When capitalism was good

ice creamy goodness.001I love ice cream. At 50, that love is paying back in pounds. Not English currency, the fatty variety. I still eat it though telling myself I’ll just exercise more.

Yeah, right.

My fiancé and I were enjoying a home-made sundae one night. Casual conversation wandered to who invented the Banana Split – an over-the-top one-up of the ice-cream sundae if there was one. Getting the answer was easy. More intriguing: the wonders capitalism spurred over the years.

Its ability to inspire invention seems never-ending. Little has changed: invent something people want and get rich in the doing. It happens nearly every day. For better and worse. Why attack that which makes so many so prosperous?

There may have been a time when the good capitalism brought far exceeded bad outcomes it simultaneously created. Those days we were far less connected – and therefore dependent on one another – than we are today. Negative impacts of capitalist behavior harmed fewer people than today.

Today’s connected world draws us so closely together, capitalism’s failures impact far more people simultaneously. Its impacts include massive damage to the commons. Impacts we increasingly can ill-afford.

Has capitalism turned bad? I’m not sure capitalism has changed at all really. Here’s what has: our understanding of what comes with something we once believed was all good.

Leave a Reply