TL;DR "Dumb consumers" did not drive product quality down. That's a consequence of the #corrupt system, intentionally designed to maximize the gains for an elite fraction of society & #externalize the negatives to society. Impoverishing your workers/customers is dumb & effects everyone's lives.

We need more laws that encourage the establishment of #cooperatives over "traditional" for-profit #corporations.

Cooperatives send any profit back into the #community, reducing #inequality. Corporations gather all that money and pass it off to 3rd parties, increasing inequality and draining communities of their wealth and income.

Cooperatives work to serve the community, because they are owned by the community. Corporations are incentivized to #externalize costs for the sake of #shareholders, whether that means #gouging customers, #underpaying workers, or damaging the #environment.

Cooperatives are #robust to economic disruptions, because funds are community-sourced and profit is not the sole motive for their existence. Corporations go out of business or abandon markets when there are economic crises or a #downturn makes business unprofitable.

So many of the problems we face in our economy can be addressed by encouraging the cooperative business model.

Only 53 pages into #KoheiSaito's 364-page #Japanese book on the #Anthropocene and #Capitalism or whatever today's #GlobalEconomy now has in common with the economy #KarlMarx wrote about. The book mentions #Wallerstein, #ImmanuelWallerstein too. As with #NaomiKlein's #ThisChangesEverything #SaitoKohei's book is putting new articles into context. The rich countries can't #externalize #外部化 as much of the #risk and #cost anymore.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/02/rising-costs-threaten-global-unrest-say-risk-analysts
‘Powder kegs waiting for a spark’: rising costs threaten global unrest, say risk analysts

More than half the world’s countries at heightened risk of conflict and instability because of soaring food and energy prices

The Guardian