Capitalism, the ‘saviour of the free world,’ was touted as an economic paradigm that incentivised effort, encouraged barter and most crucially, brought power back into the deserving hands of the masses of regular, hard-working people. Sadly, many of these objectives have not been achieved. Moreover, capitalism has generated some popular narratives and engendered ways of living and thinking that bear significant reexamination.

Power has once again become concentrated in fewer hands than ever before. A handful of corporate megaliths use their economic clout to stifle competition, effectively discouraging diversity. Additionally, the non level playing field thus created even blunts the pace of their own research, turning innovators into mere mass producers. For example, a well-known chip manufacturer, once ad mired for dynamically improving computer processing speeds, lazily plateaued into monotonously releasing slightly better versions of the same chip every year once they gained a sizable monopoly. Some tech mega brands that dominate the market coast comfortably every quarter more on the class consciousness of their loyal users rather than genuine upgrades of their products over time. Even revolutionary technology like the large language models of AI was deeply influenced by market forces.

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A small cartel controlled the research which was as expensive as it was exclusive. It took a small start-up from China to shake things up. By providing a version that was a fraction of the cost and freely available to everyone, they totally changed the narrative. Capitalism justifies its own ideas and actions, while blaming others: The key ingredient to a fruitful business idea, as many executives will say, is ‘solving a common problem.’ Capitalism some times can create a problem, partially solve it to feign progress, and generate a new problem along the way. We notice how big firms in developed nations outsource production to third world countries, availing cheap labour rates and thus increasing their profits. They are welcomed by the officialdom in these countries on the premise that jobs are being created locally.

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However, these jobs are quite basic and often exploitative (underage workers, unsatisfactory working conditions etc.). Ironically, these profit hungry megaliths are not accused of taking away valuable jobs from their own country by outsourcing. Rather, the spotlight falls on foreign immigrants to their country ~ these are blamed for usurping local jobs. In fact, much of the employment taken up by these immigrants is that which local people shy away from doing. The lenses and metrics capitalism chooses to view........

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