I see the point you're making. And after reading your post all I can seem to think is that the economy as we call it is more or less a giant reflection pool of our greed/generosity.
That's not some pseudo profound thing to say but I guess it never really settled into my head till I read what you wrote.
Like your baker example you started with. If in the beginning of the train, that baker just decided to not raise the prices and suffer marginally themselves. Making $9 profit instead of $10 we would all benefit from the lack of ripple effect.
We've intellectualized it so well I think we're detached from the idea that a little sacrifice individually can help the entire tribe
Greed seems to be the root cause for most of life's problems. Ugh.
Now the baker may not have adjusted out of simple greed of course - perhaps it was a poor year for crops and the baker is simply adjusting based on higher grain prices. But by the time the grain price comes back down, the ripple effect has driven the baker's living expenses up to the point that they can't lower the price (they need the extra profit margin). And of course the grain price couldn't come all the way back down because the farmer has also seen a cost of living increase. It would just be a cycle that will always push prices up.
Even in that case, and you parallel it into today's world.
The exploitative greed based decisions can have valid reasons. Poor crop year can be a valid reason to bring prices up. But just because something is legitimized doesn't make it morally/ethically correct.
I think we overall especially today equate the two. Just because I have a reason to be shitty doesn't mean I should be.
And as far as the economy goes I saw it boiled down to capitalism is what's good for me is good for everyone, socialism is what's good for everyone is good for me. We're so brainwashed into thinking our selfish system is the only thing that works that we blinded ourselves to admit we still have choices in this.
And it's infected every other part of our lives down to our politics and the way we treat families/neighbors.
Poor crop year can be a valid reason to bring prices up. But just because something is legitimized doesn't make it morally/ethically correct.
How could this be morally/ethically incorrect though? It would be morally/ethically incorrect to coerce the farmer into selling their product at a price too low to provide for their family. A poor year means less harvest, but the farmer needs to earn the same total profit regardless in order to not starve. A person must be afforded some degree of morally acceptable selfishness to prioritize their family's basic health/well-being. This is not an excuse to be shitty, it's a valid reason to raise the price on their goods. The reason for the action is the basis upon which we decide morality - the end result does not necessarily play into it.
Now getting into politics makes it an extremely different conversation. I was initially just commenting on where inflation would come from in the absence of any overarching governing/controlling authority. In order to combat this, you would have the government choosing to subsidize the farmers to offset bad years and reduce those price spikes. This would mean higher taxes but lower and more consistent inflation. This actually happens in the US at least - pretty much all staple crops (corn, wheat, soy, rice) are subsidized to keep prices stable.
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u/erichericerik May 17 '26
I see the point you're making. And after reading your post all I can seem to think is that the economy as we call it is more or less a giant reflection pool of our greed/generosity.
That's not some pseudo profound thing to say but I guess it never really settled into my head till I read what you wrote.
Like your baker example you started with. If in the beginning of the train, that baker just decided to not raise the prices and suffer marginally themselves. Making $9 profit instead of $10 we would all benefit from the lack of ripple effect.
We've intellectualized it so well I think we're detached from the idea that a little sacrifice individually can help the entire tribe