It is Time for a Post Capitalist Economy and that Time is Now!!

“Capitalism as we have known it is dead. This obsession we have with maximizing profits for shareholders alone has led to incredible inequality and a planetary emergency.” That was Marc Benioff, Chairman, and Co- CEO, Salesforce.

What began as an idea of offering an open field for all to play has been reduced to fiefdoms, owned by the wealthy. And the price to play-acts as a deterrent for the able and the willing to participate.

The days of free-market and healthy competition are over. Today, it’s about creating monopolies, despite token anti-monopoly laws, which have become obsolete. Today, capitalism is no more about useful innovation.

Innovation on paper but monopolies in spirit.

Yes, technology has brought about various opportunities for many but has also created a large divide by limiting access to the economically weak. On a larger scale, through intellectual property rights, and on a micro-scale, through hoarding the dissemination of technology by acquiring competition through investor funding and suppressing any innovation has become the model today.

While many reports suggest the rising inequality among people in the same country and between countries, only in the last two years, the super-rich have made over 15x gains in their income, while most of the world, languished under the effect of strict lockdowns. Transportation, which is essential for human capital to migrate and find greener pastures, has been rapidly increasing in cost over the years. The land has become expensive to the extent where only the wealthy can afford to own it. While the overall wage rate has gone up, it’s not even close to the rate of inflation. Hence purchasing power has rapidly declined.

A visit to the hospital can wipe off the savings of a family and the rising premiums for insurance are a dent in the savings of an average family.

Rising mistrust of the government and frequent deadly uprisings the world has seen over the last few years can be attributed to a depleting living standard for the majority of the population.

We must move beyond -isms and look for newer ways that bring some sanity to the economic system and shape the world into a more economically balanced and climate-friendly planet.

If that happens, we may not have to move to Mars, after all.