Has anyone else seriously thought about how stupid a concept the economy is?

Yup. Bartering is how it all started. @HoraceGreenley

@HoraceGreenley Exchanging goods and services and working together in a commune (like in hunter-gatherer societies) is superior and closer to humanities true nature.

@SW-User People stopped doing it because they found better ways to do things. That life is very hard.

There's a reason why people abandoned that lifestyle.

@stratosranger Obtaining stone, bone, wood, antlers, hide, even without bartering is an economy. Those raw materials get processed into finished goods.

It may seem very far removed from the stock market but it is an economy nevertheless.

@HoraceGreenley Oh yes it absolutely is an economy but I believe the main post and my answers refered to a capitalist economy.

@SW-User Perhaps. In that case capitalism is the most moral economic system.

@SW-User true. Bartering for goods and services and the communal nature of hunter gatherer society is very different from what we have today. Our modern concept of an economy is a byproduct of the industrial revolution. If you don't buy enough of product A then the people who produce product A are out of work and can't buy products B through Z, having a domino effect on everybody involved in B through Z. And if its bad enough everything crashes and nobody knows what to do because we're so far removed from how human society existed prior to the industrial revolution.

@HoraceGreenley It's good we stopped being purely hunterers and gatherers and implemented a division of labour but what saddens me is that we couldn't do it without the creation of hierarchies and inequality.

@HoraceGreenley I believe capitalism to be highly immoral. I believe money itself is bad since there is no real value in accumulating it. Receiving and offering goods and services in exchange for other goods and services and working together for the whole community sounds moral to me. Therefore I am a believer in communes.

@SW-User Those exist in huter-gatherer societies too.

The ability to obtain resources and food, as well as the ability to wage war, provide status and power.

Besides, hierarchy and differences in socioeconomic status aren't necessarily bad things.

@SW-User this economy exists in every form of government. Capitalism, communism, etc. It's just something that happened because of the path mankind took.

@SW-User Capialism is the most moral system because it is the only economic system in human history that has elevated the majority of a population out of poverty.

No society in history accomplished that without capitalism. Doing the most good for the most people makes it the most moral system.

Even the poor in capitalist societies have a standard of living far higher than other societies.

You don't need to be an economist to understand this. A cursory review of history reveals this.

Besides, modern communes only exist in the context of support by a larger society supporting them.

The thread has gone off its initial point. What the OP was actually talking about is unrestrained greed for consumerist goods, updating stuff that doesn't really need updating at the cost to the planet through the cruellest exploitation of the extremely low paid and the effect on the environment. No one is saying making a profit is wrong, but what we are facing is a "perfect" storm of rocketing cost of living in the west, and in the third world, an ever worsing level of degrading poverty, and also the deteriorating state of the environment, through unrestrained greed. To grab as much of a profit and ditching reasonable safeguards in ethical procurement and health and safety is immoral.

@jackieash The reason I headed in this direction is to start laying the foundation that the notion of unfettered greed as the root of the problems you mentioned is the wrong way to look at things.

In the US, anyway, government intervention is the root cause.

@HoraceGreenley In Europe government intervention prevents extreme forms of greed and it helps a little bit at least.
The US system enables greedy people and companies to exploit workers and the environment.

@HoraceGreenley I'll give you for instance to show in part I agree with your last sentence. When Britain was in the EU, there were rules which governed the amount of effluent whch could be "safely" despatched into the waterways. After Brexit, the government has set about ripping up the rules concerning safe and healthy living. The water supplies, incidentally, have been privatised for many years in this country; there had already been complaints about the service and cost, but last year the right wing governmet "won" a vote in Parliament to allow unlimited amounts of untreated sewage into the water ways. In recent weeks there have been reports of illnesses which had disappeared from Britain for decades such as cholera. A disease which is mostly associated with, yes, you've guessed it, untreated water in third world countries. So the service has deteriorated yet bills to the consumer are ever upward. By the way some of the tory MPs who voted for this are on the boards of the regional water companies. So we have safeguards scrapped and costs increasing. And the waters around Britain are a fucking disgrace.

@HoraceGreenley I also wanted to say that as much as I think the hunter gatherer is the correct way to live because it mirrors humans natural psychology, they did have it very hard. Like slave traders were very common and war among tribes. Also despotism, you have one "chief" with a tribe that makes all the rules and then minorities get screwed.

@SW-User The US has more environmental controls than any other developed nation, with the highest standard of living for a large country.

A cleaner environment and better standatd of living make it hatd to see exploitation.

Try living in other countries.

@jackieash Well that's just stupid. I don't know anything about it but you can't do anything like that in the US.

@HoraceGreenley I'm from Germany and what I read and hear about US policies especially labour policies is just sad.

@SatanBurger People also died of famine quite frequently. That's why agriculture took over once it was invented. You may be less healthy living on a farm but much less likely to starve.

@HoraceGreenley More environmental controls? Highest standard of living? I'd like to see some figures for that.

@SW-User I've worked withany Germans in Germany. You labor laws inhibit growth and innovation.

The US doesn't have such labor laws which is one reason why our economy is so vast and dynamic. Doing that requires the free flow of labor and capital.

@SW-User I don't have that stuff at my fingertips but its available.