If everyone says they feel like the economy is bad, but the metrics say the economy is good, maybe the metrics are wrong or measuring the wrong things!
Possible; it’s also possible they’re believing lies being told to them by people who benefit from others having false beliefs.
Information asymmetry often works to the benefit of employers and landlords, for example. If workers and tenants do have lots of options, but don’t believe they do, they’re more likely to settle for shitty jobs and housing.
There’s a common lie told by upper managers in a lot of industries: “Our business is perpetually in danger; so we can’t afford to pay you more because then we will go out of business and you’ll all lose your jobs anyway.”
If workers and tenants do have lots of options, but don’t believe they do, they’re more likely to settle for shitty jobs and housing.
If workers and tenants are settling for shitty jobs and housing, the economy is bad. It doesn’t matter if they technically have lots of options because the economy is structured to make them feel like they don’t.
Capitalism working as intended 👍
The weird thing is, these information asymmetries make capitalism less efficient than it would be with less asymmetry. They don’t serve the interests of capital; they serve the interests of management.
We’ve stopped being capitalist a long time ago. Now we have corporate feudalism. We prop up old companies, tamp down on startups, and do our best to make sure companies make most of their money from rent seeking.
(pst that’s just capitalism)
Marx characterized this as “anarchy of production” - without centralize control, the whims of the market inevitably undermine economic growth. It’s what causes the boom and bust cycles.
I think Marx also underestimated the class interest of the managerial class, which shows up rather vividly in actually-existing socialisms as well. Principal/agent problems are a doozy.
Maybe.
I think Marx underestimated the class divisions created by colonialism between colonizers and the colonized. It turns out that settlers could be bribed with the superprofits created through the superexploitation of colonized people. It took later theorizing by Lenin and Mao and Fanon and Du Bois to advance theory to that point.
