According to Nature

My latest at the Partial Observer, defending the free market:

The problem with criticizing such things, or our political and business practices in general, is this affluence. Am I ungrateful? No. Do I wish we didn’t have, say, television, or washing machines, or penicillin? Of course not. Would these things have appeared without the rise of corporations, mass production, and government support? Maybe not everything we enjoy today. At least, not yet.

Then again, maybe other, better things would have developed instead. The way in which we have acquired our affluence is, well, unnatural. If there wasn’t government granting privileges for some, imposing prohibitive regulations on others, we might not acquired everything we have, or not so quickly. But just like polluting the water or extracting oil from the earth, can our practices last indefinitely? Can we consume more than we produce, forever?