Maximizing shareholder value by minimizing labor costs means less disposable income in the hands of the majority, which can hurt a consumer driven economy. There will always be economic cycles with occasional recessions, but the consequences are potentially catastrophic when so many families are living paycheck to paycheck. They have no cushion, so a plummet in consumer spending can produce a snowball effect rolling dowmhill to a depression.
The vast disparity of wealth is unsustainable, both economically and politically. The best way to avoid a revolution or a populist demagogue coming to power is an economy that truly floats all boats.
Cutting regulations will not only kill consumers it will hasten the demise of natural ecosystems upon which life depends while increasing the devastating effects of catastrophic climate change.
Regulations aside, our current model of consumerism with success measured by never ending growth is unsustainable because it transforms finite resources into various forms of pollution -- landfills, toxins in our food, water, and air, including greenhouse gases.
Greed is part of human nature. Human ingenuity has mostly been harnessed toward the pursuit of profits, increasingly in the hands of a small number of insanely rich individuals who hire smart people and fund the careers of politicians to ensure their huge piles of money grow ever larger.
This should not be possible in a functional democracy, but the uber rich also control a large segment of the mass media, omitting important information and delivering misinformation while triggering the tribal instincts in human nature to divide the public and pit us against each other instead of working together for our own common intetests.
For our long term survival, human civilazation needs to evolve beyond short term greed and tribal conflicts. Lifeboat Earth cannot sustain it. We need much better education which includes the vital necessity of cooperative action to build a better future for the children we ostensibly care so much about.
Human nature will likely always include a large component of self interest, but that needs to be a form of enlightened self intetest with the realization that personal success and survival requires collaberation to ensure sustsinability.
Primitive tribal societies did not survive without collaborative efforts for the common good. In this global technological age we have to start acting like a single all encompsssing tribe, celebrating diversity while working together towards common goals in everyone's long term best interests.
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