A Boring Dystopia

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

Whoops some bill auto-drafted unexpectedly

Your account is negative now, oh and throw a $25 fee on top.

Looks like you're scrounging for dinner tonight. And the rest of the week. Maybe skip some meals because you have no choice.

Shit sucks ass.

Historically speaking, basically, yes, the capitalist class essentially always sides with a nascent fascist movement as it is opposed to making any truly meaningful concessions to workers.

But it is important to note that fascism is, or arises from... an ostensible capitalist democracy ... in decay.

It arises as a reaction to the over exploitation of the capitalists.

The fascists are always incompetent idiots at actually running anything, actual policy... beyond being brutally indimidating and violent bullies.

But! They promise growth and stability.

Morons believe them. Many of these morons... are the capitalists.

This works well for a while, but eventually, fascist mismanagement leads to the capitalists actually having a whole bunch of their businesses collapse, as the economy broadly suffers, or maybe its war time babyyyy and oh well turns out that its also bad to fund endless foreign invasions and/or be invaded yourself.

But, by then, its too late.

The capitalists sided with the fascists initially, to avoid structural concessions to workers... but now that everything is fucked, and/or dear leader / the party has some incomprehensible zany nonsense plan... well now the capitalists mostly get either outright or functionally nationalized, and lose even more than if they had just gone with the comparatively more minor concessions to workers.

Poison chalice.

Prisoner's Dilemma, game theoretic suboptimal outcome, that humanity just keeps replicating with minor variations and new flavors.

... Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was...

Yeah, put super simply:

Minimize needed actual storage space and time a thing spends in storage... by relying on very frequent and consistent logistics.

Its very efficient in the sense of minimizing operating costs...

But it is also extremely fragile, a minor perturbation can fuck shit up for weeks or months.

... And we are getting... well basically the most major disruption in the history of JIT as a logistics paradigm.

Girl, if they don't eat they won't make it to next month! This isn't a financial decision, it's a survival decision.

Welcome to the Sam Vimes Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness.

That's the kind of choice of surviving that comes with living while poor in America that happens way, way too often.