contrast, Germany’s postwar system was consciously designed to prevent another descent into fascism—not just politically, but economically.
It’s important to recognize how deeply corporate complicity ran during the Third Reich—not just among German companies, but international ones as well. This wasn’t incidental. It was structural. American corporations played significant roles in enabling Nazi power, often through a mixture of business interest, political convenience, and devastating ethical compromise.
Just a few examples:
General Motors (Opel): Their German subsidiary produced vehicles for the Nazi war effort. Controversies remain around how much control GM retained over operations during that time.
Ford-Werke, a subsidiary of Ford, manufactured military vehicles. Henry Ford’s admiration for Nazi ideology is not an obscure footnote—his views had global influence.
IBM, through its subsidiary Dehomag, provided the punch-card machines that helped the Nazis catalog and target people, including in the logistics of the Holocaust.
IT&T was involved in Nazi telecommunications infrastructure, and there are allegations of financial support to the SS.
Kodak AG, Kodak’s German arm, not only produced for the war effort but profited from the use of forced labor.
And these examples are just the surface. Financial institutions facilitated transactions, helped sell war bonds, and managed money flows for the regime. Many foreign businesses profited, either directly or through plausible deniability. The full extent of that complicity is still being unraveled by historians.
This is what those rebuilding Germany after the war understood clearly: the economic system that had allowed Hitler’s regime to flourish could not be allowed to rise again unchecked. It wasn’t enough to outlaw fascist symbols or parties. What was needed was an economic structure that wouldn’t lend itself so easily to authoritarian capture. That’s why the principles of Solidargemeinschaft were built into our postwar democracy, and why many of them are protected by the Basic Law—our constitution.
It doesn’t make Germany immune. And it certainly doesn’t erase our history. But it does reflect an effort—a sustained one—to learn from catastrophe not only at the level of memory, but in the very systems that govern our lives. The question, for me, isn’t whether socialism or capitalism is "the answer." It’s whether the lessons of complicity have been integrated into our structures. In Germany’s case, some of them have. And that makes all the difference.
And we must not forget the role of the Allied forces in this deliberate restructuring. The decision to rebuild Germany differently—both politically and economically—was not left to chance. The Allied powers, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, understood how the unchecked concentration of wealth, land, and power had enabled two world wars to erupt within just three decades. They recognized that rebuilding Germany meant not only dismantling its military but also rewiring its economic framework to make such a collapse into authoritarianism far more difficult in the future.
The United Nations itself was born of this recognition—that no single nation, left to its own devices, could be trusted to self-regulate in the face of expanding greed or nationalist delusion. Yet, paradoxically, while the Allies helped shape a more solidaric and rights-oriented Germany, the United States never made a parallel effort to reassess or restructure its own foundational systems. The very safeguards it saw fit to install abroad were never mirrored at home.
Yes, there have been presidents in the U.S. who attempted to integrate elements of solidarity—Roosevelt’s New Deal, Johnson’s Great Society, even parts of Obama’s policies. But each time, progress has been tenuous. The next Republican administration often focused on dismantling what little solidarity had been achieved. What persists is a cyclical unraveling of civic care, a near-religious deference to free markets, and a refusal to confront the systemic roots of inequality—whether racial, economic, or environmental.
The irony is staggering: the architects of Germany’s postwar safeguards knew that democracy without solidarity is brittle. That economic justice isn’t the result of charity, but of structure. That civic health requires more than ballots—it demands boundaries around power and capital. These are not just German lessons. They are human ones. The question is not whether the U.S. can afford to integrate them, but whether it can afford not to.
From @Dr. Mary Chang on Notes:
What a powerful, deeply layered essay—thank you for this. Their exploration of how capitalism entrenches inequality and numbs civic awareness resonated deeply with me. The parallels they draw between Colonial Hong Kong and modern Corporate America are chillingly accurate, especially the way both systems condition people to prioritize survival over engagement. Their reflections added such a sharp historical lens—this really is about much more than economics; it's about the architecture of power and how it replicates across time and culture.
https://substack.com/@drmarychang/note/c-108197029?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1b1pdb
From William A. Finnegan @The Long Memo (TLM):
I read this—and while it’s clearly thoughtful and well-argued, I think it misses something fundamental.
The claim that capitalism is inherently undemocratic feels like a category error. At their core, democracy and capitalism are both systems rooted in individual sovereignty—one in the political realm, the other in the economic. You vote with your ballot, and you vote with your labor, your dollars, your risk. That’s not tyranny. That’s freedom.
Yes, when capital is allowed to consolidate unchecked, it can distort markets and political systems. But that’s not a flaw of capitalism—it’s a failure of regulation, of anti-trust enforcement, of civic guardrails. The same could be said of democracy when it’s gamed by authoritarian actors: the tool isn’t broken, the operating system’s been hijacked.
Worker co-ops are great. They should be part of a vibrant capitalist system, not a replacement for it. Socialism, when imposed top-down by the state, has a long track record—and it’s not democratic. Ask anyone who grew up under it.
So no—I don’t think capitalism is the problem. I think concentrated power is. And that shows up in every system, regardless of ideology.
https://substack.com/@billyfinnegan/note/c-108107872?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1b1pdb
Jay's response:
🪷 A Response to “The Long Memo” on Capitalism & Democracy
William A. Finnegan cc Lily Pond
You wrote that calling capitalism inherently undemocratic is a “category error.” I call it what it is:
a refusal to examine the category itself.
Capitalism isn’t just an economic system. It’s a structure of power relations.
It doesn’t merely organize production—it organizes people, into hierarchies of worth, access, and survival.
And while you argue that capitalism and democracy are both rooted in individual sovereignty— I must ask:
Whose sovereignty? Whose dollars? Whose risk?
Because when most people are asked to “vote” with money they don’t have, or labor they cannot withhold without risking homelessness, hunger, or deportation— that’s not freedom.
That’s coercion, disguised as choice.
You claim:
“That’s not a flaw of capitalism—it’s a failure of regulation.”
But regulation doesn’t arise in a vacuum. It requires democratic will strong enough to rein in corporate power.
And when that same capital:
funds campaigns
owns media platforms
writes legislation
outsources accountability
...then what’s left to protect democracy from its slow capture?
You mention worker-owned co-ops as a “welcome part” of capitalism.
I’ve lived in one. I’ve seen how they operate. And I’ll say this plainly:
Co-ops don’t succeed because of capitalism. They succeed despite it.
They run on values capitalism actively erodes:
Equity over extraction
Collective care over competition
Participation over profit
These values aren’t marginal improvements. They are a fundamentally different logic of life.
You also claim socialism, when imposed by the state, “isn’t democratic.” I agree—when power is concentrated at the top, no system remains democratic.
But that’s not the socialism I’m pointing to. And I’m not here to romanticize failed regimes.
I write from Germany. From a system shaped by war, collapse, and the painful reckoning with economic complicity in fascism.
We built something we call Solidargemeinschaft. No, it’s not perfect. And yes, neoliberalism has eroded pieces of it.
But the core remains:
✅ Strong worker protections ✅ Public healthcare not bound to employment ✅ Anti-discrimination laws with real consequences ✅ Constitutional boundaries on corporate overreach
This is not authoritarianism. It’s what happens when a country chooses to remember— and embeds that memory into the very structure of its democracy.
Let’s name this plainly:
Capitalism concentrates power by design, not accident.
That’s not a bug. It’s the system functioning exactly as intended.
To say the system has been “hijacked” is to deny the very shape of the vehicle.
Democracy isn’t defined by ballots or buying power. It’s defined by this:
🟡 Who gets to live a life of dignity? 🟡 Who gets to say “no” without being punished? 🟡 Who gets to rest, breathe, exist—without being extracted from?
That’s the democracy I stand for.
And I do not see it thriving under capitalism.
— JayWild Lion*esses Pride
https://substack.com/@jaygermany/note/c-108194411?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1b1pdb
Hi William A. Finnegan: I do not agree with the notion that capitalism allows workers to vote with our labor and our dollars. Most workers enter into work contracts that aren't equitable. The employer inherently owns absolute/concentrated/imbalanced power. Differences among individual owners are a question of degree. Due to the need for survival, workers accept the working conditions that are laid out by the employers. They do not have a say in these conditions (unlike a worker-owned co-op).
Let me quote from Tricia Hersey's book Rest is Resistance: “Capitalism is created on the plantations. The roots of it are violence and theft." Hersey is speaking from the legacy of slavery in America. Of course, if we look globally, capitalism came from different but similar roots—yet always from oppression. For example, the industrialization in England, the colonization by European nations all over the world, etc.
As you know, I came from a family who has lived under Socialism (and I lived in it as a toddler). The kind of top-down governance there takes the form of one-man/one-party rule with a concentration of power, which we addressed in the article. I would call this Communism rather than Socialism in its pure form. And if you would prefer more precision, the kind of socialism we discussed is Social Democracy. Socialism is not to be conflated with Communism.
https://substack.com/profile/79021487-lily-pond/note/c-108207748?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1b1pdb
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
What a fascinating article and I appreciated the international collaboration with Jay & the nuance they brought from a Germanic historical perspective. Yes I would agree in so many ways and certainly the ones you describe here, capitalism is a menace to humanity and our precious and fragile earth. I remember in the 90s there was a push for ‘Conscious capitalism,’ even ‘compassionate capitalism.’ But I think your argument is that compassion and conscience cannot co-exist with capitalism. We need to completely rethink the structure of society, tear down systems that force us into grind culture while the very few on top enrich themselves. Perhaps we are at such a tipping point now when so much greed and cruelty is on display with the Trump administration. The emperor has no clothes: the capitalist system is revealed as the empty container it is. Much to think about! Thanks for this.
Amy, thank you.
What you picked up on is exactly where my focus lies—not in reforming capitalism with a gentler face, but in recognizing that its foundation is hierarchy. Patriarchy, racial dominance, economic extraction—they’re not side effects. They are built into the structure.
There is no compassion where there is enforced hierarchy.
There is no conscience in systems that demand obedience to profit.
I don’t see a way forward through tweaking the model.
I see it through dismantling the illusion that this model ever cared for life—human or planetary.
Thanks for naming it with me.
Appreciate that you brought further depth to this important discussion.