By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026The book's conclusion is the statement that "returns to capital exceed the rate of growth over the long term" (abbreviated as "r > g"). This may sound innocuous, but it is *explosive*. 6/ 423230
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026If r > g, then the most wealth will inevitably accumulate in the hands of people who *start* with the most wealth, irrespective of whether they do anything productive with that money. 7/ 229545
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 11/08/2026This means that the alleged heroes of the market system - the entrepreneurs who found and manage the firms that increase public prosperity - are doomed to play second fiddle to the mere plumbers of money, people who "contribute" by accumulating. 8/ 122524
Joel @polyparadigm.bsky.social · 11/08/2026I feel like people have had an intuition that this was the case for quite a while though It strongly resembles the “death spiral” mechanic at the heart of the board game Monopoly, which was originally designed into an anti-capitalism polemic called The Landlord Game 1140
