r/Glasgow Tools

The idea that capitalism breeds innovation is something I believed for a long time, its drilled into us from such a young age that its something we just accept as true but looking around the world, and particularly with my experience in the tech industry I feel like its not only false but the opposite of reality.

Very little of what you listed, electricity, plumbing etc was invented by capitalism and most of them operate quite far from a traditional capitalist systems because doing so would be inefficient and dangerous. Imagine Scottish Water implementing surge charging for your water. Has your electricity ever gone out and needed a 5 figure repair to get working again? Sure as hell "Amazon Electricity" is not covering the cost of that repair. Competition in the market means virgin provide water cheaper so you should switch ... capitalism is the thing that makes sure you need to replumb your entire house to switch providers.

In my industry we still see imaginations of futuristic tech where mirrors display your weight and the fridge does your shopping etc. The sad reality is most of that stuff would be very easy to build but unless google can use it to sell ads its not going to happen. Since most futuristic use cases involve multiple entities cooperating (the fridge talking to the shop etc) then most of them will never happen because the competition inherent in capitalism discourages entities from working together. The internet itself wasn't invented by a company, it happened despite capitalism and has been on long and slow decline of innovation as it becomes subsumed by companies owning it.

Its not a matter of switching to an alternative system, its a matter of taking a look at what the effects of the current system are and fixing them to improve outcomes, having a system that optimises for individuals to profit is going to lead to exploitation, goverment oversight, non profit companies, cooperatives and mutual / community orgs are all tools we can use to improve things.