I think cancer is a good analogy for a useless sector like health insurance or selling junk bonds expanding to an unreasonable amount of the economy, while the people involved obtain a ridiculous amount of financial resources and use it to waste a ridiculous amount of natural resources and labor (e.g. “I managed to make a ton of money doing something not only useless but actively harmful! I’m going to commission a $200 million yacht”)
I’ll be entirely honest - I stumbled in from All and didn’t notice which community this was and was thinking about the words in isolation.
With that said, I think you can think of economies like trees. They can grow in a way that’s sustainable and healthy (e.g., public infrastructure, social safety nets, efforts to address income inequality) but they can also be made to grow in an unhealthy way (e.g., subsidizing corporate interests, privatization of public utilities, promoting short-term gain). I think of it as ensuring stable roots and measured growth instead of trying to make it grow beyond its means of supporting itself and letting entire branches break off.
Just a thought though. Interesting conceptualizations either way!
I think cancer is a good analogy for a useless sector like health insurance or selling junk bonds expanding to an unreasonable amount of the economy, while the people involved obtain a ridiculous amount of financial resources and use it to waste a ridiculous amount of natural resources and labor (e.g. “I managed to make a ton of money doing something not only useless but actively harmful! I’m going to commission a $200 million yacht”)
I’ll be entirely honest - I stumbled in from All and didn’t notice which community this was and was thinking about the words in isolation.
With that said, I think you can think of economies like trees. They can grow in a way that’s sustainable and healthy (e.g., public infrastructure, social safety nets, efforts to address income inequality) but they can also be made to grow in an unhealthy way (e.g., subsidizing corporate interests, privatization of public utilities, promoting short-term gain). I think of it as ensuring stable roots and measured growth instead of trying to make it grow beyond its means of supporting itself and letting entire branches break off.
Just a thought though. Interesting conceptualizations either way!
Unfortunately, the problem is not solvable in this social order.