this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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The only way to make a profit under capitalism is to satisfy the needs of your consumers, regardless if you want or not.
Hunger is literally an innate need. It will not be profitable if other external factors arise, just as regulations, licences, government-granted privileges that squash other competitors... any violation of the right to self-ownership and private property is detrimental and coercive.
Scarcity is not something you can "conquer". Resources are scarce and all have alternative uses. Any time we consume any good, it comes as an expense to someone.
"The unplanned order of markets is the greatest achievement of mankind. It enables us to prosper. It is the foundation of civilization. It has no real alternative, and emerges spontaneously, so it costs us nothing. Fear and loathing of this self-imposed and unintended gift threatens our well-being, even our very lives."
This isn't true. This isn't close to true, not even a little. Rent seeking, manufacturing wants/needs, extortion, the list goes on and on, but...
...Yep. You've defined capitalism so that all these inevitable features of a capitalist economy are "external factors". What a stroke of genius. But much like the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels, the myriad ills that inevitably accompany it are "external" only because capitalists have named them so.
It's not something capitalism can conquer, because any solution that would end scarcity for a good or service would thereby end profitability for the same. No capitalist would provide it; they'd sooner let their capital collect dust than be used without profit. Or in the case of the Great Depression, they'd sooner set fresh produce and livestock on fire than let other consume it without profit to themselves.
Markets cost us nothing because they emerge spontaneously? Things that emerge spontaneously cost us nothing? I'll leave it to the reader to poke holes in this obvious nonsense. I'll merely point out that capitalists have proven themselves masters at turning a profit from things that "emerge spontaneously", costing everyone a great deal in the process.
Aside for your idea of "manufacturing wants/needs" (as they are unlimited), rent seeking and extortion (such as subsidies and taxation) are not legit means to profit in a market-setting.
"Those who particularly flourish on the free market, therefore, will be those most adept at production and at serving their fellow men; those who succeed in the political struggle for subsidies, on the other hand, will be those most adept at wielding coercion or at winning favors from wielders of coercion."
Corporatocracy is not the same as capitalism. The state is not intrinsically bounded to the formation of markets and voluntary exchange.
There is no such thing as a permanent solution to the economic problem of scarcity. Any superabundance theory is destined to fail, such as keynesian economics.
The Great Depression represented the most visible sign of a necessary correction in an economy artificially inflated by expansionary monetary policy. The interventionist measures made to boost the economy only drove it further into depression.
"Future recessions can be prevented by reforming the monetary system that creates the boom in the first place."
"We might object to this on the grounds that markets, like any other construct, are man made, and therefore entail a real cost. While it is true that markets are a human construct, we must bear in mind that they are, as Hayek put it, the result of human action, but not the result of human design."